Being a Manager – Not a Piece of Cake

You are recently promoted to a management position, Congrats! Do you have butterflies in your stomach? Well if so, this phenomena is quite natural. Being a manager might seem as easy as just delegating tasks, keeping an eye on employees and having a lavish office. Managers get paid more than the others and seem to have more authority. Hence these differences make the position prestigious. But it certainly is more than that. The hardest part is establishing influence and winning trust at the same time. Following points play a vital role in the life of a Manager and hence one should keep these in mind while he/she climbing the ladder to success. 

1. The Downside of Being a Manager

A fancy personal office and a lot of authority may seem attractive at first, but eventually there is a price one has to pay for all of this. Keep in mind that, you have been selected for this position because you have the right frame of mind and your boss has confidence in your abilities. Hence, you will face the following crises but nevertheless, it is part of the game:

Wearing the Badge of Honor:

Most of the times you might be carrying out the orders made above you even if you don’t really agree. Sometimes orders are imposed without the advice or consultation of a manager. The situation seems distressing as a manager might see the intricacies not considered by the senior officials. But you have to live with it as it is a part of the bargain.

The Burden of Accountability:

Being a manager, you are not only in charge of your own deeds but the deeds of your team as well. You can’t always keep an eye on everything they do. But if something goes wrong, you simply don’t have the luxury of withdrawing your responsibility because at this rank you are responsible for all those working under you.

Lonely at the Top:

The ladder to the top often makes people lonely. A boss is not supposed to be closer to his team as are the other employees. In order to make tough decisions objectively, it is important to be aloof. It is often observed than once a person is promoted from within a group, he/she quickly becomes frigid and distant.

2. Legal Liabilities:

Most employees are exempted from legal liabilities. But a manager is not one of the lucky ones. Managerial tasks frequently include signing imperative documents and making decisions. They need to keep the workplace safe and free from harassment of any type. If one fails in any of the responsibilities, he/she might face legal action.

3. Your Job is Very Attractive:

Being a manager definitely sounds like a dream job from outside. People are always hunting for such positions. You can’t afford to make mistakes because that might prove to be a golden chance for the potential opportunists. Many people from your own work group may have the feeling that they can prove to be a better choice for the post and they are more competent. The best agenda in such circumstances would be to be extremely careful and take each step deliberately. Your each move should be unhurried and with dignity.

4. Greater Workload:

Being a manager is synonymous to being a workaholic. An employee simply needs to do his/her own work but a manager has more to do; he/she has to supervise people, prepare reports and mandates for the company. An employee might be asked to attend a meeting or a seminar. But a manager has more to do; he/she needs to arrange all these happenings. The manager could be called at odd hours to see to an incomplete task. Whether a manager works for 8 hours or 16 hours, the pay of the day remains the same.

5. Becoming a Public Figure:

A boss is much like a celebrity and he/she is definitely talked about. He/She would be the subject of someone’s dinner conversation and the hot topic for gossip at lunch break. His/Her acts are under hawk eyes. The endeavors of a manager serve as a guidance to what behavior is acceptable and not. It is vital to be very formal in every action and rational in words. A role model is often not forgiven for the mistakes.

6. Keys to Becoming a Great Manager:

The discussion above proves that management is definitely not a piece of cake. But it is rightly said “Where there’s will, there’s a way”.

7. Firing an Employee:

Firing an employee is a tricky business. This is one of the distressing decisions a manager might have to make. Depriving someone of their income sounds nasty. It is essential that the reasons are factual and rational so that your conscience does not feel guilty. Breaking the bad news to the unlucky employee would require the right words. The reaction you get for sacking someone is the most complicated to predict. A manager can get the company in legal hot water if the employee is not fired properly.

8. Building Trust with the Employees:

Building trust in workplace is vital for smooth functioning. Trust is a two-way street. Management is more about inspiring people and making them live your dream. Employees should be of the view that they are deemed competent and capable of the designated tasks.

9. Creating Winning Opportunities for People:

Everyone has their own strengths and weaknesses. A good manager has the ability of looking into people’s capabilities and assigning them tasks accordingly to produce better results. Every person in a company wants to play a productive role. It comes down to the manager to produce winning opportunities.

10. Communication Skills and the Art of Persuasion:

The power of public speaking and taking a stand for ideas distinguishes a manager from his/her subordinates. Often, it is required to get the remarkable ideas flow into the team and make the people understand the expected outcome. The right words and apt tone can make a significant difference. Similarly, it is important to be persuasive. Making people work forcefully is far less effective than persuading them for the objectives one has in the mind. Listening to others is equally important as discussion can let the stagnant ideas flow.

