Can You Read A P&L Statement?

I'm not kidding. I'm asking a serious question. As a boss, a manager, can you read a Profit and Loss Statement?

You might be wondering why I would ask such a question, but there are plenty of bosses out in the business world who really don't know how to tell if their office, branch, or even department is meeting or exceeding budget...or worse yet, if their team is behind budget.

Businesses are in existence to make money. They need to be able to regularly track revenue against expenditures. Even charity organizations want to ensure the only money leaving the organization is money that they plan to give away.

Let's get back to the managers. I'm not going to judge. Maybe you don't know how to read a P&L because:

• You are a new manager and no one taught you when you got into your job.
• Maybe math is not your strength so you've just avoided the whole idea.
• Maybe you know how, sort of, but it's just not that big a deal to you.

Regardless, you need to figure out how to do it...and fast. Perhaps your current supervisor may not put a lot of emphasis on this part of your duties, but you can't expect that to last forever. So:

• If you feel comfortable, ask your boss. You've got a window of learning for some period of time after you begin leading your office.
• Go to the finance person assigned to your team and request a "class" (chances are that they'll be so thrilled that you want to know that they won't tell anybody).
• Get a fellow manager or your mentor to quietly show you how.

I don't care how you learn this, but just ensure you do. If you can't read a P&L and consequently manage the cash in and out of your group, it will catch up with you sooner or later. Most importantly, how can you help your company grow if you can't measure how your team is doing?

Is the ability to read a Profit and Loss statement as big a deal as I'm making it? Do you know of other reasons a manager may not know how to read a P&L? Do you have suggestions as to the best way to learn other than what I mentioned?

The Gift of Leadership...Volunteer

Many people are leaders. One could argue that leaders are found in every group of people even when the groups are comprised of only two people. One or both of the people in the two-person group may lead the other in one aspect or another.

While leaders abound throughout our world, all leaders are not good and competent. Many of them are very poor and have no business leading others...ever. However, some people have been blessed with the gift of leadership. By that, I mean that they are good, solid, maybe outstanding leaders, who help people and organizations grow and flourish.

For those of you who are blessed with this gift of leadership, especially "blessed" leaders in the business world, your talents are in great demand. There are never enough competent leaders to go around.

I'm not talking about moving from one job to another one. By "great demand, I don't mean always moving up in organizations to broaden your scope of leadership, either. I'm writing about broadening your scope of leadership by using some of your talents outside your vocation.

Volunteer groups are plentiful and most are constantly in need of resources, primarily people, to help their causes. Churches, libraries, homeless shelters, hospitals -- the list goes on and on -- need the talent that you, gifted leaders have to offer. These organizations exist to help improve our planet and the creatures that inhabit it. I heard a sermon at my church today about our using our ability to influence people and things to help make the world a better place, to serve others.

As gifted, blessed leaders, you don't have to keep all your talent tied up at work. I challenge you to use your gifts for the common good. What opportunities and organizations do you know of that could use the gifts of talented leaders?

Make Eye Contact

Are you kidding me? You're blogging about eye contact? Absolutely, I am.

Good eye contact or the lack, thereof, can make a huge impression on those around you. Personally, I like to make eye contact when I'm in a conversation with others. I also like to make eye contact when I'm listening to a speaker in a larger setting.

Good eye contact conveys several possible meanings:

• "I am a confident person...confident enough to look you straight in the eyes."
• "I am interested in what you have to say."
• "I am engaged and listening."

People want to interact more with those who convey meanings like this.

The reverse is true, too, helping provide less than positive perceptions to those around us: disinterest, distrust, disengagement, etc.

As leaders, being and acting confident are key components to success. What other ideas are conveyed by making good eye contact (or poor eye contact)? How can this help leaders be more successful?

The Reluctant Delegator

You're a busy boss or project manager. You've got tons of work on your plate. You don't have enough hours in the day to get all your work done. What will you do?

If you're a boss or in charge of a project, one thing you've probably got going for you is a team and team members. That should mean that there are people who may have similar knowledge as you and can hopefully complete tasks with a level of quality you deem appropriate.

So why don't you delegate? It's amazing, but many bosses out in the work world just don't do it. Some reasons leaders are reluctant to delegate are:

1. You've been burned before and so the only person you trust to get work done and done well is YOU.
2. All your people have work of their own to complete. You feel guilty "dumping" work on others.
3. You're not quite sure how to effectively delegate.

Here are four excellent reasons to delegate:

1. So you don't die from overwork.
2. To showcase your team members.
3. Development for your people.
4. Your team members may actually come up with a better outcome than you would have on your own (and that's OK).

How much should I give out to others? Look at:

1. Your peoples' strengths.
2. Their work load from your perspective (and you may need to ask them, too).
3. The attributes of different team members who you want to develop.

How do I delegate?

