The First Line Manager: You Have Got to Have Passion About Our Business
A President of a major electric utility summarized his executive team meeting with the following statement. He stated, “You have got to be excited about what we do, you got to feel that. You have got...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Communicate, Communicate, Communicate, the Issue Is Who...
A large company’s president is making a summary closing for his top executives. He has several items to focus on during the year. He gets to one goal; communicate, communicate, communicate. When he...
View ArticleThe First Line Manager: The Corporate Answer to Your Problem Cannot Be “No”
My area manager sends a message to a corporate customer service system expert. He asks the question about how to prevent a recurring field service problem. When his field service crew removes a...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: The Key to Greatness Is Enabling Not Delegating.
I keep trying to get a university to realize first line management is different from upper management, to no avail. Lately, I spoke to a fraternity brother of mine, an associate dean of a management...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: What process in your job is not important?
“What process in your job is not important?” is the most important question to ask your employees. You must ask this question now and then. You need them to do a process, you need to know to change it...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Understanding Vested Interest
Vested interest exists. This means an individual has a special interest in protecting or promoting that which is to their own personal advantage. Or, there are groups that seek to support or control an...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Creativity, Never Get Stuck Again
As a little boy, I was taught, in Sunday school, humans are all created in the image of God. I never understood this as a boy. Now, I think I do. God is creative; so are humans. This creativity is …...
View ArticleEffective Meetings Begin Before The Meeting
Effective Meetings Begin Before the Meeting All meetings, in a way, are sales meetings. You don’t meet just to meet. There is a sale involved even if you are not selling a product. Change has to be...
View ArticleFirst line manager: Change Must Be Doable, Seeable, and Feelable.
Is change inevitable? Absolutely. Change is necessary. Change can come from the first line manager’s department or elsewhere. Either way, change is the first line manager’s responsibility to implement...
View ArticleThe First Line Manager: Trust begins a process that leads to success.
What can trust do for a first line manager? Trust opens opportunities for you. As night auditor at the Ramada in Tuscaloosa, I thought management did not care about how I did my job. I performed night...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Are You a Jerk?
I believe some of the employees I have managed thought I was a jerk. Maybe I was the right kind of jerk suggested in this article I read. Jerry Useem in a June 2015 Atlantic article, “Why it pays to …...
View Article“Leaders Get Out of the Boat”
As a boy I read the story of Jesus walking on the water in Matthew 14: 22-33, I understood why Jesus could walk on water. It was a puzzle to me why Peter (Petra: the rock) got out of the … Continue...
View ArticleHow do you recognize a bureaucrat when you see one?
I worked for a very bureaucratic company for thirty-six years. We, first line managers, had to learn to deal with corporate bureaucrats. I have never really stopped to try to define one. I just had to...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Over Thinking stuff
What is over thinking? I am working on a project for my college fraternity. A “Reflection Workshop” designed to help our young members recognize the culture in their chapter. What are the traits the...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Sense of Urgency?
On Face the Nation, March 28, 2016, Secretary John Kerry was asked his approach to the gaps in our knowledge of terrorism. He replied that, “Well, there’s great urgency. There’s a sense of urgency,...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Leaders must manage to lead
Leaders must be managers; but, managers do not necessarily have to be leaders. Leaders have to manager all the resources at their disposal, self, others, communication, etc. Managers also must do the...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: Mission Confused? Mission Ignored? Mission Aborted!
I wonder if we have gotten to the point where mission statements are ignored. Every organization seems to be creating a mission statement. How effective are these mission statements? There are two...
View ArticleCustomer service is critical to creating goodwill.
I was cleaning out my closet and came across a customer service training video the Western Division of Alabama Power made in 1984. I was the chairperson for the Employee Involvement Team that produced...
View ArticleFirst Line Manager: The Courage to lead? Where does it come from?
My college fraternity president and I were reviewing the activities of our national convention and in particular the slogan, “The Courage to Lead.” He related to me how the General Fraternity had...
View ArticleThe First Line Manager: My First Human Management Job
I graduated from college in February of 1971, Mr. JKE had his motel manager Durrell Dallas ask me if I want to become a management trainee. The restaurant manager had just quit or been fired. Of...
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