11. Making People Happy:

A good manager inspires people and induces confidence. People want to follow their steps and live their dreams with them while a bad leader instills fear which does not produce fine results. A discussion with an employee should always make him feel elevated. All employees should be valued whether it be an office boy or a business analyst. People who are made to feel special take pride in their work.

12. Appreciating Good Work:

Managers often feel their duty and right to yell at employees for something that went wrong. But appreciating people is most widely forgotten or overlooked. Everyone likes to be appreciated. Everyone naively expects rewards for good work. But a manager seems to be forgetting it consistently! It is very ironical but true. Employees love an admiring manager and like to work for them.

13. Be a Role Model:

Your people follow you. Be careful where you put your steps because they are destined to be followed by the employees. Don’t take any task for granted. Be enthusiastic and excited about the work and the enthusiasm will eventually become viral.

14. Being Hopeful in Bad Times:

Life keeps on oscillating between good and bad times. The company might face crisis and it is a manager’s duty to keep up the spirits. He/She should ensure the team that the hitch will end soon and everything will be alright. The manager needs to be fearless and serene but deliberate and ready for anything. Once a team is through the crisis, relationships and understanding reaches a new level.

15. Making a Good Team:

A good manager’s tasks include making a strong team of people. A good employee serves as a cell and a good team serves as a building block of an organization. Finding competent people is hard and calculating their potential during an interview is even harder. A manager needs to be good at evaluating the psyche of people so that he can choose the best.

All a manager requires is the basic understanding of human nature, the art of dealing with people beautifully and the ability of leading people rightly. Being the best has a lot of perks but it does not come without a price. The price is often hard work and smart work.

A Winning Job Search Strategy

By Peter Vogt, Monster Senior Contributing Writer
You've posted your resume online and are submitting resumes and cover letters for all the job openings that seem to fit you.
Is there anything else you can do to look for a job? Absolutely! In fact, the more diverse your job-hunting strategy, the more effective it's likely to be.
Here are eight tactics you can use to track down job opportunities:
Contact Professional Organizations in Your Field
National, regional and local professional organizations exist in great part to help their members with career development. Many organizations include field-specific job listings on their Web sites or in their printed publications.
Visit Company and Organization Web Sites
Many companies and organizations post their job openings right on their own Web sites (usually under an Employment or Career Opportunities link).
Apply Directly to Organizations That Interest You
Do you know you want to work specifically for Company X or Organization Y? If so, send a well-written cover letter and your resume directly to the company, either to its human resources office or, often more effective, to the person who would likely make hiring decisions for the part of the organization that interests you. It isn't always easy to find the right person to get in touch with; typically, you'll have to do some digging.
Network, Network, Network
Generally the most effective job-hunting approach, networking is simply talking to people to either track down helpful personal contacts or learn about job openings that may not necessarily be widely advertised or advertised at all. Start by talking to your own family, friends and acquaintances. Let everyone in your life know you're looking for a job, and give them an idea of what type of job you want.
Join Professional Associations
If there's a professional organization in your field, join it and start participating in its meetings and other events so you can get to know people in your area of interest. Work with a career counselor at your school to both tap his contacts and learn of alumni from your school who might be able and willing to lend you a hand in your search. Finally, don't forget to tap your professors' connections as well.
Participate in Job Fairs
Many cities, particularly large ones, host job fairs at various locations throughout the year. Most colleges and universities hold their own job fairs as well, either individually or in collaboration with other institutions. A job fair is a rare opportunity to have employers come to you, so make sure you attend whenever possible.
Use a Placement Agency or Recruiter/Headhunter
There are companies out there that specialize in helping people find jobs. Some of them even focus on working with college students and recent college grads. Maybe one of them can help you. A word of caution, however: While most organizations receive their fees from employers (and not you, the job seeker), some will seek money from you. So be careful, and make sure you know who's paying the bill.
Consider Temping
Often, by working briefly as a temp for a company, you can position yourself to be hired for a full-time, permanent position that opens up later on. Even if that doesn't happen, however, temping can help you see various companies from the inside, meet people in your field of interest and earn some pretty good money.
The more diverse your job-hunting methods are, the more opportunities you'll uncover and the greater the chance that you'll find, and land, the job you really want.

