Continuing Education for Technical Professionals

                                                                            Volume 3, Issue 5

In This Issue:

AuxTip^TM

Living with Ambiguity

Susan talks about three important things to do when company decisions don't line up with individual conscience or judgment.

QuickQuotes

A tribute to the wisdom of Peter Drucker.

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AuxTip^TM

True commitments don't require anyone to manage them other than the person who made the commitment.  Only circumstances entirely outside the person's control should interfere with meeting commitments.

Courses that help build commitment:

Commitment and Enthusiasm: Every Leader's Challenge

Fundamentals of Effective Leadership

Leadership Skills for Engineers

Project Estimating, Planning and Scheduling

Understanding and Improving Project Culture

Living with Ambiguity                                                              Read Full Text

by Susan de la Vergne

Executives make decisions every day that people don’t like.  Cut costs.  Outsource.  Close plants.  Drop products.  Acquire companies.

When announcements like these are made, managers are expected to support the decisions.  They’re not just expected to tell their people, but to rally them, to go beyond the facts and to share in the ownership of the reasons behind them.  They’re supposed to lead others through next steps by adjusting course, revising activities and re-vamping measurements. 

There are people in management who believe that decisions, to be acceptable, need to be completely “right,” every detail in alignment with what they personally believe should be done.  But decisions never live up to these purist expectations. 

Instead, a manager could simply behave as if he or she is fully onboard with direction, even if he’s not.  But senior management knows it’s important they have buy-in from their management team.  When handing down even the most controversial decisions, they aren’t asking managers and supervisors to pretend to align with decisions they disagree with.

But when a decision doesn’t entirely line up with individual conscience or judgment, what’s a manager to do?  Click here to read the complete article.

Courses that help deal with ambiguity:

Commitment and Enthusiasm: Every Leader's Challenge

Essential Skills for Managers of Technical Professionals

QuickQuotes

As a writer, teacher, and consultant for more than sixty years, Peter Drucker created and articulated the concepts that have made management a field of legitimate academic inquiry and professional practice. Key to Professor Drucker’s vision of management is the belief that the most important asset of any organization is its people. Professor Drucker believed that the manager’s primary challenge is to prepare and free people to perform. The influence of his thinking is so pervasive that he is known as the “father of management.”

Peter Drucker died on November 11, 2005.  Fortunately, his teachings will remain with us for a long time.  Here are a few quotes to learn from:

"Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed, nothing else can be managed."

~Peter F. Drucker

"Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes...but no plans."

~Peter F. Drucker

"Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done."

~Peter F. Drucker

"Meetings are a symptom of bad organization.  The fewer meetings, the better."

~Peter F. Drucker

"We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change.  The most pressing task is to teach people how to learn."

~Peter F. Drucker

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