As we begin our last set of classes for 2011, I thought I'd take a moment to remind everyone of our severe weather policy.
We make every effort to meet all of our scheduled class dates. The reason is two fold. First, since virtually all of our participants are currently employed, we've discovered that a postponed class doesn't take participants off the road --they drive through the inclement weather to work instead. Second, re-scheduling a class at a date and time that is suitable for all participants is usually difficult to impossible. Those who can't make the rescheduled class date have to wait for a make-up session in order meet CEU and certificating requirements. Therefore we make every effort to meet all of our scheduled class dates.
That being said, there are those occasions when a class must be postponed. If so, we will attempt to contact each individual participant. We will also post a cancellation notice here on pelleyblog.
Dan
Monday, November 14, 2011
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Employee View of a Manager's Low Self-Esteem
A manager had a low self-esteem. In working towards increasing his self-esteem, he analyzed the impact of low self-esteem on himself as well as on his employees. He found that low self-esteem created a sense of self-doubt that limited his ability to make firm decisions on a timely basis. In turn, he believed that diminished his employee's confidence in him as well as their confidence in the work they were doing for him.
I agreed with his perspective on this, but asked him to consider this additional thought as well: "When you are down on yourself, when you lack self-confidence, you cause people to wonder if your successes are due to your professional and personal competence or, instead, if you accomplish things simply by having strokes of luck."
Or put a different way, when you lack self-confidence you limit people's ability to give you credit for your hard work because they lack confidence that you were truly capable of doing it.
About me: Dan Pelley is an educator specializing in management training and development programs for supervisors and other first-line managers in Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA) and Rhode Island (RI). The issue recited above came from a participant in one of his supervisory management development programs.
I agreed with his perspective on this, but asked him to consider this additional thought as well: "When you are down on yourself, when you lack self-confidence, you cause people to wonder if your successes are due to your professional and personal competence or, instead, if you accomplish things simply by having strokes of luck."
Or put a different way, when you lack self-confidence you limit people's ability to give you credit for your hard work because they lack confidence that you were truly capable of doing it.
About me: Dan Pelley is an educator specializing in management training and development programs for supervisors and other first-line managers in Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA) and Rhode Island (RI). The issue recited above came from a participant in one of his supervisory management development programs.
Copyright © 2011 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Selling Your Opponents
Have you ever been in a situation where you truly believed your idea or position was the best way to go but faced people who had strong opposing views? Here's a thought that might help:
Getting others to buy-in to your ideas or to come around to your point-of-view doesn't mean that you have to diminish or downplay your strong beliefs to reach a watered down compromise (although there are times when a compromise may be the best choice). But if you need to stick to your position and convince those holding opposing views that your way is truly best, you must therefore work on broadening the appeal of your position so as to make it more attractive to others. You must start by making a special effort to convince others, an effort that starts with not alienating and proceeds to persuading.
About me: Dan Pelley teaches ways to effectively implement changes as part of his "Proactive Leadership" program, one of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. 146 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more person(s) who earned this certificate.
Getting others to buy-in to your ideas or to come around to your point-of-view doesn't mean that you have to diminish or downplay your strong beliefs to reach a watered down compromise (although there are times when a compromise may be the best choice). But if you need to stick to your position and convince those holding opposing views that your way is truly best, you must therefore work on broadening the appeal of your position so as to make it more attractive to others. You must start by making a special effort to convince others, an effort that starts with not alienating and proceeds to persuading.
About me: Dan Pelley teaches ways to effectively implement changes as part of his "Proactive Leadership" program, one of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. 146 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more person(s) who earned this certificate.
Copyright © 2011 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
SEVERE WEATHER POLICY
What a new year this has been so far. I've been getting a good workout with both the snow blower and the snow shovel. With our 2011 programs getting underway next week, I thought I'd take a moment to remind everyone of our severe weather policy.
We make every effort to meet all of our scheduled class dates. The reason is two fold. First, since virtually all of our participants are currently employed, we've discovered that a postponed class doesn't take participants off the road --they drive through the inclement weather to work instead. Second, re-scheduling a class at a date and time that is suitable for all participants is usually difficult to impossible. Those who can't make the rescheduled class date have to wait for a make-up session in order meet CEU and certificating requirements. Therefore we make every effort to meet all of our scheduled class dates.
That being said, there are those occasions when a class must be postponed. If so, we will attempt to contact each individual participant. We will also post a cancellation notice here on pelleyblog.
