How to Maintain Your Management Career: Simple Concepts and Skills
In order for you to maintain your crucial management career, there are a number of basic concepts and skills you need to understand and learn.
Master them and understand them wisely.
1) Importance of analyzing cost variances
This is what accountants do with the difference between budgeted costs and actual costs. Significant differences (which accountants insist on calling “variances”) are reviewed and targeted for corrective action.
In many companies, accountants spend so much time identifying variances and making sure they’re assigned to the correct accounting period that they never get around to telling management what the variances mean or what might have caused them.
Don’t assume that accountants know the meaning or cause of each variance, and don’t let them suggest that you should too. Ask them to give you a plain language explanation of what caused the variances (you can insist on calling them “differences” to make your point). If they don’t know, make it clear that you expect them to find out and get back to you.
2) Exports as a vital component of company financial reports
“Export or die” is a highly overrated slogan. As an effective manager, you should consider this a choice between two legitimate alternatives, and the second might not be so bad.
Exporting is a pain in the neck. If you’re already doing it, it may be worth continuing, but you’re always
Your life and peace of mind are at the mercy of currency fluctuations, volatile political changes, legal issues, and bewildering cultural quirks that would challenge the patience of a diplomat or the president’s chief of protocol.
In many backward Muslim countries, showing your host the sole of your shoe is a cultural insult serious enough to warrant execution by firing squad.
You’ll notice that in most photos of prominent US politicians visiting areas, the photos invariably show the feet of the politician or military leader planted firmly on the ground as if they were glued there.
Cultural nuances can often be overlooked or misunderstood because of their importance.
If you remember when Prince Bandr of Saudi Arabia visited the Bush ranch, what the West saw in the photos was a pleasant foreigner in blue jeans chatting with his good friend George W. Busch.
The message the West saw in his eyes was that he is our friend “One of the Boys”.
The message to the other side was quite different.
First of all, Prince Bandr sat on a pillow.
He was physically taller (by several inches) than the President of the United States. More important.
Second, he pointed the finger at George Bush in the important photos that were exhibited around the world.
The message you were stupid… You better know your place.
Who needs such aggravation.
Better stay home.
3) Meetings
It has been said that managers have meetings only when they don’t know what to do. That’s not true at all. They also have meetings when they know what to do but want to share the responsibility, or when they want someone else to do it or suggest it.
The purpose of many meetings and the committees they comprise is to ensure that no one in particular can be held accountable.
Even with the most accurate meeting notes, it is very difficult to assign specific responsibility for actions and mistakes.
The meeting or committee is faceless.
4) Financing
Finance has close ties to accounting, and in fact, many people working in a married couple may be accounting students who failed to pass their exams.
Finance people figure out how to pay for things (like recently acquired companies or a bigger and more spacious headquarters building) by selling more shares (which they call “participation” securities) or by borrowing through the sale of bonds (which call “debt guarantee”).
The finance department can also answer shareholder inquiries and suggest how much profit, if any, will be paid to shareholders as dividends each quarter.
5) Recruitment
Smart recruiting is one of the most important weapons in your corporate management arsenal because you need a good team to work with.
Also, good gear can help you shine in good and bad weather.
Most managers recruit so badly that you can look better than average just by avoiding stupid mistakes.
A vacancy offers two options.
You can fill the job or delete it.
If you decide the position is essential, proceed carefully.
What you want to do is hire people who meet the following two main criteria:
1) They are competent enough for their job, but not ambitious enough to go after yours.
2) They feel loyalty to you for hiring them, so you can count on them to have your back in a crisis or at least not stab you in the back.
6) Training
I keep six honest servants,
They taught me everything I knew;
Their names are what and why and when
And how and where and who.
This passage from Rudyard Kipling’s “The Elephant Boy” has a lot of relevance in management.
Use it as a guide when you are
1) Preparation for presentation
2 ) Explain something in a training or orientation session
3) Justify a big project
4) Write a letter or memo
Comparing what you write or say against these six keywords helps you make your point to others and helps you understand it yourself.
6) Advertising
Don’t play with advertising. Delegate the work to an outside ad agency. He can then plead ignorance (which is, of course, the truth) and crucify the agency if a campaign fails. Experts are ideal scapegoats when things go wrong.
I’m sure you can think of many advertising “failures”.
Who do you think took the heat for the poor bugs?
In all probability it was the advertising agency and never the management or especially the committee that hired them.
7) Time management
Management revolves around dealing with people and other resources. To do it right, you have to manage yourself. That comes down to managing your use of time. Good managers do this naturally or learn to do it. Bad managers never master the art. .
Manage your time effectively by:
1) Minimize downtime
2 Set aside time to think
3) Control meetings with an iron fist
4) Refuse to get involved in activities that are not connected to your goals
5) Require subordinates to never bring you problems without also proposing solutions
6) Announce to everyone within earshot that your schedule is packed and you’ll have trouble making time for one more meeting, conference, or obligation.
Lastly, the “my door is always open” philosophy can be one of the worst time wasters in the world.
You have to be available sometimes, of course, because you can’t afford to isolate yourself from the mainstream of communications. The key is to be accessible at certain times, so that your day is not plagued by constant interruptions.
A secretary can serve as an excellent buffer to defend your schedule from unwanted meetings, visits, and occasional employee chatter.
The two most common and obvious symptoms of poor time management are excessive overtime work and heavy work home at night and on weekends.
If you’re doing either, you need to look at how you spend your day.
Some deviant corporate cultures actually value and reward unbalanced personal and family lifestyle behavior which ultimately results in very poor economics of any kind.
You may have to “go with the flow,” at least with the overtime job.
Taking work home is the easiest plot of all.
After all, who’s to say what’s in the heavy briefcase?
Learn and understand these concepts and skills and you will be here for a long time.
As with most of the important things in life that really matter, they are quite simple.
It all depends on the application and being thorough.
Remember that those who do not know what to do go to the administration career, so their competition is minimal.
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