How to Begin each Month on a Positive Note
About the Authors:
NEIL FLANAGAN and JARVIS FINGER
Management Strategists at Plum Press
World-renowned business strategists and authors of several international best-selling books on management. Neil is a sought-after keynote, conference and motivational speaker and Jarvis is the award-winning founder and editor of Australia's best known magazine for school administrators.
A lot of things are going to happen to you over the next month. You can wait for them to happen, you can just let them happen—or you can make them happen.
If you want to change your professional or personal life for the better, you must start with resolve and determination, and the following resolutions are provided to help you improve the way you function as a leader. Refer to them at the start of each month, photocopy and decide which you will focus on. How determined are you to improve?
Management Memo
Managers can benefit from a periodic opportunity to renew, to regroup, to recommit, and to reinvent themselves as leaders. That's where resolutions can help. Unfortunately, the rite of making resolutions has gained a bad rap. Too many people make them and break them without a second thought. For many people, resolutions are nothing more than lipservice tributes or halfhearted efforts to make change. It doesn't have to be that way…It's a process that can change lives and rejuvenate careers.
Robert Ramsey (Resolutions for Supervisors)
1. Improve the way you work
When you can't work any harder or longer, working smarter is the only other option.
Streamline the way you work:
At the start of each week, set goals to be achieved by week's end.
Plan each day by completing a daily to-do list.
Keep each telephone call to a minimum.
Make a determined effort to handle each piece of paper no more than twice.
Be aware of any act of procrastination—and bite the bullet!
Be on time for every meeting and prepare yourself beforehand to make a worthwhile contribution.
Ask yourself often—'Is this the best use of my time and energy?'
Become a better delegator—by doing it right.
Be aware of every interruption. Can I do something about this?
Focus on one thing each day that requires a special 110% effort from you.
2. Improve your relationships
Do your best to get on well with other people and your managerial task will be much simpler:
Make the effort to remember the name of each new person you meet.
Catch at least three employees a day doing something right, and praise them accordingly.
Work at eliminating a personal mannerism or habit that annoys others or hampers your effectiveness.
Show a special interest in the work and life of three colleagues during the coming month.
Act consistently in ways you believe to be fair and ethical.
Say thank-you more often.
Defuse any grudge or hostility you may have with a colleague or worker.
Do one special thing this month to make this environment better for others who work there.
3. Upgrade your professionalism
Take responsibility for your own learning and development:
Decide what professional reading you will do this month.
Attend a seminar/course, and make an input.
Beef up your technology skills and know-how in some way.
Write an item for a professional journal, newsletter or newspaper.
Contribute in some way to your professional association.
4. Look after your own personal wellbeing
Life and work are not to be endured, but enjoyed. You work to live. You do not live to work:
Think about the need for balance in your life— work, family, friends, community, self…
Put aside the time to enjoy special activities with your family this month.
Exercise daily—determine how to make this work.
Make a few changes for the better in what you eat—consider what will work.
Drink water regularly to remain hydrated. Set a pattern. Fill up each time you empty.
Set aside time for yourself each day—for reading, hobbies, or play.
Give something back to the community this month—and enhance the company's image at the same time.
What major task are you about to complete? Is there a task over which you have been procrastinating? Finish it this month—and your reward will be………
5. Make good use of your travelling/ waiting time
Travelling to and from work and waiting for meetings/appointments can be very time- consuming and inefficient. Do something about it:
Do job-related reading of documents, books or journals.
Reflect on three encouraging incidents that occur each day.
List three tasks you felt most happy about accomplishing for the day.
Listen to an inspirational or management-related CD or podcast.
Do some fresh thinking about a work-related problem requiring a solution
6. Consider your issues and priorities and add your own monthly resolutions…
Just about Everything a Manager Needs to Know
By Neil Flanagan and Jarvis Finger
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