Management Excellence
I've been in Paris since yesterday afternoon for a meeting of the Management Excellence team across EMEA. This is a team of managers that have volunteered to "inspire, advise and assist the Management Excellence Community and HR to create a culture of Management Excellence at Microsoft whilst ensuring we capture the essence of our diverse cultural and geographical opportunities" We have some truly great inspirational managers at Microsoft, and as Mini Microsoft regularly points out, we also have some less than great ones.
In my opinion, the most inspirational manager we have in the UK works with a team of consultants in our Services division. He's coached me several times about finding the perfect career wave, and taught me how to judge the right time for a career move. He's always right too. Another brilliant manager works in the UK Education team. He always has time for a chat: 5 minutes makes all the difference to people far below him in the management chain - and that's what makes the difference between a good manager and a great manager.
The Management Excellence team here in Paris, certainly fall into the latter category of managers. They all care passionately about their teams, and their teams development. They make good individual contributors great, and manage the stress levels of their team effectively.
We've been talking a lot about workplace stress and how to avoid it. Ezine has a good article on the top 10 causes of workplace stress in the US. But over here in EMEA, our individual teams from across 12 countries have exactly the same issues. Do you recognise any of these?
- Lack of control
- Lack of communications
- No appreciation
- No feedback - good or bad
- Career and job ambiguity
- Unclear policies and no sense of direction
- Mistrust and unfairness
- Pervasive uncertainty
- Random interruptions (phone and email)
- Workload - too little or too much
But how do we as a company fix all of these and make our teams happier? it's a huge task, but I'm sure that we're on the way to helping a little, and the Management Excellence EMEA team will be leading the way. Thanks guys for a great 2 days. I've learned much about my management style and the way I interact with my team.
Now how to apply it and make my whole team Excellent too...
