As a manager, you are only as good as the people on your team. Give yourself a better chance to succeed by picking the best people from the start

Be a motivator

Human beings do things because we want to. Sometimes we want to because the consequences of not wanting to do something are unpleasant. However, most of the time we want to do things because of what we get out of it.

It's no different at work, people do good work for the pay, or the prestige, or the recognition. They do bad work because they want to take it easy and still get paid. They work really hard because they want to impress someone. To motivate your people better, figure out what they want and how you can give that to them for doing what you want them to do.

Build Your Team

It is not enough that people are motivated to succeed at work. They have to work together as a team to accomplish the group's objective. After all, if we just want them to all "do their own things" we don't need you as a manager to mold them into a team, do we?

Here are some ways to improve your team building skills:

4. Be a Leader, Not Only a Manager

You have built the best team from the best employee available. You motivated them to peak performance. What is missing? Motivating a team is worthless unless you provide direction; unless you turn that motivation toward a goal and lead the team to it. Enthusiasm, dedication and charisma are some of the more important characteristics of leadership. Leaders are seen as good and evil, and take on many personalities and roles, from managers or coaches to world leaders. It is believed that every leader possesses a charisma that provides change and success. Thus leadership begins with vision, concern and mentorship. Leadership, a critical management skill, is the ability to motivate a group of people toward a common goal. Perhaps the one personal skill that has the greatest impact on your job satisfaction, promotion potential, and career success is your ability to communicate effectively with others. By improving your communications skills at work you increase your ability to achieve success, have your successes noted, and get yourself those promotions you deserve. It is the ability to lead others that truly sets a manager apart from their peers. Remember that leaders are found at all levels of the organization, so be one.

5. Improve as a Communicator

Communication may be the single most important skill of a manager. After all, all the others depend on it. You can't be a leader if you can't communicate your vision. You can't motivate people if they can't understand what you want. Communication skills can be improved through practice.

Get Better at Managing Money

To stay in business, a company has to make money. That means bringing money in the door and it means spending less than you bring in. Depending on your function in the organization, you may have more influence on one area or the other, but you need to understand both. You can help your company, your employees, and yourself be getting better at managing the company's money.

7. Get Better at Managing Time

The one thing you will probably have less of at work than money is time. The better you get at managing time, yours and others, the more effective you will be as a manager.

Improve Yourself

Don't focus so hard on your people that you forget about yourself. Identify the areas in which you are weak and improve them. The fact that you are reading this article shows you understand the concept. You need to put it into practice.

Practice Ethical Management

Ethics is very important in business.

Take a Break

You are less effective as a manager if you are over-stressed. You are less tolerant. You snap at people more. No one wants to be anywhere near you. Take a break. Give yourself a chance to relax and recharge your batteries. Your increased unbelievable productivity when you return will more than make up for the time you take off. Have a good laugh or go lie on a beach somewhere.

Management is a skill that can be learned. You can improve as a manager by working every day to get better. Good managers always stick to his task until it gets completed from his staff. If you pick one subject each day, and work on improving in that area, you will be a better manager before you know it. And others will notice it too.

New Paradigm in Management

Around the 1960s and on to today, the environment of today’s organizations has changed a great deal. A variety of driving forces provoke this change. Increasing telecommunications has “shrunk» the world substantially. Increasing diversity of workers has brought in a wide array of differing values, perspectives and expectations among workers. Public consciousness has become much more sensitive and demanding that organizations be more socially responsible. Much of the third-world countries has joined the global marketplace, creating a wider arena for sales and services. Organizations became responsible not only to stockholders (those who owned stock) but to a wider community of “stakeholders.” For a social discipline, such as management, the assumptions are actually a good deal more important than are the paradigms for a natural science. The paradigm -- that is, the prevailing general theory -- has no impact on the natural universe. Whether the paradigm states that the sun rotates around the earth, or that, on the contrary, the earth rotates around the sun, has no effect on sun and earth. But a social discipline, such as management, deals with the behavior of people and human institutions. The social universe has no "natural laws" as the physical sciences do. It is thus subject to continuous change. This means that assumptions that were valid yesterday can become invalid and, indeed, totally misleading in no time at all.

As a result of the above driving forces, organizations were required to adopt a “new paradigm,” or view on the world, to be more sensitive, flexible and adaptable to the demands and expectations of stakeholder demands. Many organizations have abandoned or are abandoning the traditional top-down, rigid and hierarchical structures to more “organic” and fluid forms.

Today’s leaders and/or managers must deal with continual, rapid change. Managers faced with a major decision can no longer refer back to an earlier developed plan for direction. Management techniques must continually notice changes in the environment and organization, assess this change and manage change. Managing change does not mean controlling it, rather understanding it, adapting to it where necessary and guiding it when possible.

Managers can’t know it all or reference resources for every situation. Managers must count on and listen more to their employees. Consequently, new forms of organizations are becoming more common, e.g., worker-centered teams, self-organizing and self-designing teams, etc.

Traits of the New Paradigm

Marilyn Ferguson, in The New Paradigm: Emerging Strategic for Leadership and Organizational Change (provides a very concise overview of the differences between the old and new paradigm.

New Paradigm	Old Paradigm
appropriate consumption	promote consumption at all costs
jobs to fit people	people to fit jobs
autonomy encouraged, worker participation	imposed goals, top-down decision making
cross-fertilization by specialists seeing wide relevance	fragmentation in work and roles
identity transcends job description	identification with job
recognition of uncertainty	clock model of company
cooperation	aggression, competition
blurring of work and play	work and play separate
cooperation with nature	manipulation and dominance
sense of change, of becoming	struggle for stability
qualitative as well as quantitative	quantitative
spiritual values transcend material gain	strictly economic motives
transcends polarities	polarized
ecologically sensitive	short-sighted
rational and intuitive	rational
harmonious work environment	emphasis on short-term solutions
decentralized operations when possible	centralized operations
appropriate technology	runaway, unbridled technology
attempt to understand the whole, locate deep underlying causes of disharmony	allopathic treatment of symptoms