Four Years of anonymousbjorn

Four years!

I know there are bloggers out there who have been writing for well over a decade or even two, but for me, four years is a long time. I am happy with my blog; it is the place I can flesh out my thoughts on life, management, music, and the like.

Since the inception of anonymousbjorn, the purpose of the blog has changed from the place I do most of my writing to the place where I test out ideas. The upcoming year will be a busy one with the birth of baby number three on the way, my blog will be sparse, but it will be meaningful.

Song/Week: Several Nocturnes

The idea for Several Nocturnes came to me one night when I was staring at the stars. During the nightly routine of getting the boys ready for bed they take a bath, brush teeth, get jammies on, read some stories, say prayers, and fall asleep staring at the stars. It was during one of those nights that I realized I wanted this experience to be set to music.

The composing of Several Nocturnes took around two months, from April to May of 2016. Writing these six movements was relatively smooth because I tried to write simple music that communicates a bedtime routine, from chaos (somewhat) to falling asleep. Some highlights of the work include the two melodies interacting with each other in the first movement, the syncopated bass in the second movement, the interaction of the classical and jazz guitar in the third movement, the use of electric guitar in the fourth movement, the melodic contemplation of the classical guitar in the fifth movement, and the use of the glockenspiel in the sixth movement.

In the nine months it took me to record this work (it took way too long), I have learned how to record using microphones and have upped my game a bit with post-production mixing.

Dedication:

Too my sons who besides my #truelovesduet, are the only things I love more than music.

Enjoy!

Thoughts on Leadership: Self-Awareness

Self-Awareness:

Each person, no matter who they are in this world, needs to be aware of how the world views them, reacts to them, and perceives them. This is not always 100% possible because even the most self-aware manager will have gaps in her or his ability to understand reality. As a manager, you must always work to understand how you come off to your employees so trust can be built and unintended actions do not create conflict.

Confident but not arrogant: Confidence in a manager is key. You must be able to lead meetings with confidence, look over a situation and react with confidence, interact with concerned employees and support them with confidence, and know that the majority of decisions you are making will positively impact your institution. But you must be weary; being overly confident creates a barrier between you and the rest of the world. An overconfidence manager is arrogant, has an inflated ego, and is not able to fully collaborate because they are not open to feedback.

Understand your impact: Understanding how your behaviors affect others is one of the most difficult skills to develop. A manager should have the utmost confidence in how they come off to people but you must also understand that some traditional management traits can push people away and create a distance between you and your employees. To mitigate this, a manager should always self-reflect on how you and your message, verbal, non-verbal, and written, are received by people and if possible, collect feedback from someone you trust who can give you honest and critical feedback.

Courage: Courage as a manager is a tricky word. Courage is the confidence and determination to speak the truth when the truth is not desired by your employees, your peers, or your boss. Courage is not ripping into someone for every little performance issue; courage is speaking the truth in the face of a challenging situation where silence is easier and where the status quo is comfortable. Courage requires everyone to grow, to self-reflect, and change for the better even when it is painful.

Humility: Yes humility, the word often given lip service by management but never embraced or truly accepted. The generic manager personality traits of assertiveness and confidence rarely provides enough room for humility and when it does, it is surface level only in front of employees. Humility should always be present because it is an ego check. Every person, every manager, and every leader must have enough self-awareness to know they are fallible and that feedback from every level of the institution helps improve the bottomline and trust.

Distinguished: Does a manager and leader need to be distinguished? Yes. Being distinguished means that you handle yourself with grace and professionalism during typical times and when the pressure is palpable. To be distinguished, you must have a strong moral compass and stay true to the business/institutional ethics that keeps you focused on the task at hand and allows you to always treat your employees with respect and inclusion.

Stay approachable: This is either really easy or really difficult. Some people and some managers are approachable while others struggle being approachable. It is highly recommended that as a manager, you always stay approachable to your employees so there can always be trust and openness that will allow for two way communication. If as a manager you are not approachable, problems that your employees are having might not get resolved and linger affecting morale and productivity.

Thoughts on Leadership: Skills

Skills:

Every manager needs to have skills, that goes without saying. But the skills and competencies needed by managers are different than those of her/his employees. Managers need to have the skills to lead, inspire, organized, communicate, have a great outlook and attitude, have an internal drive to get things done, support her/his employees, and after all of that (and some I did not mention), understand the job that employees do everyday.

