Manager

I got an email at work the other day pushing a list of 1-2 day classes on Management Skills. The list was long and it amused me. Each class was $400-$1500.

Here is the list of classes -

Essentials of Strategic Planning for Managers
Essentials of Coaching for Managers
Essentials of Supervision
Certificate in Management Essentials
Emotional Intelligence for Managers
Executive Presence for the Non-Executive
Essentials of Change for Managers
Essentials of Motivation
Managing Problem Employees
Stepping Up to Management Certificate Boot Camp
Essentials of Leadership for Managers
Win-Win Negotiations
Essentials of Delegation
Essentials of Human Resources Management
Influencing Others: A Guide to Persuasive Techniques

So okay, yes, I confess to being a manager of personnel, but I find that term, Manager, offensive. I don’t know where I picked up the notion that being a manager had a negative connotation to it, but I did. It’s a personal affliction. Perhaps I’m the only person on the planet that has this quirk. Here is the root of my thinking. To say that I manage people implies that I coerce and manipulate my colleagues. That is what I think of when I hear the term management – coercion and manipulation. I prefer to think that I hire good people and let them do their jobs.

And yes, no doubt you’ve heard that phrase before – Hire good people and let them do their jobs. I’ve surely stolen the phrase as I don’t think I’ve ever had an original thought. Whenever I research what I think might be an original thought I find some super uber-nerd from the 1600’s thought it first and said it more eloquently than I could have imagined; thus my predilection for quoting people smarter and deader than I am.

I remember attending a conference some years ago where I attended a session on management techniques. The presenter said that his hour-long presentation could be distilled down to one sentence. He claimed that there was one, and only one, truly effective management technique. He said that HONESTY was the only management technique, if you wished to call conducting yourself in a fair and straightforward fashion a “technique”.

I liked the simplicity of this conference session. The claim was that colleagues could smell dishonesty a mile away, and it reeked of coercion and manipulation. They said that you would be best off if you could attempt to be honest in all your dealings with staff. I adopted that as my own mantra and have skipped attending most management classes ever since. Perhaps I have become an ignorant barbarian as a result, but at least I am an honest ignorant barbarian.

Along the same lines When I attended a workplace presentation on the Great Place to Work Institute, and their core principles of Credibility, Respect, Fairness, Pride, Camaraderie, and Trust, I added these to my office mantra – not saying that I did all of it, or any of it, all of the time, but I like to think I did some of it some of the time.

http://www.greatplacetowork.net/our-approach/what-is-a-great-workplace

And that’s all I have to say about that . . . for now.
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