The Cranky Middle Manager Show #287 Managing Through Changes Richard Bevan

Posted on 28. Jun, 2011 by Wayne in Podcast

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Wayne Turmel is back with another episode of the Cranky Middle Manager Show. Today he talks to Richard Bevan, author of Changemaking-Tactics and Resources for Managing Organizational Change. We also talk about your feedback and a chaotic quote about chaos and order.

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Show Notes

0:00 Welcome back after a brief hiatus! Thank you to everyone who responded to our survey about the show. Turns out you pretty much like us as we are. Here’s my challenge to you, tell someone! Our goal is to  listenership 50% by the end ofthe year. Looking for 30,000 downloads a month.

3:43 The quote of the week is on the topic of change,chaos and order.  Douglas Hofstadter tells us all about it.

4:55 Welcome Richard Bevan to the show.  He’s the author of Changemaking. Whenever we talk about managing change we tend to put a negative spin on it, but people aren’t naturally change resistant… they resist change they don’t understand, don’t like and haven’t been involved with.So what are some of the behaviors that tip you off when things aren’t going as well as they should.

8:05 We walk through a change on the team level. What’s the ideal way to communicate the change. There’s a 3-part framework  for successful change: clarity, engagement and communication. Clarity is important because ifyou don’t state things clearly, people will make stuff up, and it’s never the best case scenario.

11:15 The next step is engagement. People will adapt a change they’re part of, and resist one that’s imposed. You have to engage them to get input on how it should be done, and to understand the issues and questions in advance.

15:16 How do you manage a change that’s a fait a complit. Can you engage people and get buy in? People have to know what’s negotiable on what’s not.

18:00 Communication is critical (duh) but it’s a process, not a one-time event.  There needs to be interaction

21:30 As managers, we often have to communicate changes that we don’t understand or support ourselves. We talk pretty honestly about what happens when managers aren’t dialed in early.

27:15

Richard’s Resources

visit Changemakingthebook.com for tools and worksheets.

The Cranky Middle Manager Show #286 5th Anniversary and Why We Pick Lousy Leaders Jeffrey Cohn

Posted on 06. Jun, 2011 by Wayne in General, Podcast

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Today is the 286th episode of the Cranky Middle Manager Show and we have a great guest and an assignment for you. We’ll talk to Jeffrey Cohn about his book, “Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders? A Better Way To Evaluate Leadership Potential”. It’s also the 5th Anniversary of the show, and we have some questions for you. If I’m going to keep doing the show I can’t fly blind folks. More on that in a minute.

Meanwhile check out these upcoming webinar workshops. PDUs are available for PMI Members

How to Create and Manage Remote Teams June 24th

Web Presentation Basics June 27 and 29

Show Notes

0:00 This is not a drill! I need your help. We’ve been doing this show for 5 years and I need some feedback (As managers you know that, right?). I have 4 questions for you. Please answer them as fully as you can and you can either post them to this blog site or drop me an email.

Here are the questions:

1. What do you like about the show? Please be specific (guests, dedications, quotes, links to resources….basically why do you hang around listening to me?)
2. What do you NOT like about the program. Be as specific as you can. You can’t hurt my feelings.
3. What is your favorite episode or Cranky memory?
4. What can we do to make the show better? Do we need to change the format?  Guests and topics you’d like to hear? Should we change the format?

After 5 years, it’s time to do some navel gazing. I appreciate your wisdom.

5:45 The quote of the week is from Confucius. Change is part of both wisdom and happiness. Seriously.

7:17 Welcome Jeffrey Cohn to the show. He’s one of the authors of “Why Are We Bad at Picking Good Leaders”. Do we pick leaders? Aren’t they there and we just follow them? I love a book with a clear title, which apparently the publisher didn’t.

9:30 How can we pick leaders unless we look at past behavior? Here’s the paradox of the book… the past is NOT prologue. Just look at recent headlines to see the truth in this. Why are we so disappointed?

14:06 Why are so surprised at bad behavior, especially by those claiming to be so moral? Turns out it’s not moral we’re looking for, it’s integrity. The 7 qualities of leadership are: integrity, empathy, emotional intelligence,vision, judgment, courage and passion.

17:45 Emotional Intelligence is what derails most people when they reach general management. Discipline mastery isn’t as important as the ability to know yourself and others. Yes, you can be booksmart AND emotionally intelligent. You can also be a genius and an emotional moron.

21:45 Does vision mean you have to be the “visionary”or is it enough to help set the vision that others come up with.

24:50 How much does style matter in a leader? Barack Obama is a great example of a polarizing style…what does Jeff think? Turns out, not as much as you’d think.

28:20 Okay so what kind of changes do we followers have to make so we pick better leaders? Using the 7 attributes of leaders is a good start.

29:59

Visit pickingbetterleaders.com