Q. What is the one piece of advice you would give supervisors, managers, and executives?
A. Here are 8 pieces of advice, in descending order of priority
* Always think before speaking and doing; a corollary to this: if you are upset or distracted, take a deep breath and count to 10 or take a walk around the block before speaking and doing
* You can always “vote your 51%”, but the situations where you really need to are few in a good organization; the more you vote your 51%, the more people will resent you and push decision making up to you; build skills, talent, vision, alignment, pride, culture, and confidence in your organization so that the full capabilities of your organization, and not just you, are driving success
* “Please” and “thank you”, as well as sharing the credit and respect, go a long way
* My faculty adviser, Professor Harvey Blanch, once told me to “be fair but firm”; to his advice I would add “be consistent”; the last thing an organization needs is a leader who has special deals for favorites, changes direction with the wind, or otherwise yields to whomever complains the most (regardless of business merit); leaders who are fair, consistent, and committed will lead organizations that accomplish more
* You can’t replace everyone in your organization and you really don’t need to; successful leaders develop and grow the organizations they have with selective talent additions; they also recognize and remove the “bad apples” who will not change with a reasonable effort
* It’s not just about “fire fighting”; figure out what goals you want to accomplish in your role and what goals you want your organization to accomplish; develop and implement plans to achieve these goals
* Look out for your own career and personal goals; at least once per year, update your CV and determine if you are heading where you want it to; if not, plan and implement changes
* “You only have one chance to make a good first impression”; a corollary to this: “people don’t know if you’re a genius or a fool until you open your mouth”
