Think you are a good manager?

If you are not sure how good you are as a manager, read this. I will list some of the things that bad managers do. If you find yourself doing any of those, then you are a bad manager.

1- Do not listen to their employees. These types of managers think that they are always right and hence no need to listen to ideas from their employees. This is the first step to failure.
2- Embarrass their employees in public. By criticizing them and highlighting their mistakes in front of each other or in front of someone else.
3- Withhold praise. Some managers think that if they praise anything good their employees do, they might cause them to think highly of themselves and hence their performance degrades. This is not true; praising good work is an essential tool for motivation.
4- Be vague in what they say and do. Those managers are difficult to understand and they leave their employees always confused what to do and what not to do.
5- Enforce unrealistic rules. Weak managers enforce unrealistic rules that are too harsh to follow and treat their employees as slaves to cover their weakness.
6- Never say they are sorry or wrong. Some managers never admit their mistakes. This is fatal as it causes them to fall into series of mistakes.
7- Never acknowledge individual differences and talents. A good manager should be wise enough to understand the strengths and weaknesses of his employees and work to get the best of everyone understanding their differences.
8- Treating all employees the same way. Yes, a good manager has to be fair and has to set and execute the same rules of reward and punishment. But he has also to be wise enough to understand the way that positively impacts everyone. Some employees do not work hard unless closely monitored and harshly treated, some others do not excel except when they feel they have a room of freedom…. And so on. A good manager should be wise enough to know how to treat each of his employees to bring the best out of him.
9- Never support employee development. Bad managers are always afraid of their employees' improvement and development. This is because they are insecure and afraid if they develop, they could loose their job. A real manager creates leaders; hence he should always work on improving and developing his employees' skills.

McDonald's customer service

Today my sister ordered a meal from McDonald's (Abbas El Akkad branch - Nasr city) at 3:30p.m. At around 4:15p.m she decided to call to ask them why her meal has not arrived yet. They told her today the restaurant is very busy and the orders take an hour to reach the customer instead of the usual 30mins. Whoever answered the phone added that her order has already left the restaurant and should reach her shortly. She hung up and waited until 5:00p.m. and nothing arrived yet.

This time I called and here is the conversation that took place:
Me: I ordered a meal more than an hour and a half ago and it is not delivered until now.
Mc’s employee: Please wait until I transfer you to the employee responsible of complaints. (his words were: “ el mas2oul 3an el comblain”)
Me(to the customer complaints employee): I placed an order more than an hour and a half ago and it has not been delivered yet.
The employee: Yes we are sorry but today there is a rush and orders take an hour and a half to be delivered.
Me: But when I called an hour ago you said orders take an hour, now it became an hour and a half
The employee: Yes we are sorry, it was an hour but now, because of the rush, it became an hour and a half.
Me: I was told an hour ago that my order left the restaurant.
Employee: Let me check
…….He put me on hold……
Employee: No madam, your order has not left the restaurant yet
Me: This means that you are not only late on delivery, But you are also liars. You lied and told me that it already left the restaurant
Employee: No it has not left, let me check when will it be ready
………He put me on hold………
Employee: It will be ready in 10min.
Me: I do not want it anymore, cancel the order
Employee: OK, just a second.
………..He put me on hold……..
Employee: OK, madam your order is cancelled now. We are sorry for that.

This is it!!! They are VERYYYYYYYYY late on delivery, they lie and tell me it left when it did not, the employee responsible of complaints, did not even bother to try to make me change my mind about cancelling the order. He did not try to compensate me in any way. And what really made me laugh is:
After I hang up with him by not more than 3mins, the door bell rang. I opened to find McDonald’s delivery man with my sister’s order!!!!!!!!!!!

They DO NOT EVEN know which orders left the restaurant and which orders did not leave yet. And they do not know how to cancel orders :)

How to be persuasive?

Want to bring a conversation to your side? Want to close a deal with the profit margin you had in mind? Want to win a debate? Want to convince others with your point of view in a discussion? Want to gain friends and yet let your opinions prevail? Check it out!

