“He is without doubt one of the foremost thinkers on the subject in the world” SIR JOHN HARVEY-JONES EDITED BY NEIL THOMAS Contingency The JOHN ADAIR handbook of MANAGEMENT and LEADERSHIP Inside front cover The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership Edited by Neil Thomas Special discounts for bulk Thorogood quantities of Thorogood 10-12 Rivington Street books are available to London EC2A 3DU corporations, institutions, Telephone: 020 7749 4748 associations and other Fax: 020 7729 6110 organisations. For more Email: info@thorogood.ws information contact Web: www.ws Thorogood by telephone Thorogood is a division of Acorn Magazines Ltd. on 020 7749 4748, by fax on 020 7729 6110, or email us: info@thorogood.ws © John Adair 2004 – edited material in this format, John Adair, Neil Thomas and Thorogood Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser. No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of any material in this publication can be For information on accepted by the author or publisher. seminars and training with the John Adair A CIP catalogue record for this book is available Leadership Foundation, from the British Library.uk PB: ISBN 1 85418 204 8 For information about HB: ISBN 1 85418 004 5 John Adair and Printed in India by Replika Press products/services, see www.uk Designed and typeset by Driftdesign Contents Part 1 Self-management Chapter 1 Time management Introduction .4 Basic approach to time management .4 Developing a personal sense of time.6 Analyse and improve your use of time.9 Identifying long-term goals .9 Making medium-term plans.12 Planning the day.13 The Adair urgency/importance matrix.14 Tips on daily planning .15 Making the best use of your best time.16 Organising office work.17 Dealing with interruptions .17 Dealing with paperwork .17 Other elements to improve your time management in the office .21 Deciding what to delegate .22 Making use of committed time .24 Managing your health.24 How topped up are your batteries?.25 Summary and six-month follow-up test.28 Chapter 2 Setting and achieving goals and objectives Introduction.32 Personal goals and objectives .32 Professional/business goals and objectives.35 Summary and six-month follow-up test.39 Chapter 3 Decision-making and problem-solving Introduction.42 Decision-making skills.42 The Manager as decision-maker .44 Key elements of effective thinking and decision-making .47 Other useful approaches .50 Originality and Innovation.50 The concept of value in decision-making .50 Decision-making and weighing up the options .52 Summary and six-month follow-up test.54 Chapter 4 Creativity and innovation Introduction.62 Recruit/select creative people.63 Encouragement of creativity in teams.65 Communicating about innovation.65 Overcoming obstacles to innovation .66 Organisation and Innovation .66 The Generation of ideas.71 Characteristics of innovators .75 Summary and six-month follow-up test.76 Chapter 5 Part 1: Personal reminders and thoughts worth thinking Introduction.80 Setting and achieving goals and objectives .94 Decision-making and problem-solving.98 Creativity and innovation.100 Part 2 Managing others Chapter 6 Leadership and teambuilding Leadership.118 Qualities of leadership .120 Functions of leadership.129 Defining the task.139 Setting an example .142 Developing leadership skills .149 Summary and six-month follow-up test.153 Chapter 7 Motivation and people management Introduction .157 Needs and motivation.158 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs .158 McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y .159 Herzberg’s motivation – hygiene theory.160 Managers/leaders and motivation.163 Getting the best from people .165 Be motivated yourself.165 Select people who are highly motivated .166 Treat each person as an individual.167 Set realistic and challenging targets .168 Remember that progress motivates.170 Create a motivating environment.171 Provide fair rewards .173 Summary and six-month follow-up test.174 Chapter 8 Communication and presentation Introduction .178 Issues in communication.183 Speaking and presentation skills.187 One-to-one interviews .193 Within your organisation .195 Summary and six-month follow-up test.196 Chapter 9 Part 2: Personal reminders and thoughts worth thinking Introduction .200 Leadership and teambuilding .200 Motivation and people management .214 Communication and presentation.220 Part 1 Self-management Chapter 1 Time management 2 Setting and achieving goals and objectives 3 Decision-making and problem-solving 4 Creativity and innovation 5 Part 1: Personal reminders and thoughts worth thinking Blank Chapter 1 Time management Introduction Developing a personal sense of time Identifying long-term goals Making medium-term plans Planning the day Making the best use of your best time Organising office work Managing meetings Delegating effectively Making use of committed time Managing your health Summary and six-month follow-up test Introduction Time management is about managing your time with a focus on achievement: of doing and completing those things which you want to do and which need doing. Time management is goal-driven and results oriented.
