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For the Manager

MANAGEMENT

By Peter F. Drucker
Foreword by Jim Collins: Peter Drucker’s Legacy
December 2007

During a discussion in graduate school, a professor challenged my first-year class: managers and leaders—are they different? The conversation unfolded something like this:”Leaders set the vision; managers just figure out how to get there,” said one student.

“Leaders inspire and motivate, whereas managers keep things organized,” said another.

“Leaders elevate people to the highest values. Managers manage the details.”

The discussion revealed an underlying worship of “leadership” and a disdain for “management.” Leaders are inspired. Leaders are large. Leaders are the kids with black leather jackets, sunglasses and sheer unadulterated cool. Managers, well, they’re the somewhat nerdy kids, decidedly less interesting, lacking charisma. And of course, we all wanted to be leaders, and leave the drudgery of management to others. read more hereab5

 

youbrandyou Education 5.0

“Building a Company Vision”

 

Read Collins’ Articles: Read (and re-read) Jim Collins’ Harvard Business Review article titled “Building a Company Vision.” (Download here). Reading will help you become comfortable with the concept of Core Values, Purpose, Profit/X, and BHAG —Also you can go to http://www.jimcollins.com where Collins has several free interactive tutorials to help discover Core Values, discern a Purpose, choose a BHAG, etc.

 

youbrandyou Golden Nuggets

WHAT IS THE CEO’S “HIGHEST AND BEST USE” OF THEIR TIME?

By 

As a company that provides training, coaching and monitoring services for the small to mid-sized business owner, I am often asked  what our biggest challenge is when working with clients. Not a fair question; because each client is different and most of the challenges are theirs, not ours. However, if I were to pick one area where I find the business owner may struggle the most is identifying the “Highest and Best use of their time”. For example, we once worked with a business owner who fired all his sales people and decided to manage all sales himself. As the owner he had worked primarily in quoting and production quality / profitability. Having never sold before, and coming from an engineering background he quickly realized that he did not have the skills and sales fell flat, quickly. Quoting stopped, production slowed down, quality issues rose as did production expenses since the owner spent less time on the floor and more time in his office trying to make sales calls.

As a business owner grows into their executive maturity, they learn that the more they can identify what they should be doing, the easier it becomes to delegate to key executives, managers and employees. It is only through the function of identify what one should be doing that one can discern what they should NOT be doing.

I remember earlier in my management career I had a mentor and boss who would constantly challenge my use of time with every visit by asking me these three simple questions.

  1. What are you doing?
  2. Why are you doing it?
  3. Who do you have on your team who can do that for you?

By answering these three simple questions I quickly learned the power of delegation and thus freed myself to pursue more acquisitions, negotiate better vendor contracts and provide more one on one coaching to my managers, this making them more effective.

So, I ask you, do you know what is the highest and best use of your time? If you were to ask yourself the three questions above throughout your day, how much of what takes up your time should be delegated?

If you can not answer the questions above by yourself, give us a call and we will coach you through it.

Estrada Strategies

is a unique business coaching organization founded in 2005.  Founder and CEO Ruben Estrada launched the company because of his passion to help the owners of small and medium sized companies beat the odds and achieve long term success.  Ruben believes that every business has the potential to succeed and with the right tools and guidance every business owner can develop the tools to make that potential reality.

When Estrada Strategies was founded, Ruben brought together a team of talented leaders in the fields of business coaching, franchising, and leadership.  Today that team includes Dr. Kevin Kragenbrink, a business coach with more than 30 years of experience in small business leadership and education; Sherry Christoper, a leading light in the world of franchising; and Dennis Assad, a business leader with unequaled skills in the development of business opportunities through sales and systems development.

This visionary team is working every day with franchise owners and business coaches who are part of the Estrada Strategies network to create opportunities for every business to succeed.  Living this vision is the driving force behind everything we do at Estrada Strategies.

Beginning in 2007, the company began franchise operations with offices in California and Tennessee.  From the start, our philosophy has been to grow slowly and make sure that we are doing the right things for every client and for every franchise.  This means our network of coaches is made up of tested and proven business coaches and business advisers.  Our clients experience the same level of excellence and service wherever they are located.

Are you ready to make your next move?