Dan
We make every effort to meet all of our scheduled class dates. The reason is two fold. First, since virtually all of our participants are currently employed, we've discovered that a postponed class doesn't take participants off the road --they drive through the inclement weather to work instead. Second, re-scheduling a class at a date and time that is suitable for all participants is usually difficult to impossible. Those who can't make the rescheduled class date have to wait for a make-up session in order meet CEU and certificating requirements. Therefore we make every effort to meet all of our scheduled class dates.
That being said, there are those occasions when a class must be postponed. If so, we will attempt to contact each individual participant. We will also post a cancellation notice here on pelleyblog.
Dan
Friday, January 29, 2010
Still not much time for blogging. But saw an article in The Wall Street Journal last Monday (January 25, 2010) that you may find interesting. It deals with the subject of "where process improvement projects go wrong." My professional career has involved a lifetime of special projects and this article confirms my long standing beliefs, not only about continuous improvement efforts, but about any type of change in an organization.
Click here to get the link.
p.s. readers: I've recently subscribed to WSJ and have found it be a very interesting newspaper for me.
Click here to get the link.
p.s. readers: I've recently subscribed to WSJ and have found it be a very interesting newspaper for me.
Thursday, January 21, 2010
On a Timely Basis
I was reviewing goal statements, part of the homework requirements in our "Managing for Results" program, when I ran across a goal involved with reducing production losses (to increase yield). The goal statement was fairly good as was the specific measure of performance. But my eyebrows went up when I saw the frequency of performance measure: quarterly!
The purpose of work effort performance measurement is to identify deficiencies and, more importantly, to take corrective action to get performance back on track. The longer you wait to take performance measures, the greater the chance that the costs of the errors will mount up. And the longer you wait to check performance, the greater the chance that the cause of the deficiency will remain hidden.
For example, say you measure productivity and quality performance weekly. You do it on Monday morning for the previous week. During your weekly check, you run across a job that was way off in productivity. The job was started last Tuesday and complete last Wednesday. You now attempt to investigate what happened. Unless the situation was extraordinary, what's the chances of anyone specifically remembering what went wrong on a job completed almost a week ago? Indeed, how many of us have trouble remembering what we did yesterday? Yet if productivity performance was measured daily, the deficiency would have been identified on Wednesday. Investigating it then would give you a much greater chance of identifying causes. More importantly, if the job is still in process you could take corrective actions as well. If instead of daily performance measurement you tracked performance hourly, you could have acted on the deficiency even sooner.
So...should performance be tracked on a daily basis? Or hourly? Or even by the minute? Not necessarily. The frequency of performance measurement depends on the nature of the work. And the correct frequency of performance measurement involves a trade off between the cost of short cycle measurement versus the risk of long cycle measurement. The more frequently you measure performance, the more it costs you to measure that performance, but the less risk you'll have of higher costs due to non-conforming performance. Conversely, the less frequently you measure performance the lower the costs of measuring performance, but with a corresponding higher risk of greater costs associated non-conforming performance as well a possible restricting impact on cause identification that can lead to corrective action efforts.
Some jobs, especially long term projects, can be comfortably measured weekly and on occasion even monthly. Other jobs lend themselves to weekly, or daily or hourly measurement. Indeed, companies with a continuous manufacturing process or with high volume-short cycle-low margin jobs may find that immediate and continuous measurement is even more appropriate.
The answer for each of us is to choose a performance measurement cycle that creates the best balance between the costs and risks associated with different measurement frequencies.
About Pelleyblog: Pelleyblog is designed to be a resource for supervisors and other first line managers. Currently most of our readers are from Rhode Island (RI), Central Massachusetts (MA) and Eastern Connecticut (CT). But everyone interested in management topics is welcome. We also welcome your participation. Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
The purpose of work effort performance measurement is to identify deficiencies and, more importantly, to take corrective action to get performance back on track. The longer you wait to take performance measures, the greater the chance that the costs of the errors will mount up. And the longer you wait to check performance, the greater the chance that the cause of the deficiency will remain hidden.
