The New Rules of Management E-Book

Peter Cook

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 273

Beschreibung

A guide for modern organisations about optimising productivity, creating a culture of innovation, and building high-performing teams It's time to stop managing and start implementing. The New Rules of Management is about creating and implementing projects that truly matter, because even the best ideas, projects and objectives mean nothing until they are executed. In truth, most organisations aren't designed to successfully implement long-term projects, but successfully implementing the projects that matter is the key to long-term success. In this book, you'll learn how to successfully manage yourself, your teams, and your entire organisation to create and execute engaging, vital projects that people and teams care about. When you do implementation right success becomes a given--on the personal, team, and organisational levels. So if you want your business to succeed, it's time to implement the projects that truly matter. Start now, with The New Rules of Management. * A management guide to building engagement and innovation in any organisation * Written by a master business coach, mentor, entrepreneur, thought leader, and popular public speaker * Ideal for business leaders and managers who want to take their organisations into the twenty-first century

Leseprobe

First published in 2013 by John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd

42 McDougall St, Milton Qld 4064

Office also in Melbourne

Typeset in ITC Berkeley Oldstyle Std Book 11.5/13

© Peter Cook Enterprises Pty Ltd

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Author: Cook, Peter.

Title: The new rules of management: how to revolutionise productivity, innovation and engagement by implementing projects that matter / Peter Cook.

ISBN: 9781118606261 (pbk.)

Notes: Includes index.

Subjects: Project management

Dewey Number: 658.404

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 (for example, a fair dealing for the purposes of study, research, criticism or review), no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, communicated or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission. All inquiries should be made to the publisher at the address above.

Cover design by Michael Freeland

Internal illustrations and author photograph by Michael Fink

Printed in Singapore by C.O.S. Printers Pte Ltd

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Disclaimer

The material in this publication is of the nature of general comment only, and does not represent professional advice. It is not intended to provide specific guidance for particular circumstances and it should not be relied on as the basis for any decision to take action or not take action on any matter which it covers. Readers should obtain professional advice where appropriate, before making any such decision. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the author and publisher disclaim all responsibility and liability to any person, arising directly or indirectly from any person taking or not taking action based on the information in this publication.

The New Rules of Management

Table of Contents

About the author

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Implementation in a Nutshell

Part I: Personal

2 Personal: overview

3 Internal: mindset

4 Projects

5 Framework

6 Support

7 Accountability

Part II: Team

8 Team: overview

9 Internal: culture

10 Projects

11 Framework

12 Support

13 Accountability

Part III: Organisation

14 Organisation: overview

15 Internal: climate

16 Projects

17 Framework

18 Support

19 Accountability

Conclusion

About the author

Peter Cook is passionate about helping people and organisations implement the important stuff. He is a master business coach, mentor, serial entrepreneur, author, and a warm and engaging presenter.

He has more than 15 years experience as a consultant and business coach, working with hundreds of businesses from one-man start-ups to some of the biggest companies in the world. Peter runs programs across Australia, New Zealand, Asia and the United States to help thought leaders and organisations implement the projects that matter.

Peter is a smart cookie. He holds a Masters of Business in Organisational Change, a Bachelor of Science in Advanced Physics and Bachelor of Laws with Honours.

He is happily married to his gorgeous wife, Trish, and, at the time of publishing, he and Trish had just welcomed their first daughter, Scarlett, into the family. The final manuscript of this book was due the same week as the baby. If these two projects weren’t challenging enough, that week Peter and Trish also moved into their new house, which they had rebuilt in less than two months. When it comes to implementation, Pete clearly practises what he preaches!

Peter believes strongly in giving back to the community. He is the president of Buoyancy, a not-for-profit drug and alcohol counselling service, and is leading a team that has raised $300 000 over five years to end hunger for a group of villages in Senegal, West Africa. He has a second dan black belt in aikido (so don’t mess with him!), and is an Olympic-level downhill skier trapped in the body of an average skier.

After a decade of small business coaching, he now focuses on mentoring other thought leaders, whether they be consultants going it alone or leaders within larger organisations. In his spare time he plays significant roles in a couple of start-ups, writes the odd book, speaks about implementation and consults to organisations on their projects that matter.

You can find out what Pete is currently up to and get in touch at www.petercook.com.

Acknowledgements

First, of course, to my beautiful wife, Trish. Thanks for sharing so many amazing projects with me, and creating a life together where anything is possible. Everything is better because of you. Scarlett, my baby daughter, thanks for waiting until I got this book finished before showing up.

To my father Nev: thanks for fighting to make this book the best it could be. For thinking critically about every model and every big idea down to every comma and full stop. As always, you make my writing and my thinking better.

Thanks also go to my mother, Ola, for teaching me the importance of finding the heart and beauty in everything I do, and for your complete support along my journey, through my successes and more importantly through some of my more spectacular failures.

To Cristina, my business manager, thanks for partnering me tirelessly in so many amazing projects in our business, for your commitment to excellence in everything we do, and your willingness to keep being thrown in the deep end with every new project we launch.

Matt Church — my mentor, partner and friend, and the best implementer I know — this (and many other things in my life) wouldn’t have happened without you.

