The Accidental Manager

OLA
Superconference
2012
The Accidental Manager
Rebecca Jones
Dysart & Jones Associates
rebecca@dysartjones.com
905.731.5836

Focus for today
Offer tools, approaches & ideas
to new leaders, managers &
supervisors
Transitioning
Tendencies
Creating a Motivating
Environment
What you will be tomorrow, you are becoming today.
Jim Clemmer

Your New ToolKit
Managing
&
Leading
Commun-
ication
Role
Delegating
Learning
Planning
•Priorities
Politics

Roles  Skills
 Form follows function
 Roles dictate the skills
required
 Skills can only be learned
through practice
 We will discuss skills
 You will learn these on the
job

New managers need to know:
 How to assert themselves as leaders today when they were
colleagues yesterday.
 How to determine the priorities.
 How to manage “up”.
 That people come first…if staff isn’t on board, you will never
succeed.
 Communicating – getting the point across – now.
 That the world will not end if they delegate.
 That politics are all about relationship building.
 That balancing of needs and expectations with realistic budgets
is one that can only be learned on the job.
 That doing too much will ultimately become too much.
From CEO’s &
managers in a
variety of settings.

Some favourite sources:
 Harvard Business Review blog www.hbr.org
 Hill, Linda. Becoming a Manager. Harvard, 2003
 Sheldon, Brooke. Interpersonal Skills, Theory & Practice
 Mintzberg & Gosling, “Five Minds of a Manager” HBR Nov 2003
 Managers Toolkit: The 13 Skills Managers Need to
Succeed. Harvard, 2004.
 Watkins, Michael. The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies
for New Leaders. Harvard, 2003
 Ury, William. Power of a Positive No: How to say NO and Still get
to YES

Mintzberg on Managers’ Role
 managing self
 managing relationships
 managing organizations
 managing contexts
 managing change
Setting the context
for our
conversations

The First 90 Days by Michael
Watkins
 Personal disciplines:
 Plan to plan
 Defer commitment
 Schedule time for priority goals
 Go to the balcony to review situation
 Use transparent processes
 Reflect on how you’re doing
 Take breaks
 Build & maintain relationships
Furious activity is no substitute for
understanding.
H.H Williams

Critical Skills
 Establish, impart &
implement a vision &
strategies that make your
organization indispensable
 Create & maintain a
productive & motivating work
environment
 Embrace ambiguity
There - simple enough?

As a member of management
 Your current role incorporates
leadership, management &
supervision
 You do things with people, not to
people
 You work up, down, across &
beyond the organization
 You are responsible for strategies,
initiatives & implementation
• We lead people
• We manage project &
processes
• We supervise details

“Leaders do not sit in the stands and watch. Neither are leaders in the
game substituting for the players. Leaders coach. They demonstrate
what is important by how they spend their time, by the priorities on
their agenda, by the questions they ask, by the people they see, the
places they go, and the behaviors and results that they recognize &
reward.”
The Leadership Challenge
Kouzes & Posner

Self
Transitioning
RoleTendencies

Transitioning requires a plan
 To plan anything effectively you must know:
 What you want
 What you’ve got
 Barriers and acceleration points that may impact your
journey between the two states
 Formally & consciously let go of what you were
doing and the professional or functional expertise
you relied on
 “Promote yourself”
 Mentally move yourself from colleague or ‘young
staff’ to team leader
 Develop or re-develop relationships with boss(es),
colleagues and staff
Start with
a plan for
you

Your boss
It’s more important for you to develop a
relationship with your boss than vice
versa
When new leaders falter it’s usually because
they “concentrate on doing more of what they
have done to succeed…they typically spend too
little time cultivating important relationships,
especially with their bosses.”
Almost Ready: How Leaders Move Up, Harvard Business
Review, January 2005,p.49