For example, say you measure productivity and quality performance weekly. You do it on Monday morning for the previous week. During your weekly check, you run across a job that was way off in productivity. The job was started last Tuesday and complete last Wednesday. You now attempt to investigate what happened. Unless the situation was extraordinary, what's the chances of anyone specifically remembering what went wrong on a job completed almost a week ago? Indeed, how many of us have trouble remembering what we did yesterday? Yet if productivity performance was measured daily, the deficiency would have been identified on Wednesday. Investigating it then would give you a much greater chance of identifying causes. More importantly, if the job is still in process you could take corrective actions as well. If instead of daily performance measurement you tracked performance hourly, you could have acted on the deficiency even sooner.
So...should performance be tracked on a daily basis? Or hourly? Or even by the minute? Not necessarily. The frequency of performance measurement depends on the nature of the work. And the correct frequency of performance measurement involves a trade off between the cost of short cycle measurement versus the risk of long cycle measurement. The more frequently you measure performance, the more it costs you to measure that performance, but the less risk you'll have of higher costs due to non-conforming performance. Conversely, the less frequently you measure performance the lower the costs of measuring performance, but with a corresponding higher risk of greater costs associated non-conforming performance as well a possible restricting impact on cause identification that can lead to corrective action efforts.
Some jobs, especially long term projects, can be comfortably measured weekly and on occasion even monthly. Other jobs lend themselves to weekly, or daily or hourly measurement. Indeed, companies with a continuous manufacturing process or with high volume-short cycle-low margin jobs may find that immediate and continuous measurement is even more appropriate.
The answer for each of us is to choose a performance measurement cycle that creates the best balance between the costs and risks associated with different measurement frequencies.
About Pelleyblog: Pelleyblog is designed to be a resource for supervisors and other first line managers. Currently most of our readers are from Rhode Island (RI), Central Massachusetts (MA) and Eastern Connecticut (CT). But everyone interested in management topics is welcome. We also welcome your participation. Feel free to comment on this or any other post.
Copyright © 2010 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Its Been Awhile
Hi to everyone --
Its been a busy time since last October, but a productive one for me. Three of the five supervision series programs underwent some major changes in format as well as an upgrade in content. The changes were tentative, but so far the overall reaction of participants has been good. I plan to continue the fine tuning during 2010, and may expand the effort to the other two programs in the series.
Of course the holidays were a busy time, especially with three grandchildren under the age of five. There are also many birthdays in our family with December and January dates. Always good to get together with family and friends again.
I've also been busy on a cost accounting project for a Massachusetts manufacturing company, but that effort is winding down now and beginning to free up more time.
My programs begin again in February with "Leadership Skills" being offered in Lincoln, RI and Danielson, CT and "Proactive Leadership" also being offered in Danielson. To learn more about our programs visit http://www.danpelley.com/.
Although I don't plan to go back to blogging daily, I do have a number of blog posts stacked up as well as a constant stream of information to share. So look for more posts in the future. Let's see if I can get the one on my desk right now published for tomorrow.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all of you.
Dan Pelley
About me: Dan Pelley offers a series of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. The five programs are "Managing People,: "Leadership Skills," "Managing For Results," "Proactive Leadership," and "Participative Management." 141 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more people who earned this certificate.
Its been a busy time since last October, but a productive one for me. Three of the five supervision series programs underwent some major changes in format as well as an upgrade in content. The changes were tentative, but so far the overall reaction of participants has been good. I plan to continue the fine tuning during 2010, and may expand the effort to the other two programs in the series.
Of course the holidays were a busy time, especially with three grandchildren under the age of five. There are also many birthdays in our family with December and January dates. Always good to get together with family and friends again.
I've also been busy on a cost accounting project for a Massachusetts manufacturing company, but that effort is winding down now and beginning to free up more time.
My programs begin again in February with "Leadership Skills" being offered in Lincoln, RI and Danielson, CT and "Proactive Leadership" also being offered in Danielson. To learn more about our programs visit http://www.danpelley.com/.
Although I don't plan to go back to blogging daily, I do have a number of blog posts stacked up as well as a constant stream of information to share. So look for more posts in the future. Let's see if I can get the one on my desk right now published for tomorrow.
Best wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year to all of you.
Dan Pelley
About me: Dan Pelley offers a series of five programs leading to a Certificate in Supervisory Management. The five programs are "Managing People,: "Leadership Skills," "Managing For Results," "Proactive Leadership," and "Participative Management." 141 companies in Connecticut (CT), Rhode Island (RI), Massachusetts (MA) and New York have one or more people who earned this certificate.
Copyright © 2010 Daniel W. Pelley
All rights reserved.
All rights reserved.
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