Communicate! That's What it's all About!

In my book Power vs. Perception: Ten Characteristics of Self-Empowerment for Women I discuss how misunderstandings, miscommunications or differences in work styles, can have a negative impact on working relationships and the work environment; especially between men and women in the workplace.

 

Differences in Work Styles

In her book, The Promotable Woman, Norma Carr-Ruffino, Ph.D., created a comparison of male and female managers utilizing the work of Sally Helgesen from her book, The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership, and Henry Mintzberg from his book The Nature of Managerial Work. The results of her comparison are illustrated in the table below.  

 

Finding the 25th Hour: The Power and Secrets of Time Management

Time management is a pretty hot topic and over the last few months I have spoken on it at several entrepreneurial and business leadership conferences. 
 
I have been teaching classes and concepts of time management for over 25 years. When I consult and coach these business leaders I often hear them say things such as, “There aren’t enough ‘hours’ in the day.” “If I could just have one more hour I’d be okay.” But how does one “do” it? How do you find that 25th hour? How does a business leader find the time needed to get everything done? How can one “find” that extra hour needed during the course of their busy day to get to everything?
 
This is a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is that in reality you only get 24 hours in the day. However, the good news is that there are things that you can do to make the most of the 24 hours that you have and cut down on where you might be wasting hours of your precious time.
 
There are numerous strategies, tactics and tools that can be used to establish priorities to get organized, as well as an entire industry that has been built around it; which can assist in keeping both work and personal priorities in balance. I don’t endorse any particular system; there are many good ones available. The key is to find what works for you, whether it’s on your smartphone, an electronic system, a paper-based system, or you keep it all in your “head” there are certain principles that can be adhered to in order to carve out more time in your calendar.
 
Technology may have changed the way in which we do our jobs, however, some of the fundamental basic issues regarding time management have not changed over the years; and in some cases, the problems have actually gotten worse as a result of the scope of information that modern technology has created.
 
Two Big Problems
For example, recently when addressing a group of entrepreneurs at a business conference I asked them what their two biggest problems were with respect to time. The responses were identical to responses I have been receiving to these questions for years:
  1. Correspondence: The quantity of emails received and the time needed to sort through all of them
  2. Interruptions: The time lost by interruptions caused either via phone, in-person or electronic media

Shifting from “Command and Control” to Self-Empowerment

Over the years of consulting, training and coaching, the complaints I hear the most from leaders, managers and business people involve the difficulty they have motivating and communicating with their team members. They are unable to understand why their team members are “not motivated.” They can’t get their team members to work together… and there’s always those “difficult, problem people” who just don’t “get it.”

Though they mean well, what many of these leaders, managers and business people fail to understand is that not all people share the same motivational drives.

Different “Strokes” for Different “Folks”

As a leader, I know what motivates me; what I’m passionate about and the tendency is to think that the members of my team will be motivated by the same thing. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The people who share my motivational drive or interests may do well; and we may even think of them as our “stars.” But are they really? Are we unknowingly ignoring a “goldmine” of “untapped talent” by not understanding what motivational drives lie dormant within the remaining members of the team? To be an effective team leader, manager or coach, the leader or manager needs to understand what motivates the individual members of the team. It could be any number of varying motivators, such as: achievement, balance, autonomy, job security, power or interpersonal relationships.

What employees need most from their managers is for the managers to experience a genuine “shift” from the old “command and control” mindset to a “self-empowerment” mindset. (Please be aware that I am referring to highly competent employees who can do their jobs independently, and not “poor performers” or that need developmental plans/coaching, etc.)