Your goals must support your managers’ goals
 Keep drafting your expectations
while you learn
 No blaming of predecessors or
the past
 No surprises for superiors
 Potential solutions for problems
you’re identifying
 Areas where you need their
support
 Negotiate – expectations,
timelines, approaches, resources
• Manage the management
relationship
• Regular, effective interactions
to understand:
▫ Their perception of the
situation
▫ Their style
▫ Their preferred
communication mode

Start by clarifying your role
1. Identify the differences between your old and new positions:
2. Identify the similarities between your old and new positions:

And how you will fulfill & succeed in that role
3. What strengths and skills have made you successful in the past?
4. Which of these strengths and skills can you continue to draw on?
5. What skills do you need to develop?

Your individual plan
What do you need to
stop doing?
What do you need to
continue?
What do you need to start
doing?

Highlights the need for:
 Clear expectations
 You must know what your manager or
Board expects of you
 What do they expect you to
“deliver” in 3 months?
 6 months? 12 months?
 How will they define success for
you? What will success look like
from their view point?

Tendencies
 Understand your own, how you see the world,
and how the world tends to see you
 Myers-Briggs
 Keirsey
 DISC
 Birkman
 Strengths-Finder

Your accelerators & Your inhibitors
 Know your preferences, behavioral
style, motivational needs, stressors.
 Keep The Red Sheet and The Green
Sheet

Organization
Transitioning
Planning

Smart plans rely on smart goals
SMART goals:
 Specific
 Measurable
 Acceptable
 Realistic
 Timed
Must be
written

Establishing Goals: be smart
“By July 20th, identify the 4 critical issues
impacting the group that need to be
addressed before year end.”
“By August, develop a plan for
implementing e-book & tablet loans by
January.”
“By November, 100% of staff will have
received training in:
 using the e-books & tablets
 assisting patrons in using the devices

Focus on the goal
 Most common error of new leaders is failure
to focus
 Focus on 2 or 3 critical areas
 Identify wins that:
 Enable you to learn about the function or
group
 Build credibility for both you and the group
 Matter to management
 Are doable in the culture

Goals are decisions
Discipline means choices. Every time you
say yes to a goal or objective, you say
no to many more.
Sybil Stanton

Establishing goals
 What are your goals for the next 6 – 12 months?
 Refer back to worksheet #1; if there are skills you need to develop,
include them in your goal-setting
Goal
What will be in place
then, that isn’t in place
today?
Measures
What will success look
like?
Target Date Steps

Relationships
Context
Transitioning
Motivating
EnvironmentTendencies

People
 Today is really about people
 It’s all about people

One more time with feeling...
 I CANNOT motivate people
repeat
 I CANNOT motivate people
 I CAN create a motivating environment
……………………..and that is my primary
job

Context
To “lead” means to take a library, a
unit, a program, a service or a
project from where it is today to
where it needs to be in the future
to be or continue to be successful
The library or unit’s context is what
is doing today, what is happening
around it in its community &
beyond, and what it wants to do
tomorrow
•Be clear on where you are
•Be clear on where you are
headed
•Be clear on the ‘influencing
factors’ for the library & the
unit
•Keep the context in front of
everyone

Establish the context
To “lead” means you want to go forward:
 decide where
 draft the framework
 determine the “givens”
 describe it in simple terms
 Involve the team - their input, ideas &
details
 make it real

Create a positive pull within
the context
Your context setting should address 4 things for
your team:
1. Why they should want to be in your
organization
2. Why customers should want to do
business with you
3. Why this is the most exciting
organization to be connected with
4. What it “looks” like - the details, as you
see them

Establish goals with team
 Within your organizational structure, work with staff to establish
expectations and their goals
 Ensure their goals “support” achievement of your goals
 Ensure your goals “support” achievement of the organization’s goals
(your manager’s goals)

Start at the beginning
 Most problems within organizations are the result
of people:
 not understanding where they are going
 how their job fits
 what’s expected of them
 Forget the 3 R’s; concentrate on the 3 C’s:
Context
 Communication
 Clarity
85/15 Rule

