- •ChapTeR 1. Individual work technique: ноw то мaкe up for lost time
- •1.1. Lack of time
- •Results of the Research
- •From Whom to Learn
- •Waste of Working Time
- •What to Begin with
- •What Will the Recommendations Give You
- •1.2. Recommendations for organizing time
- •Rule 1. Make a daily schedule listing all jobs in the order of their importance.
- •Rule 2. Take up first of all the most important and urgent affairs.
- •Rule 3. Escape from routine work and try to stay alone at least for an hour.
- •Rule 4. Don't scatter your attention, concentrate on one job at a time.
- •Rule 5. Try to make over as many tasks as possible to others.
- •Rule 6. Update the system of control.
- •Rule 7. Don't allow the papers pile upon the table.
- •Rule 8. Use the effect of 7 "small things'
- •1.3. On thc applicability of recommended rules
- •Some Tips
- •1.4. Do not let us linger!
- •Habits Dominate over Us
- •Inertia Is Rooted in the Truth That It's Easier to Go on with a Job than Begin a New One.
- •Unpleasant job
- •Complicated job
- •Uncertain situation
- •Снaртer 2. Business communication
- •2.1. Business conversation, talks
- •Importance of business communication
- •2.2. Ten rules to prepare for and carry on a business talk
- •Rule 4. Choose the right place.
- •There should be nothing to disturb or divert you;
- •The place should correspond to the aims of the talk.
- •Rule 5. Objectives of the first part of a talk: a) to have the participants focus their attention on the subjects; b) to create the atmosphere of mutual confidence.
- •Rule 6. Bring your tactics in line with the aims.
- •Rule 7. Try to keep your partner talking most of the time.
- •Rule 8. Rise to the occasion.
- •Rule 9. Fix the information obtained.
- •Rule 10. Stop the conversation right after reaching the set purpose.
- •6.3. Particulars of various kinds of business talks
Rule 5. Try to make over as many tasks as possible to others.
Before taking up any job, ask yourself this question: can't I possibly pass it over to someone else? Many managers are piled up with work mainly because they are accustomed to count only on themselves: "I just can trust no one to do it. Others will do it in the wrong way". Instead of that they had better say with self-criticism: "I'm not able to organize my own work."
Among the rules for managers of a number of big foreign companies there is one that reads: "You shouldn't do things that can be done by your subordinates. If you do that you are not needed here, and another worker with a smaller salary can be employed instead of you."
However to have your assignments carried out in a proper way try to fulfill a number of general requirements.
•Delegating powers. When delegating your powers to a subordinate you pass part of your responsibilities over to him, but manager's responsibility remains with you. His powers must include the right to make decisions and act on your behalf.
•Maximum freedom (within the subordinate's competence).
•Checking the work by results, and not by the methods of execution.
• Right to making errors. You yourself make mistakes and rather often. If you deprive subordinate of this right (by strict checking, reprimands for the slightest errors) you will deprive him of all initiative because you put him in worse conditions as compared with your own.
•Careful choice of executors. Assign the task not to anyone who happens to be at hand, but to the person who has better possibilities to carry out your assignment in the proper way.
•Clearness of the task. In many cases it leaves much to be desired. There is something behind the opinion that "the boss often does not know what he wants". The situation is even worse because the truth is that high "rate of understanding" is rather an exception than a rule in human communication. Considering this, a manager must make sure in a diplomatic way if the worker who is trusted with a task has understood him correctly.
Meeting all these requirements provides favourable conditions for a proper fulfillment of the job. Only this provision makes it reasonable to attach others to the fulfillment of tasks you tried to fulfill yourself.
Lack of such provision prevents from correct fulfillment of your assignments, and that, in its turn, leads the manager to form a habit to count only on himself. This lies at the root of the notorious routine in which the manager is heaped up with an avalanche of petty questions, which leave him no time for bigger things that are really worthy of his attention.
Rule 6. Update the system of control.
In case you don't keep watch over the executors' work, their discipline is bound to fall, any efforts on the part of the manager are rendered fruitless, and his activities are abortive.
Nor will excessive control do, as it takes too much of the manager's time, and turns him into a sort of overseer who has no time for performing many other most important functions.
Those are improvement of production quality, prognosis, innovations, updating of the organization of production and management, increase in efficiency of labour and executors' interest, improvement of working conditions, preventive measures against conflicts and their solution. Besides, excessive control inevitably leads to curtailing the executors’ initiative and forming the habit of inertness, so that they will not lift a finger without chief’s permission. And that engulfs the manager still deeper into the quagmire of daily routine.
Thus, in matters of control it is necessary to find a kind of golden mean. The following two-stage system can be recommended:
Systematic control of every executor can be exercised over a number of key points. (Single out the key points in the executor's activity and bind him to inform you regularly about them).
Once in a month check the assiduity and responsibility of every subordinate by thorough inspection of how he performs one of his basic functions. That will enable you:
• to make an objective opinion about the subordinate's work;
•to be in the know of all the most important affairs;
to have the subordinate believe that no serious mistake is going to escape the chiefs notice;
to help him with constructive criticism.