Confucius said: "Wisdom begins where things are given the right names." Chris McGoff, University of Maryland professor and businessman with 30 years of experience, in his book The Art of Management. 46 key principles and tools of the leader”, managed to clearly formulate the rules of doing business. So, there are five main principles.
Clean area
In 2007, Microsoft found that an employee in an organization takes an average of 15 minutes to continue working after being distracted by another SMS. And in general, if a person is distracted from the task, he will spend 50% more time on it and make 50% more mistakes. Depressing statistics.
How to avoid falling into this trap? Make "clean areas". You can do these areas in your diary, in your office, conference room, at home, or in your head. This means taking the time and putting aside all thoughts, gadgets, meetings, distractions, and biases. You let into the pure area only that, without which it is impossible to achieve the intended goal.
Confusion
In the VI century BC. people believed that the earth was flat. Imagine the day when Pythagoras gathered all his fellow citizens in a large amphitheater and said: “We think the Earth is level, right? Well, we were wrong. There is no end of the earth. If we go to the east, then in the end we will come to where we came from”. And the people began to be puzzled.
It's the same with any group that you lead or are a member of. This also applies to you personally. Everyone now adheres to some beliefs, thinking that he is right, but by and large, he is not. To get rid of false beliefs and find the right one, develop a general position, define a single goal and begin to act in concert, it is necessary to endure confusion. Confusion is the best state for learning.
Process - content
Many top managers conduct many meetings in the same way: they manage the process, while proposing specific actions and evaluating everything that is proposed by others on the fly. It is unacceptable. If you manage a process in which you are directly interested in the results, you will certainly manipulate it. When there are many participants and the stakes are high, work and management must be separated. Someone should be responsible for developing a well-thought-out and balanced system.
The same person must ensure that the attitude towards all members of the group is objective. Whoever takes on this important role is best served to forgo the right to participate in the process. This role is called neutral. The employee undertakes to be useful to the group, without evaluating the ideas put forward and implemented, and makes sure that there are no violations of the established process.
The blind men and the elephant
Almost everyone knows the story of the blind, one of whom, holding the trunk of an elephant, said that he was holding a snake in his hands. The words of another blind man, who mistook the leg of an elephant for a tree, sounded in the same way. The two people came to different conclusions because they had different information. Once your group members realize that each of them is holding only “a fraction of the elephant,” differences of opinion will be resolved.
It happens that the lack of a complete picture leads to bad consequences. For example, during Hurricane Katrina, a large amount of ice melted in one of the city's stadiums, while people were dying of dehydration.
Draw an elephant. You don't need to be an artist to do this. Just walk to a blank board or take a piece of paper and draw a diagram that answers the question "How does this system work?" The elephant picture is a clear model of how the system works. The utility model is designed so that people can discuss it and identify ways to influence it.
Facts, stories, opinions
Facts, stories and opinions are not the same thing. It is important to be able to distinguish between them. If you want the discussion to have a good result, then you need to remove any idle talk and give the green light only to bare facts.
Look at the following two sentences: “Our turnover last year was $ 50 million, which is not enough. We have poor marketing."
Most will give these phrases the same meaning. People who cannot separate facts from stories and opinions are on the left side of the figure. You can call them "passive listeners". Another group of listeners, represented in the center of the picture, on the contrary, can separate one from the other. This is how they perceive this information: “Our turnover last year was $ 50 million (fact), but this is not enough (history). We have poor marketing (opinion)."
The third group is accurate analysts. They clearly distinguish between facts, stories and opinions - and are not at the mercy of delusion. They know that people, when they wake up in the morning, "put on" their beliefs and opinions, just like socks or watches. Then they go out into the big world and from all the facts they encounter, they select only those that support their opinions, simply ignoring the rest.