7 Steps to PuMP Out Better Performance Measures

Performance measurement is a process, not an event. It’s a series of specific activities for creating, implementing and using performance measures, and it’s not just a brainstorming session on the tail-end of your business planning workshop. If you don’t take each step in the process deliberately, there’s little wonder your performance measures or KPIs just aren’t measuring up.

What most people are really searching for is the detailed, nitty-gritty, exactly-how-do-you-do-it steps of deciding what to measure, choosing the most appropriate measures, designing new measures from scratch, implementing measures, reporting measures in a useful and usable way, and integrating measures seamlessly into decision making.

PuMP® is all about the performance measurement process (that’s where the ‘PMP’ comes from – the ‘u’ comes from a client who wanted to give the Performance Measurement Process a cute nickname instead of a boring acronym). PuMP® is a methodology that gives you the steps to develop performance measures. And here are those seven steps:

1. SELECT: choose what’s worth measuring

Selecting what to measure starts not with the question ‘what should we measure?’ but with first being clear about the results that matter most to you and your business. If you don’t know the performance results you’re trying to achieve, then you’ll probably too many measures that no-one finds useful, or no measures at all. And the way that most business strategy is written, it’s very hard to work out what the important results are, because of the vague language and broad terminology (for example: “We will enhance the quality, reliability, efficiency and effectiveness of our service delivery processes”).

This first step in PuMP has you doing two things specifically: we first use the PuMP Results Mapping technique to decide what results are worth measuring, and then we use the PuMP Measure Design technique to create or select the measures that are the strongest and most feasible evidence of those results. No guessing, no brainstorming.

2. COLLECT: gather data which has integrity

The process of collecting data for performance measures is critical to its integrity and can be very resource intensive. The more you can limit your data collection to what is useful, not just interesting, the better off you’ll be. So it pays (literally) to be super-specific about the data you really need for your performance measures, and not just go create a survey or form to collect a bunch of data that seems potentially useful.

There are two PuMP techniques that help maximise the benefits from your data collection efforts: the PuMP Measure Definition technique to be very precise about exactly what data each measure will need, and the PuMP Data Collection Process technique to design the steps to get the data you need without wasted time or effort.

3. STORE: manage the data so it’s quick and easy to access

Where and how you store your data directly determines what data you can access, when and how quickly you can access it, how easy or difficult it is to access and how much cross-functional use you can get out it. Most of the skill for managing performance data lies in your organiation’s IT department, but your PuMP Measure Definitions will go a very long way toward helping the IT department get you access to the data you need, with the least effort.

4. ANALYSE: turn the data into information

Analysis is the process of turning raw data into information. To make sure your performance measures are the most appropriate information you need to be almost pedantic about the analysis method you choose to answer those measures’ driving questions.

Again, the PuMP Measure Definition technique helps you make it very clear what the right analysis method is for each of your performance measures, and as such, these Measure Defintions become the blueprint or specification for exactly how each performance measure will be brought to life. No more pie charts or percentages when the real driving questions actually need a time series analysis!

5. PRESENT: effectively communicate the information

In communicating performance information, you are influencing which messages the audience focuses on. It’s vital to take care to present performance measures in ways that provide simple, relevant, trustworthy and visual answers to their priority questions. Too many people just throw performance reports or dashboards together with graphs designed to entertain rather than inform. And usually then end up misinforming!

The PuMP Reporting Measures technique helps you to design a structure, content, layout and visual design for your performance reports that syncs with decision-making and helps the real performance signals jump right off the page.

6. INTERPRET: translate the information into implication

Interpreting your performance measures means translating messages highlighted by performance information into conclusions about what’s really going on. To turn information into implication, you must discern which messages are real messages (and not all of them are!). If you’re in the habit of comparing this month to last month, or this month to a target, you’re probably drawing the wrong conclusions from your measures!

It’s the patterns, not the points, that we need to focus on with performance measures. And the PuMP Using Measures technique shows you which patterns to look for, what they mean, and how to respond to them so you don’t react to difference that aren’t real, and so you don’t miss the differences that are real.

7. APPLY: decide how implication will become action

When you have worked out what is really going on with your organisation’s performance, you are ready to make some decisions about what to improve, how much to improve it by and how to do that improving. And you want to steer clear of the typical traps people fall into when they are deciding how to respond to their performance measures.

The PuMP Using Measures technique helps you steer clear of traps like jumping to quick fixes that will fail, blaming results on things outside your control, and focusing too much on people rather than process improvement.

