The 5 basic management essentials (part 1 of 2) + some of my favorite management books and videos”

Coaching becomes an increasingly important element of your job as you take on more responsibility. It is actually one of the most gratifying parts to help develop our future business leaders. At the many leadership training programs of AkzoNobel we actively exchange experiences with each other. Everybody –including myself- continuously hone our skills as we develop our careers in a very international - and dynamic market environment. Based on these discussions, and having worked with some tremendous managers and colleagues, here are the five basic management essentials to have a fulfilling career. Next time you can read part two with the additional five advanced management essentials.

Lesson #1: Passion

This is my most important lesson: dedicate your life to what you are truly passionate about. You will be working until you are 67+ years old and spend at least 75.000+ hours trying to make a living. So you might as well enjoy it! It is not good enough if things are -structurally- just okay. If you want to make it to the top you need to have a burning passion which not only inspires yourself, but also the people around you. Passion instills confidence in customers, suppliers and colleagues alike. Plus it creates the fun and excitement to make your office simply a great place to work. Off course, not everything you have to do will excite you, and some chores and decisions can be difficult and challenging, but you should have an overarching goal that pushes you forward.

Intermezzo 1

Experience the power of passion as music director Benjamin Zander convinces truly everybody to enjoy classical music.

Lesson #2: Resilience, or: perseverance…with an objective

At first you might think that working hard and spending lots of hours at the office will get you promoted. True, you do have to spend a lot of hours to be well prepared in order to have an edge. However, that in and by itself is not what makes the difference. It’s how you react to adversity which shows what you are truly made off. Both in your personal as well as in your professional life. Will you be knocked out, clam up or run away when times are tough? Or: will you rise to the occasion? What you need is the stamina to keep doing the right things in pursuit of your mission. And the bigger your mission, the easier it proves itself to overcome the many challenges that you –undoubtedly- will be faced with. In other words: don’t burn the midnight oil for the sake of it, but set yourself an ambitious goal and -most importantly- persevere.

Intermezzo 2

Former SEAL Commander Adm. Bill McRaven makes an inspiring case for discipline, even regarding the seemingly most insignificant of tasks, and the imperative to never, ever, ever quite. You will enjoy his book Make Your Bed: Small Things That Can Change Your Life … and Maybe the World. I can also recommend the video of his commencement speech at the University of Texas at Austin in 2014.

Lesson #3: Execution

In the end it is all about results; simple as that. In his book Winning Jack Welch describes his 4E(+1P) framework about what to look for when hiring and assessing talent. At first the model had only 3 E’s and they focused on people who –in my words- look the part and play the part; employees with lots of energy and enthusiasm, great plans and the capability to convince their colleagues. But one thing was missing: execution. There is nothing wrong with a plan, but as heavy-weight boxing champion Mike Tyson famously said, “everybody has a plan until they are punched in the mouth”. In any organization there is no shortage of plans. The thinking seems to be that the more plans you present to the boss, the more he or she will be impressed. Nothing could be further from the truth. You probably recognize the PowerPoint presentations filled to the brim with well-intended initiatives, action plans and improvement actions. Good executives dread these dog & pony shows. Also they know that a lot of time was wasted in preparing these presentations and –even worse- most of the initiatives will get drowned in the whirlwind of daily challenges. I encourage managers and teams to present –maximally- the 5 objections and game-changing actions they truly believe in. In the best of the cases these are not new ideas which have been concocted for the benefit of the visiting executives. A truly inspired team doesn’t need a visit to come up with a fancy PowerPoint presentation. High-performing teams are already on the ball and have scoreboards with KPI’s, clearly visible in the middle of their offices, to keep track of their progress on a daily basis. Simply because excellent teams, like in sports, know what is expected of them and they want to keep score to know if they are winning. And like true champions they celebrate success when they do.

Intermezzo 3

Implementing the 4 Disciplines of Execution, or: 4DX, from the FranklinCovey Institute was a game-changer for me and my team to ensure the effective execution of our strategy. It contains key-insights and tools how to implement a strategy whilst dealing with the daily whirlwind of operational issues.

Lesson #4: Be pro-active

Just put yourself in the shoes of your boss for a moment. Do you think he or she prefers an employee who comes with new ideas and initiatives, or somebody who needs to be told what to do? A good manager will always prefer and expect employees to be open-and-honest about what is going on and to proactively reflect about what to do in any given situation. Whilst in some cultures employees tend to maintain a low profile, good managers prefer employees who cause things to happen rather than who wait to respond after things happen. Employees who are not afraid to take the initiative show leadership and demonstrate that they care about the organization. Being an employee myself I feel more comfortable if I take the initiative to propose a plan. Whilst this requires more preparation it does heighten the sense of being in control and it increases the chances of you and/or your team to get support from senior management. Maybe even more importantly, it increases your own job satisfaction and heightens the engagement and support of your team. As one of my former managers famously used to say “be cheetah; make it happen”; show your entrepreneurial spirit.

Intermezzo 4

Stephen Covey’s best-selling book The 7 habits of Highly Effective People was a true game-changer in my life. His first habit is to be pro-active. He correctly sees being pro-active as the foundation of all other habits and actions that can propel you forward in life; it all starts with your basic attitude and inner drive.

Lesson #5: A bit of patience

At every level of the organization and in every function it is smart to recruit every now and then talent from the outside. In my experience a fresh pair of eyes vitalizes the team with new experiences and insights. But let’s not be mistaken: the vast majority of promotions come, and should come, from within. At AkzoNobel we spend a lot of money and resource on selecting and developing our future business leaders. Together with countless senior managers I am proud to be involved as a trainer, mentor and coach in many of these programs. This is rewarding not only for the individual talents, but also for me. As our future leaders start to develop their careers they develop a strong network both in- and outside the company. They gain invaluable insights in the value proposition and the business as a whole. Customers start to see them as ambassadors. Research done by Dr. Jim Harter and Dr. Frank L. Schmidt from Gallup confirms the relationship between employee retention and customer loyalty. In other words: it makes a lot of business sense to engage your colleagues wholeheartedly.

Call me old-fashioned, but job-hopping (or better said: company-hopping) is not the best way to make it to the C-suite (if that is what you truly want). Exceptions confirm the rule, as some people who left AkzoNobel build great careers elsewhere, but only too often “the grass looked greener at the neighbors” and many ex-colleagues have come to regret their decision. So, I hope that many of you will have the stamina to build a career with one, or: a limited number, of company(/ies). A bit of patience tends to pay off.

Intermezzo 5

The combination of passion and perseverance is what Angela Lee Duckworth calls grit. She left a high-flying career in consulting to teach math at a public school in New York. She quickly realized that IQ wasn't the only thing separating the successful students from those who struggled. Her TED Talk correctly explains that "grit" is a much better predictor of success.

To wrap it up

A discussion on basic management essentials should actually begin with the values which serve as your morale compass in your personal – and professional life. To live and breathe values like integrity, honesty, respect, responsibility, and courage are the foundation for any professional; actually for every decent human being. In this article I have taken the assumption that you subscribe to such basic values.

Finally some personal advice. Life offers you a handful of breakthrough opportunities in each different area. This can be in sports, your professional life, the choice of your friends and partner, etc. What will you do if one of these chances presents itself? Will you procrastinate and turn such opportunity down? Or: will you embrace the change and challenge yourself? Actually, I don’t believe there is necessarily a right or wrong answer here. What I do believe is the need to live a life without (too many) regrets. And that’s what I sincerely wish you will have as well.

Next time: the 5 advanced management essentials + some additional management books & videos :-).

@OscarWezenbeek

Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer