I learned this concept as I debated my boss over a decision he was about to implement. As a Human Resources Director, I was concerned decision would impact morale. HR was filter by which I judged world at time. He gently closed discussion agreeing with my view point, "Yes, it's true employees will be unhappy. But they'll be unhappier if there are layoffs next year. My job is to make sure everyone has a job."

Absolute thinking limits perspective, causes mistakes in judgment, misunderstandings, disappoints, conflicts, and frustration in workplace. Most work issues are not black or white, right or wrong, win or lose. They are varying shades of grey. If you want to be winning at working, you need to adjust your eyes to see more grey and adjust your beliefs to understand, for most part, people are doing what they believe to be right, for reasons they believe are right. If we could stand behind them and see what they see, we might even come to same conclusion.

(c) 2004 Nan S. Russell. All rights reserved.

Daily operational issues eat up much of a manager’s time. Too much for most managers. But by reversing this trend, you will have opportunity to correct those mistakes and build a superior organization that keeps your best people, increases revenue and increases margins.

Start by examining how to remove yourself from your business. Look at automating or outsourcing tasks you perform now. Any task that falls within tactical operation of your business should be transferred to another person.

If automating or outsourcing is not an option then move responsibility down organization and train your employees to take over those tasks. Most employees are quite capable once they have been properly trained and given enough time to become proficient.

Continuous improvement beats delayed perfection.

The business is not about founder, executive or management that has more experience, thinks they are smartest or can do best job. A business is about all of people. In fact a business is people.

Management’s job is strategic. Manager’s must focus on vision, mission and objectives of organization. Then deploy resources to see work gets done. Then measure, monitor and communicate results so that everyone has information they need to improve their performance.

Management job is to do strategic work and not to do tactical work or else who is doing managers job? The workers cannot.