Organized and together: Everyday when you get to the office, you are on. When you step out of your car you have to be organized and together all day until you get back in your car and head home. You have to be prepared for any kinds of conversation no matter if they occur in your office, while walking to a meeting, or walking to the bathroom. If a manager is a full-time telecommuter, you have to be organized and together by constantly being available to your employees and you boss and being very aware of what is going on. When you go to meetings, you have to be organized and together by knowing what the meeting is fully about and how you can contribute and help your department, team, and employees contribute and be successful.

Have key technical skills, so you can help advise the team: Every manager needs to have the skills to get the job done and know what her/his employees are doing. This does not mean that you have to be the best and outperform your employees (this will never actually happen) but you have to be very capable at connecting people together. Every week as a manager, you have a dozen plus conversations with your employees and have a scope and understanding of performance trends and concerns that your employees do not have. It is your job to connect people facing challenges with those who have already solved them and to realize the need for change when an overriding performance concern arises that has not been addressed by the larger team.

Hire the right people: This one is difficult. Most of the time a manager does not have the ability to choose her/his team but inherits a pre-existing team. When the opportunity arises to hire, it is important that the ‘right person’ is hired for the job. This is a mixture of many factors including excellent skill set, great attitude, internal drive, the ability to work well with others and support peers, suitable self-awareness, potential personality compatability, et cetera. When a person is hired, it is also important that the manager focuses on constantly supporting the new employee and encouraging peers to help not only for the first month but for the first year. Like developing tenured employees, developing new employees never ends.

Assign and coordinate people well: A skill needed by all managers is to understand the skills of their employees and assign and coordinate them effectively. Why would you put an employee in charge of a report that requires quantitative analysis when they are not good at it and have poor Excel skills? You wouldn’t. Why would you assign an employee to project management if they were not supremely organized and not the best with people? You wouldn’t. You have to know the skills of your employees inside and out so you can assign and coordinate them well, ensure projects are completed on time, properly use organizational resources, and assign your people correctly so they can successfully accomplish tasks, contribute to the success of projects, and have wins of their own.

Show grace under pressure: This is one tricky. When the pressure is on, what does a manager do in meetings or when others are watching? Does a manager lose her/his temper and take it out on employees? Does a manager embarrass an employee in front of her/his’ peers to make a point or tactfully discuss the issue at hand without calling anyone out (and discussing individual issues behind closed doors)? Showing grace under pressure is unfortunately not required and although managers should have this as a strong competency, it is not always present. An excellent manager should show composure when the pressure is on, not embarrass employees in public, and always lead difficult meetings to positive outcomes.

Thoughts on Leadership: Support

Support:

A manager is not an island. A manager is not a super-worker who gets things done by herself/himself and saves and organization or an institution singlehandedly. A manager is a manger because of the employees she/he supports who in turn work hard and collaboratively to complete projects and drive an institution forward.

Supportive: First and foremost, a manager needs to be supportive. No matter what happens, it is the manager’s job to support his employees to get the job done, to remove obstacles, and to use her/his influence and knowhow to good use. Each and every employee needs to directly experience the supportive actions of her/his manager and not let support be just a word but action.

Inspire teamwork: Most jobs are build on teams, and most places do not know how to fully utilyze teams. As a manager, you must inspire your team, whether you lead 5 to 30 direct reports or you lead 5 to 10 managers and indirectly lead 50 plus; you must inspire your team to work together. Inspiration comes from focusing on the fundamental reasons for working, knowing that your actions will have positive and productive outcomes, clearly communicating these ideas, and recognizing a job well done to everyone involved. By doing this over and over again, your team will gain the skills needed to work together and have the trust in you to lead them.

Encouraging subordinates rather than driving them: Drive is a popular word these days. Leaders drive results, managers drive employees, companies drive for success and market share, et cetera. But there is a downside to driving your employees; you can burn them out. The best way to drive for results is to encourage them to do their job to the best of their abilities knowing that everyone will benefit and not just a few individuals. A manager can only drive employees for so long because each individual needs to be driven by their own internal drive and not by their bosses’.

