When Odysseus gave the task of protecting, guiding and educating his son Telemachus to his old friend Mentor, he did this knowing that Mentor would be the best person possible to care for his only son during his absence from Greece. Since then, Mentor is synonymous for someone who is willing and able to provide guidance and support to bring out his Mentee’s very best – without any other personal agenda.…
There are always excuses for not doing things. Can we instead try to find reasons for doing things such as being on time? Our co-workers would thank us for it. Remember, behaviour is contagious. Is yours worth catching?…
“Uwe, what is your career vision?” was Steve’s first question during my job interview many years ago. As a German I was not really prepared for this kind of question. …
When you agree to mentor another person, you offer to help someone in his/her development in the organisation. By mentoring, you have no agenda of your own and thus you are able to create a safe arena within which to develop a trusting relationship.
Mentoring is not always easy and as natural as we expect. Here are some tips on how not to disserve your mentee.…
“People leave bad managers, not companies …,” is one of the results of a famous Gallup survey at corporations in the US. This does not mean we have “bad” people as managers. It rather means that not every high-performing employee is really suitable for a managerial position. Other surveys have shown that less than 30% of high performers have the ability to do well as supervisor.
“Why do we need a Competency Profiling? We have SOPs. That should be enough” was one of the statements I heard from a colleague. Here is some rational explaining why there is usually an added value in having competencies defined in addition to Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).
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Each improvement project undergoes two general phases, As-Is and Should-Be. Whereas the first stage is about understanding the problem, identifying and confirming the root causes, the latter one requires to turn the newly gained knowledge into impactful solutions that have a good chance to get implemented. Here are some tips for the solutioning stage.…
Identifying knowledge and skill set of a candidate is rather easy. Finding the right mind-set is a more difficult task. Using a set of value and competency-based interview questions enables managers to spot the STAR, the person who does not only bring the required aptitude but also “fits” in the organisation.…
Job redesign is about redesigning the tasks in a job so that it fits staff and business needs. For instance, tasks that can be done in isolation can be assigned to a telecommuter, duplicate tasks may be eliminated. One full-time job may become appropriate for two part-timers. Two employees may split a job, but work independently of each other.…
Working with management teams of our clients often takes them away from their business for a few days. They frequently get in touch with their teams at home. Sometimes I involuntarily eavesdrop their part of the conversation. “How is it going? Is everything ok?” is a very common question they ask their teams. When they get some kind of “yes” they feel much better.…
Olympic Games are unthinkable without the invaluable support of thousands of volunteers. For most organising committees, this fact alone posts a major challenge in preparing and running the games since they often do not have experience in managing an army of unpaid workers. The always available IOC ‘cook book’ is not more than a good start, since the behaviour and attitude and hence the requirements for hiring and managing the crowd of helpers depends much more on the culture of the people with their upbringings, beliefs and traits, than it is influenced by instructions and SOPs. After all, an unpaid worker has nothing to lose. If he perceives being treated unfairly, he walks!…
In response to evolving conditions, you came to realise that your organisation must change. Change leadership consists of project sponsor, with overall responsibility, seconded by a project manager. These people will be your change agent – the ones upon which success of your initiative will rely.…
At some point in our life, some of us may have experienced a person who helped us to see our own strengths, who shaped our thinking and spurred us to move on. Often, this person does not even know how much impact he had on us. We probably never told him … that he is the best coach we ever had.…
Not every organisation needs to develop process managers with Lean and Six Sigma skills. Yet, every organisation deserves to have managers with some basic process management skills. Even better, if process management skills became part of the daily business routine and were applied unconsciously, became habits. What are the seven habits of highly effective process managers you should be cultivating?…
Two weeks after joining Central Bank in Germany, I spend a full week in the so-called Black Belt Training by TE Capital Europe. Black Belts are the project managers for process improvement approaches at TE. This approach comes from Motorola and is called Six Sigma. The first two weeks in the new company, I have tried to understand Six Sigma and to learn about the methodology and steps, after I got somehow familiar with TE Capital and its terminology, our banking products and our bank itself. While my new colleagues could help me with the latter, the learning of Six Sigma seemed to be an unsuccessful venture, as nobody in my bank had more than a hunch about it.…
Architect of High-Performing Organisations
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