Effective people always have a plan to achieve career goals. I assume most readers of this forum are striving to become effective leaders/managers. I was curious to know what are you guys doing daily to get closer to your goal.
I personally
- Listen a lot to manager-tools podcasts and i try to seize any opportunity in my daily work to apply what I learn.
- Try to read daily on different subject related to management and leadership
- Keep practicing, practicing daily.
It's still hard to see the fruit of daily efforts. This reminds me of what Mark said once in one of his podcasts, that management is hard and it's like watching a plant grow daily. It's painful. Being a high "D", high "I", i'm very impatient to see results of efforts I excert daily and that makes it even harder to cope with the slow progress.
Your thoughts, advice are appreciated
Oussama
It does happen
slowly, surely, one step at a time.
Look for small successes: An effective Hot Wash. A well run meeting. Deliverables that come in on time.
John Hack
Look for the little things
Maybe if you look for results within yourself, rather than others? That's where the change will be visible first.
Example:
"I am doing a better job of addressing behavior in situations like X"
"That meeting was more on target than the one we had 2 months ago."
I also find that the more I share MT ideas with others (I had a great lunch yesterday explaining BLUF to a postdoc frustrated by students that won't read her looong emails :) the faster change seems to happen around me.
Think about how long your spouse/significant other has been trying to change you--has it worked yet? :D
Interesting, thank you
Interesting, thank you both for your advice.
Bug_GIRL, You're right, when i share my MT ideas and see how that influences people around me, i become more motivated to learn more. It's quite important to me to feel the positive impact of anything i do in life otherwise i tend to loose interest in what I'm doing . This gets difficult when results are achieved after a long period of time, however i'm leaning to become more patient and appreciate every little progress.
Cheers
Oussama
Goals out of this?
I, like all here, want to improve as a manager. I make little steps each day and strive to improve. I don't, however, have a specific plan to achieve that goal. This is where I struggle.
How have you (anyone) addressed this as annual development goals? I have a hard time drafting goals. I would like to have measurables to try to achieve but don't know how to make this improvement measurable. To use Bug_Girl's example of "doing a better job of addressing behavior", how do you measure the result?
I'm in the process of annual goal setting and would really appreciate any help.
There is a podcast...
Ramiska,
This issue was addressed long ago, in the cryptically titled "January 2006 Members-only" podcast, and republished as:
http://www.manager-tools.com/2006/01/manager-tools-development-challenge-2006
They cover six ideas, from tactical to strategic. A hidden gem of a podcast.
John Hack
Remember that ultimately,
Remember that ultimately, Management isn't about you. That's can be a tough one for D/I to get to.
Your development, yes. But if you're only doing this for your development, stop and consider getting interested in people too.