You can be persuasive without being offensive and without being looked at as arrogant, stubborn and the kind of person who always wants to rule and control.

How?
1- Understand people. Not all people are alike and not all people accept the same way of treatment and conversation. So the first step is to understand your audience. Know what intimidates them and what makes them listen. Always use the right way to get their ears. If you manage to make them listen then there is hope they will be convinced of what you say if you have a good argument.
2- Do not be offensive. Do not loose your temper if people disagree with you. Do not use words like: you do not understand / don’t be stupid / of course not / You are wrong. And do not start the conversation by assuring that your listener is wrong or that you are angry with him or that there is no hope that you could change your mind or compromise.
3- Listen. Do not start a conversation with your mind set that you are 100% right or that you will not meet half ways or compromise. If you want to be heard then you have to listen.
4- Convey your message clearly. You have to be able to speak clearly and have a strong argument. If you can not express yourself or you do not have a strong basis for what you are saying then definitely you will loose your audience.
5- Be confident but not arrogant. You have to be convinced yourself of what you are saying to be able to convince others. Your confidence should show in your discussion. But do not over do it to the extent that you seem arrogant and stubborn and you intimidate your audience.
6- Start by putting in mind that you could be wrong. Yes you have to have a strong convincing argument and you have to be confident, BUT always put in mind that there is a possibility that you could be wrong. After all no one is always right
7- DO NOT DISCUSS SOMETHING THAT YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT. Never get into a conversation when you do not know anything about the discussed topic, especially if it is something you should have read about before discussing.
8- In business deals do not over price or under price from the beginning to avoid getting into debates that will force you to sell with little or not profit. In short, be honest and not greedy. If you are known for your honesty, people will not discuss your pricing because they will know from the beginning that you are pricing fairly.
9- Always stay calm and have eye contact with your audience. Do not ever turn a discussion or conversation into a fight.
10- Do not start a conversation putting in mind that people HAVE to be convinced of what you are saying. There is no have to! Do not try to force them. Be content if the conversation ends by both parties keeping their opinions and stay friends. You do not have to make enemies from people who disagree with you.
11- BE HONEST. If you know you are lying or that you are trying to cheat people into something or trying to convince others of something that you know is not true, you will never be able to be persuasive. Even if you do for a while, people will eventually know that you are not honest and they will never believe you again, even if by chance you happen to be saying the truth.
12- DO NOT jump into people's mouths. Interrupting people while they are still talking is very offensive. Let them finish and then discuss and comment. This will even give you a better chance to answer back every point and convince them of your point.

In short being honest, polite, calm and having a strong argument are the keys to being persuasive.

Are you a good manager?

I came across the following quiz over the net that tests your managerial skills.

Source: http://as01.ucis.dal.ca/hrd/hrd_2592_1605.html

by Bob Nelsonwww.ivillage.com

1. Do you personally thank employees for doing a good job - one on one, in writing, or both?
2. Are you willing to take time to meet with and listen to your employees?
3. Do you provide specific feedback about your employees’ performance?
4. Do you strive to create a work environment that is open, trusting and fun?
5. Do you provide your employees with information on the upcoming products and strategies, how the company makes and loses money and how each employee fits in to the overall plan?
6. Do you involve employees in decisions, especially decisions that affect them?
7. Do you encourage employees to have a sense of ownership in their work and their work environment?
8. Do you create partnerships with your employees by giving them a chance to grow and learn new skills?
9. Do you celebrate the successes of the company, the department and the individuals in it?
10. Do you use performance as the basis for recognizing, rewarding and promoting your employees?

After you answer all the questions above scroll down to know how good you are.....


DO NOT CHEAT













If you answer "No" to more than 3 questions, then you are not a good manager. You have to improve the way you work with and manage your employees.

CIB Customer Support - Should I laugh or cry or ....?

