David Anderson, and ex CEO who writes a really cool blog about Italy where he lived, wondered what level people I coached after reading about management by walking around on June 29th. During an email exchange he said, “I was just wondering because the concepts, although valid, are things that should be taught in the very early years of a manager’s career.”

Hey, David, I agree with you—but the problem is that they aren’t! In fact, if you ask most managers how they learned to manage, they’ll say by watching their manager. Some will talk about a really great manager they had, but, too often, they say that when they were promoted they succeeded by doing the opposite of what had usually been done to them! So we’re talking neutral to negative role models more often than not.

A good many of the actions that make for good managers and create great cultures aren’t new, but that doesn’t mean that they’re done either correctly or consistently. And while intelligence and good instincts can take people a long way, managers will go further, faster when they know the “why” along with the “how.” On top of all that, they need the right MAP in order to successfully put these actions into practice.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 6th, 2006 at 9:55 am and is filed under Business info, Culture, Motivation, Retention. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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