Treat people the way you want to be treated: This is so simple it is laughable but there are countless books, articles, and first hand accounts about how leaders and managers do not treat their employees how they would want to be treated. Simple; treat your employees how you want to be treated. Start with respect and end with respect.

Be a good coach: Every manager is a coach, but what does that really mean? Does it mean that you rally the troops with motivational speeches or does it mean that you play a wholistic role of leader standing with your employees? Like any good coach, you help improve and acquire the skills to be successful and in essence, be a teacher. Like any good coach, you provide encouragement and inspiration when times are difficult. And like any good coach, you correct certain actions and hold your employees accountable to help them improve and not to merely discipline them. Like any good coach, you are only successful when your employees are successful by truly supporting them. .

Empower your team and don’t micro-manage: When people get stressed and the pressure builds, everyone reacts differently. Some find inner strength and do whatever is needed to succeed and help their peers and the organization while others turn inward and protect themselves. When managers feel the pressure they react like everyone else; some positively and some negatively. Micro-management helps reassure a timid manager that they are doing their job by thinking they are holding their employees accountable when in reality they are just getting in the way, causing confusion, creating consternation, and killing moral. *Are there times when a manager needs to micromanage, yes, but that should be the exception and not the status quo. Instead of micromanaging your team, empower the, give them the tools to succeed, use your influence to lead the way, and communicate your trust in their actions.

Express interest in employees’ success and well-being: As a manager it is your job to care for your employees. You have to care about their job performance, their professional development, their well-being, and depending on how much rapport you can build, their lives outside of work. Some managers do not express interest and are distant with their employees and although that is an option, it is not advisable. The best way to instill employee engagement and learn what motivates them is to get to know them (within reason).

Keep promises and commitments: This one is simple. The best way to support your employees is to keep your word and follow through on promises and commitments. If you say you are going to do something do it and deliver. There is nothing worse than a manager who holds her/his employees accountable and does not follow through with her/his own promises and commitments.  

Help your employees with career development: Getting the job done is priority; making deadlines is key; being professional is always required; and helping employees with career development has to be done. Why? Because part of why we are at work is to not just fill out reports and manage people, but to advance and develop as individuals. You should ask, where am I going to be in three years? If you have goals then each one of your employees has goals too. Always help your employees work towards advancing their career development day in and day out.

Respect people’s time. Respecting people’s time is about respect. Sometimes a project requires extra hours and that is understandable, but respecting people’s time is all about knowing that the most important priority in each person’s life is family. No matter what you do, your job supports your family and by respecting your employee’s time and not wasting it on useless tasks or projects, you are supporting them, supporting their family, and keeping morale high because of a positive work-life balance from the boss. The boss sets the tone and it is extremely important that she/he also has a work/life balance because if they don’t, time will become an unclear expectation that employees try to satisfy to no avail.

Generosity (offer enthusiastic praise): Everyday, tell your employees they are doing a good job. This might sound like ‘everyone gets a gold star’ kind of thinking, but offer praise when praise is due. Everyday someone or multiple people on your team does something that is excellent and noteworthy. By being generous helps employees feel valued and there is often nothing more valuable than praise.

Thoughts on Leadership: Drive

Drive:

Drive is how a manager gets things done. It is important that every manager knows how to drive a project to completion, how to support employees, and how to drive one’s own actions. Without adequate and natural drive, a manager will struggle in his or her daily job. Drive can also have a downside, so every manager needs to focus on the positive aspects of having well focused drive and being assertive.

Determined. Every manager needs to be determined. They need to have an internal drive to stay positive and stay on-task. As with many managers, each day is different; challenges have to be faced when they arise, projects have to be completed, and employees must be motivated and developed. Without determination a manager will just sit at his or her’s desk and do the bare minimum rather than driving himself or herself to success.

Focus on the process as much as the end result. Sometimes when managers drive a project they do whatever is needed to get the end result. Being able to deliver a project on-time is important but getting it done correctly is even more important. This does not mean that a project should be paused or stopped due to analysis paralysis but your team needs to be able to reflect on the progress of the project to ensure that outcomes are what leadership and the institution need and want. One of the largest rollout failures of the last decade, Heathcare.gov occurred very publicly and is a cautionary tale for every manager and leader.

