Employ the 7 shifts in managing and leading people.

There is a better way to manage. Most managers struggle at work. They seem to labour long hours against things and people. The irony is that they are working hard but things are hardly working. They have a lot of meetings but people are more confused about what the real messages are. They seem to spend a lot time with customer problems and yet customer satisfaction level has not increased much. Likewise, there is a lot of discussions on issues facing the organisation but little issues are resolved.

Leaders spend a lot of time discussing new ideas but few of these ideas are actually translated into action. For those ideas that are implemented like TQM, BPR, ISO 9000 and Six Sigma, the results are neither impressive nor sustainable. Leaders struggle to motivate people. Change agents strive to overcome resistance. Team leaders forcefully trying to get people to work together. Grass root operation people toil hard to meet moving targets. Strategic planners are relegated to short term fire fighting as crises surface one after another. Human resource managers are slowly depleted of ideas of how to continuously re-energise a morale-deteriorating workforce who seem to need higher and higher doses of motivation to keep them performing. The whole atmosphere around the organisation appears to be on big unending struggle to stay afloat.

As a consultant having worked with over 350 Asian organisations, I have seen enough pain and strife in organisations. I would like to offer leaders an alternative. Stop the struggle. Get the pain out of managing. Start to manage joyfully and achieve better results.

I recommend the seven shifts required in managing and leading people.

From Painful Work To Joyful Work

Let managers learn from the artists. Singers, actors, actresses, painters, poets or novelists, excel in their respective fields because they find joy in what they do. They do their best, because their quality of work they produce reflect a great part of them - their reputation and pride.

The first lesson for managers is that to excel in the field of managing, they have to excel in this art. The only way they can learn to excel in the art of managing is to love what they do everyday. They need to adopt this belief that the quality of work they do, reflect the quality of themselves as professional managers.

The easiest way to excel in something is to find joy in it . Work will become easier and more meaningful if managers develop a passion for work. Take the pain out of work, start to capture joy in your work each day and you will excel in what you do in no time.

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