Business Without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know (12 page)

Although more than a million books have been published on the subject of management, managing employees is not nearly as complicated as the consultants (who write most of the books) try to make it out to be.

Good management is mostly a matter of common sense and a few easily mastered techniques. This part of the book helps make common sense, well, more common. It lays out both the strategic foundation of good management and specific tactics to build and grow a winning team.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

The most successful bosses—and the ones employees respect and follow most easily, and who are most likely to be promoted—tend to share the following eight core beliefs:

Average bosses see business as a conflict among companies, departments, and groups. They build armies of troops to order about, demonize competitors as “enemies,” and treat customers as territory to be conquered.

Great bosses see business as a symbiosis through which the most diverse firm is most likely to survive and thrive. They create teams that adapt easily to new markets and can quickly form partnerships with other companies, customers… and even competitors.

Average bosses consider their companies machines with employees as cogs. They create rigid structures with rigid rules and then try to maintain control by pulling levers and steering the ship.

Great bosses see their companies as collections of individual hopes and dreams, all connected to a higher purpose. They inspire
employees to dedicate themselves to the success of their peers and therefore to the community—and company—at large.

Average bosses want employees to do exactly what they’re told. They’re hyper-aware of anything that smacks of insubordination and create environments in which individual initiative is squelched by the “wait and see what the boss says” mentality.

Great bosses set a general direction and then commit to obtaining the resources their employees need to get the job done. They push decision-making downward, allowing teams to form their own rules, and intervene only in emergencies.

Average bosses see employees as inferior, immature beings who simply can’t be trusted if not overseen by a patriarchal management. Employees take their cues from this attitude and expend energy on looking busy and covering their behinds.

Great bosses treat every employee as if he or she were the most important person in the firm. Excellence is expected everywhere, from the loading dock to the boardroom, and as a result, employees do their best work for themselves, the boss, and the company.

Average bosses see fear—of getting fired, of ridicule, of loss of privilege—as a crucial means of motivating people. As a result, employees and managers alike become paralyzed and unable to make risky decisions, even when those decisions are crucial to the survival of the firm.

Great bosses inspire people to see a better future and how they’ll be a part of it. Employees work harder when they believe in the organization’s
goals, truly enjoy what they’re doing, and (of course) know they’ll share in the rewards.

Average bosses see change as both complicated and threatening, something to be endured only when a firm is in desperate shape. They subconsciously torpedo change… until it’s too late.

Great bosses see change as an inevitable part of life. While they don’t value change for its own sake, they know that success is possible only if employees and organizations embrace new ideas and new ways of doing business.

Average bosses adhere to the old IT-centric view that technology is primarily a means of strengthening management control and increasing predictability. They install centralized computer systems that remove decision-making power from the employees.

Great bosses see technology as a means of freeing people to be more creative and to build better and stronger relationships. When working with the IT group, they adapt back-office systems to the tools, such as smartphones and tablets, that people actually want to use.

Average bosses buy into the notion that work is, at best, a necessary evil. They fully expect employees to resent having to work, and therefore tend to subconsciously define themselves as oppressors and their employees as victims. Everyone then behaves accordingly.

Great bosses see work as something that should be inherently enjoyable, and therefore believe one of the most important jobs of a
manager is to, as far as possible, put people in jobs that make them happy, so more work gets done.