Do you see your boss as a resource who could help you deliver your business goals and accelerate your career growth?
Watch this video to start learning how to leverage your bosses to achieve both your and their goals:
Percy M. Cannon
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Does your company or professional practice deliver consistent and predictable experiences? If unsure or wish to learn more about it, please read this article from Shep Hyken.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nExcellent reminder to take care of yourself every morning before you start your professional activities. My favorite tip is #1: Get 7+ hours of sleep. I know that if I come out short with my sleep the night before, I won’t be at my best during the day. Care to share your favorite tip?
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In the previous video, we covered how you, as a corporate manager, can choose to accelerate your career growth by learning how to deliver results through your peers.
If coaching and developing the strengths of your Direct Reports is one of your priorities for 2020, please watch this video:
Percy M. Cannon
Schedule a free call to discuss your needs.
Subscribe to my free newsletters.
Happy New Year!
In the previous two articles, we covered how you, as a corporate manager, can choose to accelerate your career growth by learning how to deliver results through others.
An important choice to make is to let go of the mindset of an individual contributor, where you had to rely mostly on yourself to deliver your goals. Instead, seek to achieve results through others. Adopt a mindset of service, where you always focus on “What’s in it for them”, them being the people within your organization with whom you interact the most: Your direct reports, your peers from other departments and your boss.
Please watch this video for Tip #3: Find creative ways to determine “what’s in it for your peers.”
Percy M. Cannon
Schedule a free call to discuss your needs.
Subscribe to my free newsletters.
Being a manager in a corporation is not easy. You likely face a litany of challenges and are expected to rise to the occasion with little help. You are expected to deliver your performance objectives with limited resources, work with colleagues you may not necessarily trust, or deal with lackluster direct reports. Do any of these problems sound familiar?
If challenges like these are not addressed promptly, you could miss your performance objectives and hurt your advancement opportunities. So, you have two choices: Do more of what you have been doing or elevate your game as a manager by learning how to deliver results through others.
In this and future articles, I will share tips to help you become a better corporate manager. I will build on the lessons learned during my 25 years as a manager for three large corporations (P&G, IBM, and Microsoft), as well as my seven years as an executive coach for over 200 professionals. If you missed the first article in this series, please click here.
Tip #2: Enlist your boss to help you deliver your performance objectives.
As a corporate employee, I quickly realized how important it was for my manager and the senior executives to see me as somebody who was adding value to the business and giving my best at work.
In one case, I had a review scheduled with an executive a few levels above mine, from whom I required approval to expand an important project I was working on.
My manager at that time helped me develop my presentation. He insisted on the importance of eliciting a “wow” from the big boss, meaning that at some point during the presentation, he should be pleasantly surprised to find that the work we were doing exceeded his expectations. He said this would reassure him that we were on the right path and that approval for the expansion would be granted. It worked. The presentation went well, there were (literally) a couple of “wows,” and I received approval for my expansion.
In another situation, I had a different manager give me excellent advice about how to develop a good relationship with his boss. He recommended that I remember to “feed the lion,” meaning that it’s important to provide frequent updates to our managers on the work we were doing. They want to be reassured that we are generating the kind of plans and results they expect from us.
I encourage you to consider using these lessons as well. Generating wows and feeding the lion will help you capture upper management’s support, get your proposals accepted, achieve your objectives, and generate good personal branding, all of which will be work in your favor when advancement opportunities arise.
Contact me if you need help developing the skills and capabilities to significantly increase your business results through your boss and, as a result, accelerate your career growth.
Percy M. Cannon
Helps you make the rest of your life…the best of your life
Subscribe to Percy’s newsletter
Being a manager in a corporation is not easy. You likely face a litany of challenges and are expected to rise to the occasion with little help. You are expected to deliver your performance objectives with limited resources, work with colleagues you may not necessarily trust, or deal with lackluster direct reports. Do any of these problems sound familiar?