I mentioned customer support before and today I have an example of the worst customer support ever that I went through myself. My father had an account at the CIB Bank; the university opened it for him to transfer his salary. After he died and we had "2e3lam al weratha" (the document that we use to prove that we are the heirs and that we can collect the money and close the account) ready, I went to the bank and gave them a copy of the death certificate and 2e3lam al weratha and they informed me that they will start their procedures and the money should be ready within one to two weeks. They said they will call when they are ready.
After one week passed and no one called, my mother went to the bank to check out what happened so far. To our astonishment, they kept searching for our papers until they found them. And then they discovered that they have not done anything and that the papers were put aside and no one took care of the matter. On that day mom revived the issue again and they promised us another date to come to collect the money. When we arrived on the day they said everything will be ready, we stayed there for an hour and a half waiting for them to finish their paperwork. After all this waiting the customer support representative went to the branch manager and came back to tell us, sorry we can not issue the money for you. WHY? --- The funny part is coming --- They have to check with the university because the money was transferred to the account after my father's death and they are afraid that the university might have transferred the money by mistake and that they might come back and request from the bank to return the money!!!!!
What is really frustrating is they had more than two weeks to finish their procedures and paperwork, why didn't they do all the checks they need? Why did they wait until we came to tell us this frustrating piece of news? And even if the university is stupid enough to transfer money by mistake, legally they can not ask to get it back because it is already in our account and legally it became our money.
I do not want to comment now because I am furious; I'll wait until I calm down :)

Work Ethics

Have you ever felt pressured to compromise your values in order to succeed? Have you ever lost your job because you refused to do something against your values and beliefs?

I have, I did not lose my job but I faced a lot of problems because I never agree to compromise my values. I always stand to what I believe in, which often makes me the dull person around the office. Everything has changed what is right became wrong and what is wrong became right. The following became the trends:
1- Employees come very late to work.
2- Employees spend a lot of time chatting and socializing.
3- Employees spend a lot of time talking over the mobile phone.
4- Employees spend a lot of time over the MSN messenger, facebook,…or whatever other distraction.
5- The rest of the time is spent in pretence; employees fake the busy appearance to seem that they are working very hard although they are doing anything else.
6- Go around the office talk about how hard you work and that without your efforts this company would have been a mess.
7- Take credit for other people's work
8- Feed his/her boss's ego and spend a lot of time in his office praising him and his work. And of course agree to whatever he says even if it is a stupid thing.
9- Try to go up the hierarchy on other employee's shoulders. Try to cause trouble to their colleagues to get an undeserved promotion.

The result is they get promoted and their work is praised.

On the other hand if you work hard and do not do any of the points above you are not liked. Your boss thinks you are dull. Your colleagues can easily make your boss think that you hate him or that you are criticizing him behind his back (even if you don't) and you will not get promoted although you are the one who deserves the promotion. You might even be put in the situation where your boss envies your intelligence and success and tries to get rid of you in order not to reveal his weakness.

Do you think there is hope that the workplace will get clean again? Do you think that one day we will see qualified people only in their deserved posts? I hope so!!!!

Business Writing for Results

I read a book once titled “Business Writing for Results”. I liked it because it summarizes what you can learn in months or even for some people years of hard work. A lot of people write emails, reports, offers, proposals,…. But a few think of how to write it to make your audience respond in exactly the way you want.

How to make sure that people respond to your writings the way you want. How to make them read what you wrote to start with? This is not an easy task and requires great care while you are writing.

The following lines summarize what the book said:

Divide your task into the following three steps:
1-Get Your thoughts in order:
a. Answer the question: “What do I want my readers to do as a result of reading this?”
b. Analyze your audience by considering their personality and how they would react to your writing.
c. Be persuasive.

2- Create a Draft (on the computer or on paper)
a. Organize your thoughts.
b. Put your thoughts on paper and then select your beginning and ending paragraphs. (Those two paragraphs have great effect on whether your readers will read and respond or not so write them with care)
c. Generate a complete first draft.

3- Revise for Clarity
a. Revise to create a second draft.
b. Check if you need to add index, appendix, attachments,…
c. Revise to make sure your writing is specific, clear, concise and positive.
d. Select the best words and rephrase whenever necessary.
e. Check your spelling, grammar, punctuation and capitalization.
f. Make the draft visually appealing.
g. Read the entire draft again to produce the final version.