Search This Blog

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Everyone a leader in the 21st century - focus on management policies for the next century


Everyone a leader in the 21st century - focus on management policies for the next century
by Robert Alan Black, Ph.D., CSP, DLA

 written in 1992 for the HFMA - Healthcare Finance Management Association.

As the 20th century ends, so must the techniques of management that have evolved over the past 100 years and have brought the era some of its greatest successes. Countries around the world that have applied "modern" principles of management over the past 10 decades have achieved great production and wealth. But the traditional management principles of our era will not dictate the successes of the 21st century.

The management principles of the 20th century have tended to be short-sighted and narrow in scope with regard to people, too inflexible and resistant to change, slow to respond to opportunity, and too focused on avoiding risk. Management in the 20th century has focused on mass production, simplified and easily replicated products or services, centralized control, and minimum change.

Yet the evidence of the past two decades is clear, and shows an increasing trend toward micro-production, i.e., nearly individualized production of extremely specific products or services. This type of production is driven by individual client or customer needs and is controlled by employees and customers; it thus is extremely flexible and adapts easily to change.

Such capacity for change, variety, and individualism is not consistent with the general, large-scale thinking of management of the 20th century.

The primary skills of management--planning, organizing, goal setting, monitoring, evaluating, and decision-making--will not be unimportant; on the contrary, these skills will be needed more than ever before. But limiting the decision-making authority and responsibility to a few isolated man-agers will no longer be possible. Management responsibilities will need to be shared among the many.

Research and empirical examples from all occupational categories of business and industry in the United States suggest that individuals do not want, or enjoy, feeling they are being managed. It also shows these same individuals can manage themselves effectively and efficiently. This attitude, combined with the self-management trends (participatory to autonomous) of the past two or three decades, indicates that the 21st century may require that everyone become a self-manager--and manage his or her work, time, production, quality, and goals.

All employees can become self-managers. If an employee is properly trained in basic management skills, (including job-related planning, organizing, goal setting, standard setting, work measurement, information processing, resource control, and decision making), the employee can manage his or her work, job procedures, or production.

And after all employees are trained and experienced in self-management, they can be trained to become leaders. Not all will be able to be leaders of the same types of people, or of the same size groups or teams, or of the same scale of work or projects; their scope of responsibility will depend on the circumstances and situations involved and on the employee. But in general, each individual can be taught to be a leader, assuming the individual possesses normal intelligence, receives quality training, and has an adequate opportunity to apply newly acquired skills and abilities. At the same time that people are taught leadership skills, they also need to be taught skills of effective "followership," which are often taken for granted as "common sense."

Skill in leadership is especially important is when directing the efforts of a team. Effective teams require effective leadership. The most productive teams are those that can evolve to meet demands as required. For this to happen, leaders must be available to step forward and lead the team effectively. If employees also have been trained as "followers," this approach can be even more productive.

Will all employees want to be leader? No. But many situations will arise, on an almost daily basis, when organizations will benefit from each employee being capable of stepping in and leading, at least for a short period of time.

If all employees are trained in basic leadership skills, the organization benefits. Initially it will benefit from the understanding of leadership that employees will gain. The organization will continue to gain from the increased respect given to the existing effective leaders. It also will benefit from the increased quality that will be achieved when current leaders learn more about their own previous management mistakes and begin working more efficiently and effectively.

True leaders and followers are committed to their jobs and their organizations as well as to projects, other employees, and other leaders. Such commitment generates a senses of purpose, a high degree of respect, extensive involvement, dedication, and enthusiasm. All these factors result in ever-increasing quality, production, and profit.

Robert A. Black, PhD, is president of Cre8ng People, Places & Possibilities a consulting firm based in Athens, Ga., specializing in leadership, communication, teamwork, and creative thinking training.

Saturday, May 12, 2012

BRAINS NOT WIRED SIMPLY OR ALL THE SAME


BRAINS NOT WIRED SIMPLY OR ALL THE SAME



In 1976 I began to read about and hear about RIGHT-BRAIN/LEFT-BRAIN and WHOLEBRAIN theories based upon the research with 9 patients who suffered from epilepsy who had agreed to have their corpus collosum's split causing their cerebral and limbic hemispheres to be split/dis-connected.

Over the next 10 or so years I did a masters and a doctorate degree with WHOLE-BRAIN THINKING MODELS as key parts of many projects.  Then I began teaching and speaking about the use of many of the theories that preceeded Sperry & Bogen's research (Nobel Prize winning) all the way back to Hippocrates in Greece with his 4 temperaments and the Tao or Yin Yang in ancient China and dozens to a hundred or more theories that preceeded Sperry & Bogen and the hundreds or more models or theories that have been created since the late 1970s.

Human Beings are different.
We think, learn, communicate, solve problems, lead, coach, counsel differently.

Using any of the SPLIT-BRAIN RESEARCH based models is helpful.

They seem to give scientific creedancce to WHY people do these things differently.

Are all brains "WIRED" the same?

Not according to the many research studies that have been done before and after Sperry & Bogan that have challenged the overly simplified models of brain function localization.

Use these are metaphors.  A simple way to help talk about differences between you, your spouse, your children, your friends, fellow workers, employees, clients, customers/clients/patients.

Please do not use them as MATTER OF FACT SCIENCE.

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

If a leader, trainer, speaker, teacher, entertainer can



Since I did my first workshop in 1980 I have been studying teaching, learning, training and how to deliver or increase the resultant learning in all cases.

My website has many varied sources on it.

My primary topics over the past 32+ years have been

leading-skills and styles
communicating - skills and styles from written to large scale speeches
teaming - skills and styles
Cre8ng - creative thinking and problem solving skills

and topics related to these

conflict, connection, counseling, coaching

Over the years I have created several exercises based on others I have experimented with and my own completely created anew.

My focus comes from these basic premises

We all develop or are partially born with our own thinking styles

thinking styles impact everything human beings do from learning to leading

we can learn in many ways and many us only in a few ways that can be traced back to a quote often used from Confucius

Tell Me - I will forget
Show Me - I may begin to remember
Involve Me - I may begin to learn

over the past 32+ years I have learned though study and ongoing experience with over 3600+ groups and audiences that we need to do a mix of these 3 plus one more that I label

Reach Me - Get to know me as a person, while you let me get to know you and we will begin to truly learn together.

one more

If a leader, trainer, speaker, teacher, entertainer can...

Maintain your Attention
and get to understand you Intention
we can help your increase your Retention of what you are experienced and help you truly learn.

Alan