TAKING ACTION:

Where is your performance measurement process strong, and where is it weak? Flowchart the steps you take to select, collect, store, analyse, present, interpret and apply performance measures to find where you could get the biggest improvement in your measures for the least effort. Try this complimentary PuMP Diagnostic Discussion Tool to trigger a very insightful discussion with your colleagues:
http://www.staceybarr.com/pump/pumpdiagnostic.html

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stacey Barr is the Performance Measure Specialist, helping strategic planners, business analysts and performance measurement officers confidently facilitate their organisation to create and use meaningful performance measures with lots of buy-in. Sign up for Stacey’s free email tips atwww.staceybarr.com/202tipsKPI.html and receive a complimentary copy of her renowned e-book “202 Tips for Performance Measurement”.

10 Reasons Why You're Not Getting Interviews

This article was choose by Mr. Adnan Pitafi adnanpitafi@gmail.com;

Robert Half International.

No matter how strong your skills or experience are, you won't land a new job without first securing an interview with a prospective employer. Job seekers often consider this step of the hiring process the most difficult -- and perplexing. After all, how many times have you considered your qualifications ideal for an open position only to never hear from the hiring manager about the résumé and cover letter you submitted?
If you're looking for an edge, make sure you're not falling into these common traps:
1. You only focus on the Googles of the world.
Companies that continually grab headlines and are highly recognizable can be exciting places to work. But so are many companies you've never heard of. Keep in mind that organizations that are household names often receive thousands of résumés for each opening. Consider exploring opportunities with small and midsize companies. They make up the vast majority of businesses in the United States and sometimes have trouble locating qualified candidates. If Google is your dream employer, don't give up the good fight, but also keep your eyes and ears open to other opportunities.
2. You don't follow directions.
Each company has a different procedure it asks applicants to follow for submitting employment applications. Some ask that you use a form on their Web sites while others prefer traditional phone calls or faxes. Make sure you understand what the prospective employer seeks by carefully reading the job listing. Then, follow the directions to the letter. If you don't, your application may never reach the hiring manager.
3. You need to revamp your résumé.
Sending out the same cover letter and résumé to all companies isn't likely to capture the attention of prospective employers. Hiring managers want to know why you're a good match for their specific business needs. So take the time to research employers and customize your job search materials by explaining why you're interested in a particular position and how you could make a contribution to the company. 
4. Your cover letter isn't enticing.
Think of your cover letter as an appetizer that convinces the hiring manager your résumé, the main course, is worth sampling. The best cover letters take select details from the résumé and expand upon them, explaining in depth how your talents and experience can benefit the prospective employer.
5. You don't reference keywords.
Companies that receive a high volume of résumés often use scanning software that looks for certain keywords to determine which candidates to call for interviews. More often than not, keywords come directly from the job description. Terms such as "Microsoft Office," "accounts payable and receivable" and "Cisco Certified Network Administrator" are examples. As much as possible, ensure your résumé and cover letter contain keywords.
6. Your application materials aren't perfect.
Submitting an application that contains typos and grammatical goofs is perhaps the quickest way to foil your chances of securing an interview. In fact, 84 percent of executives polled in a recent survey by our company said it takes just one or two errors to remove a candidate from consideration. The reason: These types of mistakes show a lack of professionalism and attention to detail. Make sure to carefully proofread your résumé prior to submitting it and ask a friend or family member to do the same.
7. You don't know who to send your résumé to.
Though it's fine to start your cover letter with the generic salutation "To Whom It May Concern," hiring managers pay special attention to applications that are addressed directly to them. If the job advertisement doesn't include the hiring manager's name, call the company and speak to the receptionist or a member of the person's department. More often than not, you can obtain the information fairly easily if you're candid about your reason for wanting it.
8. You don't have an 'in' with the company.
Using the name of a common contact to make the connection between you and the hiring manager is by far the best way to ensure your cover letter and résumé get optimal attention. So, keep in touch with members of your professional network; you never know who has a contact at the company you hope to work for. 
9. You don't follow up.
One way to improve the odds a hiring manager gives consideration to your résumé is to follow up with him or her. According to a survey by our company, 86 percent of executives said job seekers should contact a hiring manager within two weeks of sending a résumé and cover letter. Often a brief phone call or e-mail reasserting your interest in the position and strong qualifications is enough.
10. You're not as qualified as you think.
The bottom line may be that you're simply not as perfect for the job as you think. Before submitting your résumé, take a close look at the job description and compare your skills and experience with those required for the position. If a job calls for five years of retail management experience, and you have only two, you might not be as qualified as other applicants. While sometimes it's possible to make up for skills gaps if you excel in other areas, hiring managers frequently have specific criteria in mind, and they use it to determine whom they call for interviews.
By avoiding common pitfalls, you can improve your chances of landing a job interview. Often something small -- fixing a typo, for example -- makes all the difference.

