Brilliant Manager, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER 9

Key

management

themes

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T

here are several key themes that underpin all of manage-

ment. Some of them have been touched on in earlier

chapters. This chapter brings them to the surface and

looks at them as a whole.

Managing the dependencies

Although this book discusses different aspects of management

in isolation, you must consider them as a whole. Your leadership

style must be appropriate to the culture you are creating. The

team’s culture must be appropriate to the sort of business you

are in, and the customers you sell products and services to. Your

business must fit your team’s capabilities. Your team’s organisa-

tion and processes must fit the culture and your business. The

team culture must be matched to your organisation’s culture.

Your recruitment process must match the culture and the busi-

ness needs . . . and so on. Managing these dependencies well is

one of the aspects that separate the brilliant manager from the

good manager.

The golden rule

Your own personal behaviour sets the example that your team

will follow. There is no way I can overemphasise the importance

of this golden rule. It does not matter how well you can talk the

talk, what matters is that you can walk the walk. The power of

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178 brilliant manager

the golden rule comes into its own if you have strong principles

on which to base your actions.

Principles and integrity

Management is so much easier if you want to use your power

to make things happen. It is also much easier if you have a clear

view of right from wrong. If you have a strong foundation on

which to base your behaviour, you can behave naturally and,

naturally, you will behave consistently. From my personal obser-

vation I believe that the ‘right thing’ is nearly always the smart

thing. Most people can use their intellect to deduce what the

right thing to do is in most circumstances. The golden rule will

ensure that those managers who behave in a principled way will

be respected. Your staff will not respect you less, and may even

respect you more, if they know that you are using your intellect,

rather than your nature, to behave well.

The straight bat

Another example of the application of integrity is to use what

I call the straight bat approach to tricky management problems.

In situations where you are unsure of people’s motives or reac-

tions, I recommend that you play

the situation from a principled view

of trying to do the right thing. There

are three great advantages of this

approach. First, from my own per-

sonal experience, it is as effective, and often more effective, than

more sophisticated tactics. Second, it is very easy to defend your

actions, and often people will respond to honesty with honesty.

Last, if everything goes pear-shaped and you get shot, then you

can console yourself with the thought that you tried to do the

right thing and that your problems are not the result of playing

the politics wrong.

your problems are not

the result of playing the

politics wrong

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