Michael Fink, my best mate and designer extraordinaire, thanks for trying to make me look good with everything that has my name on it, for caring more than me about the importance of good design, teaching me to be annoyed by bad kerning and learning about typesetting just for this project.

Thanks to Jason Fox, Michael Henderson, Derek Sivers and Josh Kaufman. Thanks for your thought leadership, for speaking to me about your areas of expertise and contributing to the book.

And finally thanks to Lucy, Alice, Elizabeth, Meryl, Keira, Gretta, Katie and the whole team at Wiley for making this book one of their projects that matter, and for fighting just as hard as me to make it the best book it could possibly be.

Gratitude, love and respect to you all.

Introduction

What got you here won’t get you there.

Marshall Goldsmith, author and executive coach

The first working title for this book was The End ofManagement, but we eventually decided that that was being a bit too dramatic, and not entirely accurate. But one thing I am certain of is that the way we have managed our organisations, our teams and even our lives in the past isn’t cutting it any more. The things that have made us successful in the past are insufficient for the present and the future. Or, as Albert Einstein said, ‘The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them’.

The game of management has changed, and if we want to win the new game, we need to understand the new rules.

A number of frustrations led me to write this book. The first is seeing, time and again, organisations letting great ideas wither on the vine.

I do a lot of innovation training and consulting to big companies in Australia and around the world. Often I am brought in to help an organisation come up with innovative solutions to a challenge they are facing, or an opportunity that has presented itself. Usually I will spend a day or two facilitating a process of ideation with key staff from the company. We’ll use a number of different processes to come up with creative ideas. It’s quite common for me to go home at the end of the day being really impressed by the calibre of thinking from the people I have worked with, and the strength of the ideas that they have come up with.

Unfortunately, there’s another part of that tale that is all too common. Six months later I will check in to see how things are going, only to find nothing has been done. ‘Business as usual’ took over, and everyone got too busy doing what they were already doing to execute any of their great ideas. Which means the entire process was a waste of time and money — a great idea not executed is worse than there being no idea in the first place. And so I have realised that a process to come up with great ideas is insufficient: we need to know how to implement those ideas too.

I get even more frustrated when I see teams that are using only a fraction of their potential. Teams that operate in a Dilbert-like environment, where bureaucracy trumps achievement, and work becomes soul destroying. Work cultures that don’t give people the opportunity to do their best work, and jobs where people end up surviving until the weekend rather than doing something that matters, that stretches them and that they could be proud of. I think it is criminal to take intelligent, passionate, creative, switched-on people, and manage them like cogs in a machine.

My final frustration is at an individual level when I experience wasted talent and lost opportunity. We live in an age of possibility, where in the developed world we have an infinite number of choices, and opportunities like never before to design our lives to go however we want. Yet for many of us it seems this freedom is crippling. We don’t come close to reaching our potential, and end up not being as productive as we could be or as successful as we envisage, and ultimately we remain unfulfilled.

For almost 20 years I have been working as a consultant and a business coach, and running my own businesses. Over that time I have had the privilege to work with lots of great leaders, amazing teams and some of the biggest and most successful organisations in the world. And through that time I have been a keen student of success: what does it take to succeed? Why do some organisations succeed where others fail? Why do some teams rock, while others suck? And why are some people successful and fulfilled, while others are unproductive, frustrated and dissatisfied?

This book is an attempt to take what I have learned from these great organisations and successful people and see what they have in common. It isn’t great products, charismatic leadership, intelligence, resources, or any of the things we normally associate with success. The one critical element to success is the intent, willingness and ability to implement projects that matter. This applies in our organisations, our teams, and in our lives.

I believe there is an implementation imperative for every one of us. We each have a limited window, and if we want to be successful and leave a legacy, we need to implement much, much more. We need to shift our focus to creating and executing the projects that matter, in our lives as well as at work.

Likewise, the creation and execution of projects that matter is what will transform teams from being a drain on our spirits to experiences of being stretched and growing, and making a difference in the world. A change from teams of people going through the motions, to teams comprising motivated, engaged, switched-on people performing at their peak.

At an organisational level the need to implement is even more stark. Put simply, managing just your existing business, even managing it well, could put you out of business. Organisations need to implement projects that create growth on all levels, or face extinction at the hands of the next disruptive technology in their industry.

My hope is that you use the concepts and the models in this book, not to make an incremental improvement, not to evolve a bit more, but to revolutionise the way you live and work.

Chapter 1

Implementation in a Nutshell

I want to know what you will do about it. I do not want to know what you hope for. I want to know what you will work for. I do not want your sympathy for the needs of humanity. I want your muscle. As the wagon driver said when they came to a long, hard hill, ‘Them that’s going on with us, get out and push. Them that ain’t, get out of the way.’

Robert Fulghum, author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Traditional management practices focus on managing systems and responses, increasing efficiency, and creating more profit in the short term — what we call ‘left of the line’ activities.

Management in the 21st century requires much more than this. The new rules of management demand a relentless focus on implementation (creation and execution of projects). In other words, the actions that live to the right of the line. I believe implementing projects that matter is the most important thing we do personally, in our teams and in our organisations.