Excerpt of "Interview Questions to Ask, and Stop Asking"

Scrutinizing interview questions before using them can help improve their strength and effectiveness as well as ensure that interviewers and interviewees get more out of the valuable, albeit limited, time. To do this, answer the following questions about each interview question:

“What is the most likely response to this question?”

“Does that answer give me concrete data that will help my hiring decision?”

If either test falls flat, the question needs work. If both tests fail, toss the question out and start over.

Following are four solid questions to ask—and a proper way to word them—that can garner much of the information needed to help make an informed hiring decision.

1. Don’t ask: “Why do you want to work here?" or "Why do you want this job?”
This question addresses candidate motivation. We know the likely response to either of these questions is to ramble about how wonderful the organization is and what a great opportunity the position represents for the candidate. The truthful answer in all cases is that the candidate is not wealthy enough to be able to survive without earning money, so they’re seeking employment.
Neither of these responses helps to demonstrate what kind of worker the candidate is or provides any insight to their professional goals.

Instead, ask: “What particular skills or experiences make you the best match for this position?”
Or to put a behavioral-based interview spin on the question, ask, “What would your most recent supervisor say are the skills that make you the best candidate for this position?” These questions give the candidate the opportunity to bring attention to the things they found to be important from researching the position and their vision of how they might fit in the organization.

2. Don’t ask: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
Candidates are thrown by this question easily and typically respond that they plan to be at that organization that they are interviewing with, excelling and making great contributions. This gives absolutely no insight on the candidate’s vision of their professional growth.

Instead, ask: “Where does this position fall along your career path?”
Asking this gives the candidate an opportunity to speak about the skills and experiences that have prepared them for the responsibilities of this position and gives the interviewer an idea of what goals they’re looking to achieve. It might be that some candidates view the position as a destination job that they’d like to hold on to until retirement. Others might see the job as an opportunity to gain skills needed to achieve different professional goals.
Sometimes hiring managers are afraid to ask open-ended questions about a candidate’s future for fear that the individual won’t remain in the job once they’re hired. It is important to remember that employees cannot be forced to remain in any particular job—this is employment, not indentured servitude. While holding on to good employees is always a concern, remember that retention efforts will be more successful if every employee’s professional goals and plans are understood.

3. Don’t ask: “What was the worst thing about your last employer?” or “What did you like the least about your last job?” This question leads candidates to break professional decorum spending interview time whining or complaining about work experiences. Trash talk might be great in the professional wrestling ring but it rarely helps in corporate America, so why goad the candidate into it? Similarly, a list of complaints provides no useful understanding of how the candidate worked to remain successful in the face of adversity.

Instead, ask: “What aspects of your previous position did you find most professionally challenging?” or “What would your most difficult past client say you could do to improve service delivery?”
These questions allow candidates to reflect on how they believe that their skills matched up with the challenges of their most recent workplace and to provide assessment of what could change. Follow-up questions can probe what steps were taken to address these challenges. This gives an idea of how the candidate deals with difficult workplace situations or challenging tasks as well as how proactive they were in addressing identified issues.

4. Don’t ask: "What are your greatest weaknesses?"
Some canned responses to this: “I’m too much of a perfectionist.”  “Because of my dedicated nature, I put too much of myself into my job and don’t take time for me.” Interviewers know these answers before asking the questions, so there’s no reason to have candidates recite them to us.

Instead, ask: “What kinds of professional development would make you a more-effective worker?” or “What areas of training would your past supervisor say you would benefit from the most?”
This gives candidates the ability to provide self-assessments of skills gaps in an environment where they’re displayed not as personal failings but as opportunities for professional growth. In addition, using this option gives candidates the opportunity to see how their supervisor’s developmental philosophy has affected their professional development.
Giving candidates the opportunity to share answers with depth and breadth about skills, knowledge and experiences provides a hiring manager with a much more useful amount of information than an interview that uses canned questions to see if the candidate can give the “right” or “best” answer. The success of a company’s hiring process depends heavily on the ability to assess accurately what candidates can bring to the organization. In addition, it shows how the organization can interact with their newest employees to develop underutilized skills and provide a level of professional satisfaction that will keep them engaged and happy to continue as productive members of the organization.