Manager Improvement Via Mr. Tanner
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jan 6, 2011
I was checking out a post on a blog written by a man named Robert Tanner titled Improving Productivity With a Lessons Learned Analysis.
I found it an interesting post for a couple of reasons. One, it seems the blog was created with some interesting technology that I might have to explore further one of these days; lucky for me, I figured my way around some of it; no questions answered here. 🙂 Two, the post is basically predicated on how managers decide to respond to these five questions:
1. What did we expect to occur?
2. What actually happened?
3. What worked well and why?
4. What did not work and why?
5. What needs to be done differently?
I thought this was a great idea, and I hope you go over and read what he has to say. However, I fear that many people probably don't go this far in evaluating their performance, or the way things are performing around them. I feel that way because of what I've seen happen over and over and what I hear people saying about those they report to.
There's always fear in changing the status quo, even if it can make things better. When one has to do a self analysis, it can be frightening to learn that things aren't what you thought they were. Going through the process Mr. Tanner outlines will be beneficial, but you have to want to do it for it to be successful.
Oh yeah; he also says this is a part of what he calls a "manager's toolbox. There are more posts on his blog with that phrase in them; it wouldn't hurt to take a look around and glean more information from his words.
Mitch,
Thanks for mentioning my post on your blog! I appreciate your review and your thoughts. I agree that it is hard for some managers to do this analysis. Some of the feedback I receive from seminar participants and from some of my students is that their managers are “behaving badly” with this economic crisis. Turnover will be their payback once the economy improves.
I read your post on tips for a business blog. It was well done. I am going to reconsider my moderation of the comments. Spam was bad for awhile. I regret I was not able to get your comment on my blog because of the moderation.
Thanks again for the kind words. I will be visiting you again.
Regards,
Robert
Robert, I’m glad you stopped by, and I thank you for the original composition as well. This process of challenging those in leadership positions to look within themselves for self evaluation is interesting when giving a presentation, and oftentimes you know it’s probably the only time they’ve spent doing it. My hope is that some day good management becomes the status quo; I hope it’s not a pipe dream. 🙂
Good luck with your blog as well.