Art of Managing Archives

Art of Managing—Be Careful About Labeling Your Employees

There’s an interesting article at Harvard Business Review, entitled, “How to Manage a Team of B Players,” by Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic. I appreciate the author’s attempt at describing the leadership challenge and approach to molding a group of “ordinary” individuals into a high performance team. He offers some compelling guidance. I am however, uncomfortable with his easy use of the term, “B-Players.” And while I am absolutely guilty in the past of using the A, B, C, designation to characterize individuals and their level of skill/capability/potential, I’ve grown uncomfortable with the cavalier assignment of people to these categories.

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:08-05:00July 14th, 2015|Art of Managing, Leadership|6 Comments

Art of Managing—In Negotiations, Focus on Interests, Not Positions

All of us are involved in negotiating for something on a fairly frequent basis, and over and over again, most of us make the same critical mistake. We reduce the negotiation to a battle of wills over positions (I want/You want) and we try and brute force our way to a conclusion. For many situations, there’s a better way.

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:08-05:00July 9th, 2015|Art of Managing|0 Comments

Art of Managing—There’s No Substitute for the Right Tools

Most of the tools of management were conceived in an era characterized by a great deal of consistency and predictability…two attributes in short supply today. It’s time to rethink everything, including the tools we use to manage and plan for our very uncertain futures. There is no substitute for the right tool. Sometimes, you simply have to create that tool.

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:09-05:00June 10th, 2015|Art of Managing, Management Innovation, Strategy|1 Comment

Art of Managing—Thriving at the Speed of Change

(Note: this post originally appeared at the Management Excellence blog. Copyright 2015 by Art Petty.) My one disappointment with much of the current business writing about change is that it is short on the “what to do about it,” content, in part because the notion of all this change makes for fascinating reading, and in part, because it’s not clear what exactly we should be doing in many cases. Here are 5 big starter ideas to help you and your team learn to thrive in this new world of uncertainty and ambiguity:

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:09-05:00May 6th, 2015|Art of Managing, Leadership, Management Innovation|2 Comments

Leading the Project? Define Your Charter to Support High Performance

It’s hard to argue with either of these statements, nonetheless, too many project managers deeply skilled in the mechanics of their vocation fall short on learning and practicing the soft-skills critical for high performance team development. When project fail...and too many do, there's a safe bet that people-related issues are key contributors to the initiative's demise. Great project managers define their role beyond the project mechanics liberally. Here are 7 steps to help you define and begin using your own Project Leader's Charter in pursuit of high performance:

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:10-05:00March 27th, 2015|Art of Managing, Leadership, Project Management|0 Comments

Art of Managing—Helping Your Firm Navigate a Level-Up Situation

As managers, it’s our sacred responsibility to create and continuously improve an environment that allows our people to do their best work. Few managers would disagree with their responsibility and accountability for creating this effective environment. Like breathing, it’s a good idea to invest time and energy in practices that promote a healthy, efficient and effective system. In reality, many firms do a good job on this in stable markets. However, when faced with the need to adapt or change due to market disruptions, too many firms struggle to change their system to support the pursuit of new. Here are 7 ideas to help managers avoid the most common mistakes as they venture forward into uncharted territory:

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:10-05:00February 22nd, 2015|Art of Managing, Leadership, Management Innovation, Project Management, Strategy|0 Comments

Art of Managing—The Quest to Sustain Success

The business and management equivalent of The Quest of mythology and story is the pursuit of the secret ingredients…the behaviors, actions and approaches that if adopted, will allow one firm to outperform (measured by one or more of: growth, profitability, innovation, share price, market capitalization) a peer group for an extended period of time. Here are 7 core behaviors for successful management teams to adopt that will help them survive with their quest to sustain success:

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:11-05:00January 13th, 2015|Art of Managing, High Performance Management Teams, Management Innovation|0 Comments

Art of Managing—Steering Clear of Flail and Fail

Businesses of all sizes, shapes and ages run into rough patches. Rapid growth, disruptive competitors or technologies, regulatory changes or the end of the road for well-worn strategies are all potential culprits in the move from success to struggle. It’s critical at this point for a firm’s leaders and managers to react carefully and appropriately in this unfamiliar terrain or they risk moving quickly from flail to fail. They invite flailure. Here are 5 ideas to stem the tide when the flailing starts:

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:11-05:00December 18th, 2014|Art of Managing, Leadership, Management Innovation, Strategy|0 Comments

Art of Managing—Strengthen Performance by Clarifying Your Firm’s Values

Successful companies in my experience operate with a set of clearly understood, actionable values. These values transcend behavior and point to purpose, direction and approach. Most of the time, they are codified or articulated however, in the case of some smaller or start-up organizations, they are present in the environment even if they are missing from the framed artwork on the wall. If your values aren't working incredibly hard to support your firm every day, it's time to consider a refresh.

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:12-05:00November 24th, 2014|Art of Managing, Decision-Making, Management Innovation|0 Comments

Art of Managing—Moving Beyond A Failure to Execute

Resolving the failure to execute problem is much more like a long-term fitness program than a quick weight-loss diet. It involves changing the thinking about what’s most important for organizational health and success and doing the hard work of developing new habits that support continuous improvement. Here are 7 ideas to help you begin developing some healthy new habits:

By Art Petty|2016-10-22T17:11:12-05:00October 29th, 2014|Art of Managing, Management Innovation, Strategy|4 Comments

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