Effective management requires that there is a great deal of effectiveness in the personnel. However, it appears as if the lapse in the management of every organization results from the ineffectiveness of its personnel. Highly performing organizations and managers have healthy habits which drive them to accomplish much within the same conditions and circumstances. One of the very inspirational books on management is Stephen Coveys’, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
Highly effective people seek to understand and be understood. When they engage in anything with their clients, they seek to understand them and ensure they are understood as well so that there is no breach in communication. Listening to the needs of your customers, suppliers, and stakeholders is an essential component of highly effective people. For them, they have mastered the art of listening with their ears and heart. They show empathy. One of the things I have learned in the business environment is that if you cannot listen then it follows that you cannot be listened to. Therefore, as a recipe for effectiveness, one ought to be able to listen carefully. The importance of listening is that it opens one’s mind to an array of ideas so that it becomes easier to make decisions.
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Highly effective people are them that think win-win. It is a habit that entails making a deposit into our emotional bank accounts, something which is essential in ensuring that both parties benefit from the interaction. Such possibilities as win-lose, lose-win, and lose-lose are ineffective both for short-term and long-term basis. A win-win mindset requires several traits such as integrity (the value we place on ourselves), maturity (balance between courage and consideration) and abundance mentality (believing there is plenty out there for everybody) in return. This is a powerful management tool for defining performance agreements between the boss and the employees. For instance, in one of the company’s I worked as a marketing agent, it was hard to decide whether to continue with our supplier who was supplying machinery for our company. However, it was a hard decision yet we had to sit with their representatives and later agreed amicably to cut the deal. Five years later, we agreed on a deal worth thrice more than the previous with the same supplier.
One of the greatest habits is self and personal management thrives in prioritizing activities and tasks. Personal management and organization can first be judged in terms of how we manage our time. Highly effective people have managed the art of managing themselves within the given time since you cannot manage time. While many things cry for our attention, time management helps us to enhance relationships and achieve results in the middle of busy schedules. In situations of urgent needs, highly effective people set their priorities right on which needs have to be met first yet all are urgent. This can only be done by assessing our long term goals and addressing those needs that are in line with our long term goals however much others crave for our attention. Effective management requires that needs are settled in order of urgency and importance. Highly effective people settle the very important and urgent needs first. The most common mistake people make is to subordinate the important for the urgent. In school, I was to have an exam the same time I was supposed to check on my fiancé who had been hospitalized. Although checking on her was important at that time, sitting for my exam was not only urgent but also important.
The success of any individual business lies on how effective its management is. Great managers have mastered the skills of becoming highly effective people which do not just come naturally. There is a lot of pain involved yet it is worth it. To become highly effective, there is need to change habits though how painful it might be.
