Motivation Shots from The Doc

Are you totally clear about what your outcomes are for 2010?

Whether you call them goals, objectives or targets, these are the factors that you’re ultimately judged on. You’ll find them in your job description or contract and I’m sure your manager will concentrate on them at your next performance review. It’s what you’re paid to do.

Many managers allow themselves to be distracted and diverted from their outcomes. They get involved in all sorts of situations that take their ‘eye off the ball.’

I regularly run a workshop for managers called Managing Your Priorities. At the start of the workshop I ask the managers to draw a map on a large sheet of flip chart paper of all the things they do in their job. They almost inevitably fill that page with all sorts of tasks and activities. More often than not they surprise themselves with what’s on the page.

I then ask them to identify and mark with a large cross, their real priorities, and the outcomes that they’re ultimately judged on. Out of all the tasks and activities on the page they usually cross only five or six priorities and sometimes less. (You might want to try this exercise yourself sometime).

What we do find however is that the priorities that they identify are not allocated the time they deserve on a day to day basis. The managers will often blame their senior manager for many of the tasks which divert them from their priorities which is perfectly fair. However there are many tasks that a manager takes on because:
1.    They don’t like to say “no”
2.    They don’t trust anyone else to do it
3.    They just ‘like’ to do it themselves.

I then spend time in the workshop showing managers how to communicate with their senior manager and their other colleagues in order to minimise the number of tasks that don’t contribute to their outcomes. It’s back again to who runs your mind; is it you or is it somebody else?

Many managers fall into the trap of believing that their manager will understand why they haven’t hit their target or quota. They seem to think that because the senior manager has handed out all sorts of other tasks, then they’ll accept your failure to achieve your target.

Well let me tell you now – they won’t!

The Motivational Manager keeps very focussed on outcomes and doesn’t allow anyone or anything to divert them without good reason.
Tell me what you think.

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