If challenges like these are not addressed promptly, you could miss your performance objectives and hurt your advancement opportunities. So, you have two choices: Do more of what you have been doing or elevate your game as a manager by learning how to deliver results through others.
In this and future articles, I will share tips to help you become a better corporate manager. I will build on the lessons learned during my 25 years as a manager for three large corporations (P&G, IBM, and Microsoft), as well as my seven years as an executive coach for over 200 professionals.
Tip #1: Become a coach to your direct reports.Think about the best manager you’ve had in your life. What made them such a good manager? In my case, early in my corporate career I had a manager who regularly called me to his office to brainstorm potential solutions to business challenges. One of these challenges was to address the low brand awareness of a recently launched product. We held several
brainstorming sessions, covering such topics as defining the problem, reviewing the data available, searching for best practices, developing potential solutions, finding alternative ways to enlist other internal areas for feedback and support, developing a plan, seeking approval and funding, and executing the plan.
Throughout the entire process, my manager coached me, mostly one-on-one. At the end, he empowered me to lead the execution of the plan: making our product the exclusive sponsor of a game show in a highly rated TV time slot. This and other actions resulted in significant improvements in brand awareness, sales, and market share.
My manager not only coached me on how to analyze and address business challenges, but he also taught me how to coach direct reports. I paid it forward when I became a corporate manager myself and aimed to follow his coaching best practices with my new direct reports.
Contact me if you need help developing the skills and capabilities to become a better coach, significantly increase your business results through your direct reports (and peers and even your boss) and, as a result, accelerate your career growth.
Percy M. Cannon
www.cannon.consulting
Your punctuality (or lack of it) sends a message to the person(s) you are about to meet. This article by Shep Hyken should provide you with additional motivation to always be on time.
\n\n\n\nhttps://hyken.com/customer-service-strategies/showing-up-on-time-respect/
\nCan you guess which skill this is? Hint#1: It’s not a new one. Hint#2: It’s more challenging now than before.
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This is the last article of a five-part series where I provide suggestions that you can start adopting right away to promote excellence within and outside your organization. If you missed any of the previous ones, please click here.
I will continue to build on the content from “The Go-Giver” book series written by Bob Burg and John David Mann, as well as my nearly four decades of international corporate experience, first as an executive and now as a coach.
Today, we will cover the fifth principle, The Law of Receptivity: The key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving.
Giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin. They work best in tandem. It’s like breathing out and breathing in, like exhaling and inhaling. They work together. Giving is possible because there is somebody else who will receive. If you don’t allow yourself to receive, you stop the flow. Giving earns you the right, not the entitlement, to receive.
Initially, I had some reservations about this law, perhaps tied to negative experiences with “Give-to-Get” practices. Time has proved me wrong.
As part of my executive coaching practice, at the beginning of each engagement, I regularly include an exercise called 360 feedback. It is a process where the coach gathers feedback on the executive from bosses, peers, and direct reports. In one case, the executive was a CEO of a joint venture. He reported to a board with representatives of the two shareholder groups. I had phone calls with most of the board members.
Something interesting—and out of left field—happened in one of these calls. It was with the senior member of one of the shareholders, whom I did not know before the call. After giving me his feedback on the CEO, he asked me questions about my coaching practice and experience. Several months later, and within a few days apart, this group referred me to two executives from different companies. Of course, I gladly accepted the referrals and thanked them for their generosity.
The Law of Receptivity and its complementary Law of Left Field (the greatest gifts will come to you at moments and from places you least expect) were probably the most difficult ones for me to grasp…until the referrals started arriving…out of left field.
When an organization truly exhibits a culture of excellence, we see greater collaboration and productivity, increased innovation, and improved satisfaction for both internal and external customers. Living with a giving spirit creates a rising tide that raises all ships, including the one belonging to the generator of this tide. Create a culture of excellence, and you will reap the rewards of excellence.
Contact me if you wish to adopt a culture of excellence The Go-Giver Way and enjoy extraordinary results.
Percy M. Cannon
www.cannon.consulting
