|
About the Book
COLLABORATION IS THE KEY
There are answers to “How?” we want to examine what it means to manage beyond the ordinary—how and when to get your people to collaborate with you—in practical terms that you and your subordinates can use and apply. Talk is cheap, and preaching about good management is easy. But saying what to do, how to make it happen in the real world, is a bit more difficult.
This book is based on four assumptions:
1. Understand the Context of Strategic V. Operational Thinking
Not all issues are created equally. Understanding the difference between Strategic and Operational issues is critical for managers to set the context for decision making. It allows scarce resources – people, time, money ‐ to be effectively focused on doing the right things (the strategic or what context) in the right way (the operational or “how” context).
2. Results Matter
Managers are people who are paid to resolve problem situations that impede the effectiveness and efficiency of their organizations. By “resolve,” we mean to get rid of those problems totally and completely.
3. You Cannot Do It Alone
Managers can no longer do this by themselves but must draw on the best ideas and knowledge of their best‐informed resource persons to create the actions that will completely resolve the problem situation.
4. Focus on the Critical Few
There are a number of critical tasks to which collaboration contributes a great deal and that must be completed in order to achieve the resolution of a complex problem. Managers who recognize this and put their efforts where they will do the most good will manage significantly beyond the ordinary.
THE CONTEXT FOR GETTING IT DONE
This much is clear. Managers need access to what others know in order to do their jobs, and they get that information through collaboration with their colleagues. If you “look under the hold of collaboration” you will find the processes or variations of decision making going on. To understand decision making as the context for collaboration is a powerful tool to drive results. The remainder of this book is devoted to how to do it, how to make it happen.
“But the corporate culture has to change before we can do that,” some people say. “When the culture changes, we will be able to work more closely together.” This may happen a long time from now, longer than you can afford to wait. Instead of hoping for the future, we will tell you how to bring it about today and how to change the future to your advantage.
You don’t need to wait until your organizational world evolves. One person, collaborating and managing beyond the ordinary, can make a substantial difference, as our examples show. A number of people, working together, can make even more of a difference. An organizational unit, with its members all moving in the same direction, can make a huge difference. The tangible benefits of increased quality and satisfaction and accomplishment are waiting to be had. You can begin having them now. All you have to do is do it. |