Context, Communication, Clarity
To link people & what they do to the
{library} (business) strategy & vision
requires connecting the dots for people.
It means making sure that people
understand how they can contribute, that
they are able to contribute, that they have
the right information when they need it so
they can contribute& that they’ll benefit
from the results they produce.
The Leadership Solution, Jim Shaffer

But “where do I fit?”
 Always link organizational, team &
individual goals, roles & expectations
Articulate with each team member:
“This is how your job impacts our ability to engage
the community/campus/organization..……..
……….to achieve our vision…
………..to serve our clients...etc..”

Motivating environments rely on
communication
 Visions become real for people when
they see where they fit, where they
contribute & the benefits they’ll realize
when they do contribute
 You cannot hear while you are
speaking
 If your team doesn’t understand you,
they can’t hear you
 You can’t not communicate
What you are speaks so loudly I can’t hear a word you are
saying. Samuel Johnson

Confusion causes conflict.
Clarity diffuses conflict.
Insights develop clarity.
Feedback produces insights.
Clarity keeps the
windshield clean
Creating motivating environments
Keep the windshield clean

Clarity is in an individual’s eyes
 Put on their lenses, their perspective
 Listen:
 For why they are saying what they are
saying
 for ideas
 for words that make it real for others
 for gaps
 for misunderstandings
 for resistance
 these will give you the details needed
to achieve clarity for all involved

Creating motivating environments
 Identify:
 An individuals’ strengths
 Ways their job can capitalize on their strengths & talents
 Rewards that are meaningful for the individual – time
with you? Time with a mentor? Time to work alone?
 The best ways to coach them or provide them with
feedback:
 Do they need information?
 Need to “do” things?
 Need to observe?

What gets in the way?
 History
 Human nature
 Tendency is to try to understand the motives,
values & interpretations of those people we like
 What happens if we don’t like the person?
 Ask yourself this strategic question:
What must it be like for “x”, with their character
& perspectives, to work with or report to
someone like me, with my character, drives &
stimuli?
“How to Motivate Your Problem People,”
by Nigel Nicholson in HBR January 2003, pp 57+

Motivating environments
Start with you:
What are your strengths or energizers?
How does your job capitalize on these strengths?
What rewards are meaningful for you?
What’s the best way to coach you or provide you with feedback?

Motivating environments
Now talk with those you for whom you are responsible:
What are their strengths, talents & energizers?
How does – or how can their job capitalize on these?
What rewards are meaningful for them?
What’s the best way to coach them or provide them with feedback?

Trust
 Determined by every moment of truth
 Difficult to earn, & once gone, difficult to
recover
 We trust others when they are told
something will happen & it does
 Relies on communication
 When do you lose trust?

Keep the focus
“Leaders ..........demonstrate what is
important by how they spend their time, by
the priorities on their agenda, by the
questions they ask, by the people they see,
the places they go, and the behaviors and
results that they recognize & reward.”
The Leadership Challenge
Kouzes & Posner

Managing yourself
When a you make a decision or take a key action,
write down what you expect will happen (what
success will look like), and keep going back to it – in
3, 6, 9 months – to measure where you are
 Adapted from Peter Drucker, “Managing
Oneself” in
Harvard Business Review, January 2005, p 102

Moving forward
1. What will success look like for me in 12 months?
2. What personal disciplines or skills do I need to develop to ensure I do what I can to
work towards that success?

You are all leaders
The leader of the past was a person who
knew how to tell. The leader of the future
will be a person who knows how to ask.
Peter Drucker, 1993
You are people who know how to ask, and
how to learn.
You are the leaders of the future.
Rebecca Jones

Let me know how you are doing!
Rebecca Jones
Dysart & Jones Associates
32 Apple Orchard Path
Thornhill, Ontario, CA L3T 3B6
905/731-5836 Fax: 905/731-5411
rebecca@dysartjones.com

The Accidental Manager

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