Managing Yourself Revised Edition

Elearn

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781138161764
• eBook ISBN: 9781136380990
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Stuck for ideas, inspiration or just want to work differently? Management Extra brings all the best management thinking together in one package. The books are practical and well structured to provide an in depth treatment of these management topics.

Titles in the series:
* Business Environment
* Change Management
* Development for High Performance
* Effective Communications
* Financial Management
* Information and Knowledge Management
* Leadership and Management in Organisations
* Leading Teams
* Making Sense of Data and Information
* Managing Markets and Customers
* Managing for Results
* Managing Health, Safety and Working Environment
* Managing Legal and Ethical Principles
* Managing Yourself
* Positive Working Relationships
* Project Management
* Quality and Operations Management
* Reaching Your Goals Through Innovation
* Recruitment and Selection
* Reputation Management

The series fuses key theories and concepts with applied activities to help managers examine how they work in practice. The books are created with individuals in mind. They are designed to help you improve your management
skills. Management Extra can also be used in conjunction with management programmes of study aligned to standards.

Each of the books has case studies, self assessments and activities all underpinned by knowledge and understanding of the frameworks and techniques required to improve performance. Management Extra provides managers and trainers with a handbook for action and development.

"You found it – what a find! A practical resource packed with all the relevant theory and suggested activities to support your professional development. An essential resource to have at your fingertips, jump in and enjoy."
--Russell Jeans, Learning and Development Manager,
ntl

"All the essential concepts are here, presented in an easily digestible format with lots of up to date case studies and
references – but, most importantly, with plenty of thought provoking activities and self-diagnostic exercises to make the learning personal and transferable."
--Peter Manning, Head of Training & Development, News International Newspapers Ltd

1Learning and reflection

The fact that you are reading this suggests that you already value learning and see it as central to your own development. Increasingly, managers in all types of business are recognising that learning is crucial to their success. And this does not just mean the traditional, formal learning that may take place in a college, university or training room - it also involves learning at work. It is fair to say that today’s effective manager is a learning manager.

We all learn in different ways. As a manager, you can try to be aware of your own learning strengths and preferences in order to make the most of your learning. You also need to be aware that individuals in your team may learn in different ways from you. This theme looks at learning preferences, styles and strategies.

One of the most important skills of the learning manager is the ability to learn from experience. But we don’t automatically learn from our experiences - indeed many of our most fertile learning opportunities pass by without our making the most of them. The key to learning from experience lies in being able to reflect on what happens to us, and grasping the true meaning and message of the experience. We introduce the role of reflection in learning and highlight some practical ways of developing the skills of reflection.

This theme deals with learning and reflection. You will:

◆ Review the importance of learning and reflection in the manager’s role

◆ Identify factors that help to create a positive climate for learning

◆ Evaluate your learning preferences and how you can use them in practice to improve your performance at work

◆ Use strategies for improving reflective skills.

The learning manager

Learning is crucial for today’s manager for several reasons:

◆ The pace of change. Today’s organisations face rapid change. When problems hit organisations today, they tend to do so much more frequently than ever before. New sources of competition, new forms of technology, new legal regulations, changing economic climates and employment patterns - all present organisations with new challenges and new opportunities. To cope, managers need to be quick on their feet. They need to be able to monitor the wider environment and anticipate change. All this calls for advanced learning skills.

◆ The changing role of managers. As organisations have evolved, so the role of the manager has changed dramatically over recent years. Gone are the days of the authoritarian enforcer of discipline. Today’s manager has to be a leader, a motivator, a supporter and a coach to their team. This means not just being good at learning ourselves, but also knowing enough about how learning happens to help other people to learn effectively.

◆ Changing career patterns. Today’s managers face very different career paths from earlier generations. The days when we could expect a job for life within a single organisation, with a clear, mapped-out career path, are long gone. Most people today expect to change jobs, organisations and even careers several times. This calls for continuous learning if managers are to remain employable.

◆ Information overload. The amount of information facing today’s manager is colossal. Indeed, there is likely to be far more potentially relevant information than any of us can possibly cope with. Consequently, we need effective learning skills - especially the skills of being able to scan for, filter and digest information rapidly - in order to gain real value from the information explosion.

All this has two important implications for you as a manager. First, it is important that your own learning skills are as good as possible. This involves recognising opportunities for learning and then learning effectively from them - whether during your work, through your reading, through your wider experience or through formal study. Second, it also makes sense to find ways to help your team learn effectively.

‘The more you learn, the more you become aware of your ignorance.’

Learning organisations

It’s not just managers who need to be good at learning, however. Many writers, including Charles Handy (1993), Rosabeth Moss Kanter (1989) and Tom Peters and Nancy Austin (1985), argue that learning is needed throughout the organisation if it is to adapt and thrive in today’s changing world. Richard Schonberger, a leading writer on world-class organisations, comments that:

All employees, from the CEO to bottom-scale new-hire, get on the path of continuous learning and don’t ever get off.

Source: Schonberger (1990)

This awareness has led writers such as Bob Garratt to coin the term ’the learning organisation’ to highlight this necessity for learning at all levels and in all parts of the organisation. Garratt argues that ‘learning is central to the survival and growth of all organisations’. If any organisation is to survive and have a chance of growing, then:

…its rate of learning has to be equal to, or greater than, the rate of change in the external environment.

Source: Garratt (1990)

Garratt argues that it is vital for organisations to develop ‘learning systems’ that allow people to learn continuously. In particular, he describes ways in which managers can support learning in ‘boss-generated’ learning:

Garratt’s ‘Boss generated development’

Coaching, questioning and feedback. For Garratt, the ‘learning leader’ is someone who agrees targets with individuals and teams, delegates the authority to meet the targets, monitors and gives feedback.

Counselling. While coaching focuses on specific work, counselling applies similar processes to the whole person.

Mentoring. While coaching is the job of a line manager, there is also scope for managers to mentor people in other parts of the organisation.

Job rotation. Garratt argues that managers can help their people become multi-skilled and flexible by experiencing a range of jobs.

Source: Garratt (1990)

In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge suggests that a learning organisation requires five ‘disciplines’.

Senge: Disciplines for a learning organisation

Senge identifies four core disciplines required to build a learning organisation:

1 Personal mastery. A high level of proficiency, which involves the individual in a commitment to their own lifelong learning, which in turn requires a commitment to learning by the organisation.

2 Mental models. Learning to unearth deeply ingrained assumptions and generalisations so we can expose our thinking effectively, and allow it to be open to the influence of others.

3 Shared vision. Unearthing shared ‘pictures of the future’ that foster genuine commitment.

4 Team learning. Results in the intelligence of the team exceeding that of the individuals.

When teams are truly learning, not only are they producing extraordinary results, but the individual members are growing more rapidly than could have occurred otherwise.

These four disciplines are integrated and given deeper meaning through the fifth discipline of:

5 Systems thinking. A method of thinking which draws our patterns, and helps us to see the effects of change.

All these disciplines involve lifelong learning – you never arrive, the more you learn the more you become aware of y...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Activities
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Series preface
• Introduction: Taking control of your life and work
• 1. Learning and reflection
• 2. Personal development and self-awareness
• 3. Exploring perceptions and diversity
• 4. Time management
• 5. Stress and life balance
• References