Wednesday, July 30

10 golden rules from a soon-to-be manager.

In my personal view, progressing to be a manager are dependent on 2 main factors.
(1) Timing – vacancy on top?
(2) Impression – no matter how good you are, someone on top needs to know your “capabilities”.

I shall take away factors like “Skills”, “EQ”, “Popularity with peers and the ground staffs”.
Because these apparently “essential” skills are essentially missing in alot of the bosses I have worked for, or heard of.

As I am approaching my 30s, it is a natural thought to be wanting to be a manager someday, or maybe even a boss of my own company.
(Selling sugar cane drinks in hawker centres also counts as “boss of my own company”)

And what better way to prepare for the throne then to start learning to act and talk like one?

While it is important to have your own style of governing the troops, one should never reinvent the wheel, because "we learn from the best". Leveraging on other people's expertise is what I called an exponential learning curve!

Just like how Warren Buffett (investment guru) learns from Ben Graham (investment guru's guru), we should always learn from some of the best we see in the industry.

Being the gracious soon-to-be boss/manager of a yet-to-be-known company on a god-knows-when date, I shall share some of the wonderful secrets of management success, shared only to all my fans over here.



Rule No. 1 - There is a reason for having your very own office.
Because the secretary is cute.
Because you need to be in good financial health by checking the stock market, before you can devote your energy to building the company.
And because what is said in the room should be kept within it.

Rule No. 2 - Always use motherhood generic statements so you are NEVER wrong.
Say things like "We must continuously improve on our key performance indicators."
"We must increase our productivity while managing our costs".
"We must do more with less."
"We must think out of the box".
There are certainly more, feel free to add to the list.

Rule No. 3 - Appear to be forward-looking, even when you are myopic.
Use words like "vision", "looking ahead", "our target for the year is...".

Rule No. 4 - Working overtime is a norm, not an exception.
In today's competitive society, we should all be pro-active and not be complaining about having additional workload.
We give you more work not just because we are short-handed, but because we trust that you can do it.
If you are not overworked, then you must be overpaid.
It is not always easy to justify on my staff headcount because of increased pressure from top management to keep the department lean and trim.
Anyway, you have all the time to stay home on Saturdays and Sundays, so long as you finish all the stuffs on time.

Rule No. 5 - Always give your employees the benefit of a doubt.
If employees are not seen in office, then they are probably not doing work.
If they are seen in office, then MAYBE they are doing work.

Rule No. 6 - A good manager does minimal work.
Your job is just to scrutinise their work so that they learn and get better.
And always ask them the same questions which you expect to get from your top management. They give the answers, you get the credit.

Rule No. 7 - When the top management is impressed with the manager...
... they will automatically be impressed with the rest of your department.
That is why your employees should always make you look good, it reflects better on themselves.

Rule No. 8 - Always welcome feedback
As a manager, you should consciously make it a point to have staff communication. Gather all feedback because employees appreciate a listening ear. Listen carefully to their concerns and remember to acknowledge them, it matters. Give generic statements (see Rule No. 2) to stall for time and reassue them.
Whether you have to act on it is a totally separate issue.

Rule No. 9 - The Butterfly Effect
One urgent request/question from you will result in many people scrambling for the answers. You spend 1 minute asking, they spend the next few hours consolidating the answers.
A great way to keep them on their toes!

Rule No. 10 - In times of not knowing how to reply...
Always blame the HR. 4 important words.
"This is HR policy".
And look sympathetic.
No worries, they won't look for HR. After all, HR is the one in charge of their pay.

That's it.
Keep practising and you will get there someday.

Someday, the world will be a better place.
That day will come when I become your boss.

Hold on, world! ^_^

Note: The oozes of sarcasm in this post is intentional.

2 comments:

(T) (H) (B) said...

To avoid all that, work for somebody.. :p

7-8 said...

I've seen that guy somewhere before!

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