HOW TO BE A GOOD MANAGER

Management as the art of leading has undergone many changes over the centuries. The word management appears in the industrial age. It is no longer a question of using the whip but of ensuring that man participates in the collective effort of the country’s economic development. This will then extend to the corporate world, raising the question of the place of humans not only in the world but also and above all in the company. The pyramid building with the CEO and the board at its top puts pressure on the lower strata of the company so that as juice is squeezed the human resource gives the best of itself. Also, repetitive actions must find meaning because in any job there is an element of repetition. One or more gestures or thinking mechanisms find themselves reproducing over time. Privacy is no exception to this logic that we call routine. The latter kills as the saying goes. So you have to vary the cycles, taking care not to fall into bore out (an expression that defines boredom at work). To remedy these evils upstream or downstream, we see the emergence of methods to organize humans with Taylorism and rationalization of tasks to gain productivity.
Productivity: the word is out
Here it is therefore a question of resources and results. Therefore two questions arise:
- what are the resources?
- what are the results?
The resources!
The word resources imprints in the minds, the material necessary for the production at first then, and after reflection, the intangible appears. By intangible, we mean the energy and intellectual resources used to produce. It is clear that the intangibles are just as tangible as the others. The advent of digital technology is taking us out of this good old fossil pattern of necessary material resources. A pattern that still imprints many minds as we will see later.
The results!
In terms of results, The Myth of Stakhanov did some harm. In fact, the harder you work, the more consideration you have. The result of the work must be visible and palpable and the sweat must flow in large drops. Our job must exhaust us with visible fatigue in order to be seen as useful. Again this cliché is collapsing in the digital age. Indeed, “hard work” loses its meaning because the result is not always palpable in the manner of our dear Stakhanov. We use our intelligence and processes much more to be more efficient. The other reason is that the person who works hard giving themselves body and soul does not always have their work recognized. Thus, despite the efforts, the malicious gazes will focus on the small error which does not impact the result or even the means to get there but this error should not be made according to the dominant thought. The history of mankind is made up of mistakes, mistakes that have led to much progress. Here we are at the opposite of positive feedback.

The human brain is made up of 85 billion neurons. This means that in any structure, the intelligence in place is potentially immense. The manager must also stop behaving like a monarch, the holder of a power that he thinks is divine and bordering on megalomania.

1. You must initiate invite to and stop ordering

Too often the newly promoted manager thinks he is privileged and therefore behaves like a monarch. The interventionist management crushes individuals and quickly becomes counterproductive.
Imagine having a person on your back in the literal sense: how long are you going to last before you collapse under their weight?
This is exactly what happens with a management that is behind all its employees. It weighs instead of lightning and helping the flight.

2. You must leave autonomy and trust

Each employee has their area of ​​expertise. The neural power mentioned above should allow you to visualize the potential power of an individual. Let that power express itself to get the most out of it. You need to stimulate this power by empowering your employees. Yes, autonomy, a source of creativity and fulfillment.
Confidence is the key to this autonomy.
Confidence is one of the keys to management. Stop being afraid that the employee is wrong and instead have the absolute certainty that they will do well or even excel. Fear freezes us or scares us away, but in no case does it allow us to build over time. It is a survival mechanism in the face of very real danger, so instead focus on the areas of growth that are just as real.

3. Give positive feedback

Positive Feedback consists of congratulating your employees on what is well done. You must thank your collaborators for the positive points achieved and never start with the negative. In the mind of your team, the image of the collapsing house of cards will take on its full meaning because the negative appeared first and therefore serves as a basis for evaluation thereafter. Starting with the positive therefore allows us to see a well-built building with multiple avenues for improvement for the simple reason that the negative locks while the positive opens.

4. Listening actively

Active listening should not be defined as opposed to supposedly passive listening. We actively listen when we know how to be silent to let the other speak. We must also deconstruct in order to reconstruct to disregard everything we know at the moment we listen. You have to ask questions in an open manner to establish a real exchange of ideas. The new manager feeds on the intelligence of her employees and reciprocally nourishes them with her own reflections. Active listening involves being silent and recording absolutely everything the person says or you miss the point. To miss the point is to miss crucial information or even a missing link in the chain of thought. That’s why you cannot afford to miss this otherwise you will not be able to solve a problem or even build a project.

5. Collective intelligence

Having common values ​​makes it possible to give meaning to the actions of a group or a company. These shared values ​​make it possible to carry out projects and resist difficult headings. They are a good counter to individualism. The union and the collective intelligence were created to allow efficient work and a fluid flow of information. Values ​​unite and their absence promotes the scattering of individualities.

We win a World Cup with a collective and not with a sum of individuals!

6. Carpe Diem

You have to live in the present moment to better project yourself into the future. Every day you have to learn and share this learning with your team. So you will instill creativity permanently.

7. Creativity is the key

The key to innovation and human progress is creativity. Without it, humans would never have built anything lasting and could not have come out of difficult situations. The creativity of your employees is your best asset. You have to use collaborative work tools to allow each person to bring something new, to bring a new eye. So everything will move faster and better and no one will be left on the bench.

Abdelhamid NIATI
All rights reserved.