Have a clear vision and strategy for the team. One of the worst situations for a team, a department, or an institution is to not have a clear vision and strategy. Without a vision and strategy every employee is just doing a bunch of work without a clear end game and not helping the institution improve. Truly excellent managers are able to focus on and support the overriding strategy and clearly communicate the vision to employees through words and actions.

Be purposeful. Every manager has to be purposeful in their actions and what they assign their employee to do. Much like having a clear vision and strategy, what you have your employees work on needs to be purposeful. In the same respect, what you do day in and day out needs to be purposeful and align to the mission and purpose of of your team, department, and institution.

Be resilient. This might sound odd because we all try to be resilient but this is important. No matter what happens a manager needs to get back up and try again, motivate his or her’s employees, and brush off the dust. This resilience is especially important when you are getting feedback from multiple people, multiple stakeholders, getting pushback from employees, and everything seems to be going wrong. You have to be resilient by listening to feedback that will help you improve, from leadership, peers, or employees, and move forward in a positive, unbiased, and productive manner.

Get some wins. We all need wins. As we work day in and day out struggles will arise and criticism, both constructive and unhelpful, will fly around the office. It is important as a manager to get some wins and share credit with the team because it will help with confidence, engagement, and motivation of everyone involved.

Measure well. Measure well is difficult. Officially, you have to assess your employees’ performance based on the agreed measuring tools as decided on by leadership and HR. But beyond that, there is the daily and weekly measuring that we all experience when we do our jobs, complete projects, and do our jobs. Every manager needs to be fair, open, and honest about how they measure their employees by clearly communicating expectations and constantly updating employees about their progress and helping them succeed.

Be productive and results-oriented. Much like being focused on the process as much as the end result, being productive and result-oriented is key for any manager. Managing people is about just that, people and ensuring that they are being productive, doing their jobs, and contributing to the greater institutional good. Focusing on results is important because as a manager, you do not want to waste institutional resources by your employees not focusing daily on the mission and goals of the institution.

Accountability. Everyone is accountable. In everything we do we are accountable to someone. Even if you are self-employed you are accountable to your customers to ensure that you will continue to be self-employed. As a manager, we are accountable to our boss and it is our job to hold our employees accountable for the work they do. The largest portion of a manager’s job is to help and support employees so they can do their jobs and contribute positively and productively to the mission and purpose of the institution.

Thoughts on Leadership: Attitude

Attitude:

The next area managers can focus on that can greatly affect employees is attitude. One’s attitude is communicated through words and actions and represents his or her’s present and future world view. A manager’s attitude is always with them and is not easily changed because you cannot ‘fake it ‘till you make it’ when it comes to your attitude; your true self will always come out.

Optimist: A good manager needs to be an optimist. He or she needs to always believe the job can get done and the project can be completed on-time. If everyone else is wallowing in negativity a good manager will rally his or her’s employees and see the positive side of whatever is going on. Also, a lot can be learned from sports where a good coach always drives his or her’s players to win even when it seems hopeless (a tie is also a good result in soccer).

Honesty: It is important that a manager is honest and not deceitful. In the same way that it is important to give honest feedback when communicating with employees, it is necessary to be an honest person when interacting with others and not lie or bend truths to get your way. As a manager, if you are not honest about your attitude and outlook then your employees will react in kind.

Integrity: Having integrity will go a long way with employees. If you have integrity your employees will trust you. If you have integrity, you will follow through on promises. If you have integrity, they know you will try your best to create a positive outcome for the team or department. If you have integrity, you have integrity.

Have unwavering faith in your people: Why is it important to have faith in your people? Having unwavering faith in your people combines every aspect of one’s attitude; the ability to be an optimist, being honest, having integrity, and believing in your employees. If you believe in your employees then you can collaborate with them and complete any job no matter what but if you do not have faith in them, and that doubt has been directly or indirectly communicated, then they will not be productive and possibly be actively disengaged. It is extremely difficult to solve problems or get a job done with employees that are disengaged (near impossible).

Having a good attitude goes beyond being nice, it is about who you are day in and day out. Your attitude is how you view and approach to your life, your job, your employees, and how you tackle hardships. If you have a piss poor attitude then your employees with respond in kind. If you have positive attitude that is about getting the job done and solving problems then you will get the best possible work and productivity out of your employees because you are not getting in the way of them doing their jobs because of your poor attitude and behaviors.