1. Let each team member know what you need done (show examples, if needed).
2. Provide the deadline.
3. Set up review or check-in times so you can gauge progress and provide guidance or assistance, as needed.
4. Review the work (don't assume it's the way you want it automatically)

Delegation doesn't have to be painful. It can even be rewarding experience for both you and your team if you use the opportunity to help your people grow and develop. Don't underestimate what others can do. Sometimes, when you let people own a task, they can surprise you with the great results.

Be Approachable

Leaders each have a persona. Leaders can be cocky and boisterous or quiet and unassuming. Regardless of the type of leader you are, to be effective you need to be approachable. Your people need to be able to go to you with problems or issues that are work-related and sometimes personal.

"I've told my people that I'm always available for them." Great. Glad to hear it.

"I have an Open-door policy." Wonderful.

These are great things to say. Do your words match your actions? Sometimes leaders send their team members multiple messages. Primarily, there's the message of availability, like above. The subtle (or not so subtle) secondary message(s) could be one or several of the following:

1. Door always closed, even with signs like "do not disturb."
2. Talking down to employees like they're stupid idiots when they come with problems, especially if the solutions seem simple to us. Sometimes we even say, "why do I have to think of everything?"
3. Killing the messenger (an oldie, but a goodie) when the message isn't as positive as we'd like.
4. The stare ("don't even think of talking to me right now").
5. Acting put out when asked to turn our attention away from what we're doing to talk to team members.
6. I'm a martyr and that's OK. "Go ahead and lay your troubles on an already overworked boss. Don't feel bad."

Sure, why would anybody have trouble approaching a boss who communicates mixed messages? It can be very troubling to employees and perhaps cause them to give up ever trying to connect with you.

I'm not trying to beat up on leaders too much today. It's just that, to be successful leaders, we need to have empathetic spirits (being able to walk in oure employees' shoes). We need to be able to relate and to be able to help lift the crap off our people, whatever they're dealing with (within limits, of course), so they can be efficient and effective. To do that, we have to be approachable.

We all want to be strong, positive leaders and bosses and I'm sure we are a lot of the time. However, like I've mentioned several times, leaders are on constant display and we're sending out messages to our people all the time. We just need to ensure the messages we want to send are the ones that are being transmitted.

This is a great coaching point for your younger leaders, too. When you're working with your less experienced managers and coaching them, help them understand how their words and actions need to fit together so their people will come to them with the issues weighing them down. Model this behavior for your younger leaders and your coaching will ring true.

Bottom Line: "a song is 10% lyrics and 90% music" (lyrics = words & music = actions) and a lot of time people remember the music much more easily than the words. Let's do our best to ensure our lyrics and music fit together harmoniously.

EMAIL: If There's Conflict, Pick Up The Phone

Helloooo!

What am I talking about, you ask? Why, I'm talking about keeping you out of trouble.

Specifically, I'm talking about email conversations that start getting out of hand. We've all experienced them. Sometimes, it's merely an email that goes back and forth between parties more than 2 or 3 times. That's a waste of time that a phone call can probably take care of quickly.

More importantly, though, I'm talking about disagreements or tensions being shared over email. You know, email is a great tool and most of us wouldn't want to go back to the early 90s when emails were some weird thing and email addresses were 45 characters long. Most of the time it's quick and easy and efficient. However, email has a difficult (if not almost impossible) time expressing proper inflection or emotion which are much more apparent in telephone or face-to-face conversations.

Because of email's "sterility" so to speak, innocent emails can sometimes erupt into full conflicts because people misread what is being written by the other party. One of the parties makes a bad joke or a sarcastic remark and the other party takes it wrong...then, boom! Conflict. Even telephone conversations, which I'm advocating over email in tense situations, have their limitations that only face-to-face conversations can overcome (hopefully) because phone calls can't show body language and facial expressions.

Now, I know that email provides a form of insulation that can be very comforting at times. People who want to avoid conflict can use email instead of getting in someone's face or having to step out of their comfort zone to get stuff done. This insulation can actually help make things worse.

My advice to you, if you're in an email conversation that starts going south, is to stop the madness, pick up the phone and get things sorted out before they blow up in your face.

You'll be glad you did.

"Helicopter Management"

It sounds similar to another term used in our society today, doesn't it? That phrase is "helicopter parenting" and it refers to parents who hover over their kids to protect them and to solve all their problems.

"Helicopter management" connotes the same type of hovering that some bosses do when they try so hard to help make their people happy and protect them, etc. Some equate it with "taking care of your people." I couldn't disagree more. To me, it's a lot more about trying to make to employees like you or maybe trying to do things yourself because you don't trust your team not to mess up and make you look bad.

"Taking care of your people" means other things to me. It means teaching them to be productive (time management and organization skills, for example), coaching them about how to solve their own problems, challenging them to use their brains (see the post, "Well, What do you think you should do?" for more info), and nudging them out of their comfort zones to try new things (like getting up in front of an audience to present a book review or article or idea).

"Helicopter management" is a form of micromanagement, isn't it?

Think about how you interact with your team and look hard at the idea of "helicopter management". Does that describe you?