Success in time management is measured by the quality of both your work and your personal life. Tempus Fugit Whilst it is true to say that life only makes sense in retrospect, it can be shaped by your sense of time and purpose. In keeping with business planning, time planning – and your approach to the use of your time (and to the extent that you can influence it, how others spend their time) – should be to avoid the trap of failing to plan, which is, in effect, planning to fail. In other words, if time is money, spend it wisely.
Basic approach to time management You need to be certain that you: • can define your business role and know what constitutes to a successful outcome • spend time thinking and planning for yourself and others • have a clear understanding of your business purpose • know the balance you wish to achieve between your business and your private commitments (and can identify the time demands on both). 4 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership The 1 Develop a personal sense of time Adair ten 2 Identify long-term goals 3 Make medium-term plans principles 4 Plan the day of time 5 Make the best use of your best time management 6 Organise office work 7 Manage meetings 8 Delegate effectively 9 Make use of committed time 10 Manage your health At all costs you should avoid falling into one of the following stereotypes: • a poor delegator • a bad organiser • an excellent procrastinator • a poor performer at meetings • a purposeless executive. Chapter 1: Time management 5 Developing a personal sense of time First audit how you spend your time, then analyse how you can improve your use of time. Time audit Keep a record (a daily time log) of where your time currently goes – break your day into fifteen minutes chunks for recording purposes.
Do this for a week or so and review after each batch of three or four days. Reproduced from Keytime Time Management with the kind permission of Keytime Management Developement 6 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership Peter Drucker’s view is that only when we can manage time can we manage anything. In managing time we first need to know how we use it now and then change what and when we do things.Your time audit will probably confirm the findings of an IBM research which showed that the four activities that take up over 50% of the average executive’s time are: 1 Meetings 2 Reading and writing business materials 3 Telephoning 4 Travelling. Your time audit can identify these and others by using symbols ascribed to activities, for example: M Meetings (in committee form) Mi Meetings (in one-to-one interview form) F Finance and figure work T Telephone Wr Writing (reports) Wd Writing letters or dictation T Travelling R&d Research and development (including reading, training and thinking) AOB Any other business activity (should be specified) Chapter 1: Time management 7 Your time log can then be summarised in the following format: Activity Time Spent % of time Comment (in hours) (how to save time from now on) Research indicates that we make assumptions about where our time goes and overestimate time spent on telephone calls, correspondence, report writing and planning, but underestimate time spent in meetings and one-to-one discussions.
Keeping a record will confirm how you really spend your time and enable you to change how you spend it. 8 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership Analyse and improve your use of time What elements can you readily identify which you can immediately change? Experience shows that improvements lie in changing the way you handle: interruptions (in person or by the telephone); meetings; travel; and incoming/outgoing mail. You can improve your use of time if you ensure that: 1 your time is spent according to a clear idea of your priorities and main responsibilities 2 you isolate the unimportant and ruthlessly prune out unnecessary or unproductive activities 3 you combine any ‘free’ time (ie free from meetings or other people’s demands) to create meaningful and usable time of your own 4 tasks are simplified where others would not be adversely affected 5 you are not doing tasks which could be performed by others. The balance of this chapter looks at how to ensure you improve your time management.
The approach taken is to work from the long- term back to the immediate future, analysing your goals and gives time management tips on how to achieve them. Identifying long-term goals First of all, it is necessary to define your organisation’s purpose and the purpose or your job, ie to what end is your time being expended. Then, long-term goals can be set in terms of the results that the organisation wishes to achieve (and your role as part of those goals being achieved). Chapter 1: Time management 9 Defining the purpose of your organisation requires an answer to the basic question: why does this organisation exist? You should be able to write this business purpose down: Defining the purpose of your own jobs requires an answer to the question: why does my job exist? Again, you should be able to write this purpose down: Identifying long-term goals, the strategy of your business and your part in it, will result from pondering these questions: Where are we now? do we want to be in 3 or 5 year’s time? What strengths and weaknesses do we have? How can we improve? can we get to where we want to be? These same questions can be applied to your personal life The answers to these questions will help you identify long-term goals.
The longer the time frame the more fuzzy the goals become, so you should then reduce your field of vision to focus on tangible, attainable, definable and measurable goals, but not lose sight of the far ground. 10 The John Adair Handbook of Management and Leadership You should reach a point where you can be clear about long-term aims/directions and medium, or short term goals/objectives which will be met and which will be part of a plan to continue on the road of achieving your longer-term aspirations. Making medium-term plans Your key areas of responsibility (and how your performance will be measured) should be listed and for each you must set objectives with time budgeted for each.