Guidelines for Effective Management Performance

As I was refilling my bookshelves, I found the following pointers in a book from Dale Carnegie & Associates (copyright 1967 and updated 1981). All the information is highly pertinent for today's biggest sales management challenges; my whitepaper "The Job of Sales Management" that is located on my Web site is somewhat similar but specific to the job functions of the sales manager. 

Successful managers, regardless of what type of organizations they're in, must understand and perform certain functions, concepts and principles to ensure continued success and effectiveness in dealing with their people. The list below reviews management's role in building a high-performance organization. At your next management meeting, I recommend sharing this with your entire management team and discussing how each person is working to accomplish the various suggestions below.

Managers must understand that:

1. It is essential to influence others to cooperate toward achieving desired results. The manager has value only in relation to an organization and the people who comprise it.
   
   
2. The manager's total personality, including his or her attitudes toward life and toward people, will determine success or failure as a manager.
   
   
3. The blending of the organization's goals and the career goals of the individuals in the organization are of paramount importance. These goals are interrelated and must all grow and prosper in concert.
   
   
4. A manager's most important responsibility is to develop people and help make them successful, since only successful people achieve important results.

Managers must do the following:

1. Focus attention chiefly on results to be achieved rather than things to be done. Everything that is happening should lead to the desired results.
   
   
2. Plan and organize effectively to achieve these desired results. Direct and coordinate the efforts of everybody concerned with these results to do their best to achieve them.
   
   
3. See that major objectives are divided into "bite-sized" pieces and properly delegated to appropriate subordinates with time targets for achieving expected results and with established controls and designated accountability to prevent deviation from what is expected.
   
   
4. Establish effective performance standards so all concerned people will be geared toward attaining profitable action and will know what is expected of them and how their performance will be measured.
   
   
5. Build a "results-getting" attitude in the organization so people will develop self-reliance and achieve their goals with confidence.
   
   
6. Motivate subordinates to peak achievement.
   
   
7. Be creative and help others develop their creative potential.
   
   
8. Delegate effectively and maintain proper control so that what is planned is achieved.
   
   
9. Maintain coordination of the efforts of all personnel both within and outside your organization so the interaction of these people will be focused on desired results.
   
   
10. Know and strive to reach your own and the organization's continuing purpose and build this into your job and the job of your subordinates.
    
    
11. Exercise and display the kind of leadership that will cause people to rally around the plans and exercise teamwork to get things done.

Posted by Ken Thoreson on June 17, 2011