Praise the stuff you like. Treat it like a bank. For every 2 praises, you get one criticism. If you are a natural asshole like me, try for a 5 to 1 ratio to make up for all the times your nature causes you to forget this rule.
This works really well for kids too, but I am even worse at remembering with kids.
Cycles. In work, you have to have races, projects, sprints, releases, whatever. You can’t just have people slogging day in day out towards nothing. Success for the cycle has to be defined and success must be achievable without comprising your team’s life outside of work. (This is just like any good physical training program – you break up your training into work outs with a goal for each workout – I don’t do this with training because I am a lazy fat butt).
If your team is good, they will set the success criteria higher than is really doable in the time frame of the cycle. They will work harder than 40 hours a week because they set the goal aggressively and they want to achieve their goal.
Always saying that the team sucks and should do more faster results in a team that sucks and should do more faster. Setting the goals and time lines for the team results in a team that can’t set its goals and never meets its time lines.
Don’t do work for your team and don’t micromanage. If you do this over and over, you are in a death spiral. When they don’t deliver, talk plainly about the missed matter and the consequences of it and ask them why it will be better next time. If you win but no one is there with you at the finish line, you aren’t going to win again.
In 1997 (or 96), I was sent to a management assessment program. This consisted of 2 days of mock exercises where my management aptitude was assessed. After the class, I went over the assessment with one of the programs coordinators.
One exercise involved me convincing a manager in the operations department to sign onto a program I devised. During the mock negotiations (while being video taped), I managed to convince the manager to sign onto the program (or at least nod towards the program). At the point of the first agreement, I quickly (almost breathlessly) ended the meeting.
I lost points because I didn’t summarize the agreements at the end of the meeting and make sure that the manager was really agreeing with me. Its important to address agreement and disagreement directly and plainly. If the other party doesn’t understand what they are agreeing to or they don’t really agree, it does not count. 3 weeks down the line, they will act as if the agreement never happened.
Even if you are a lawyer and its a signed contract (unless you are out to screw the other party), it matters that the other party really understands the agreement. I wonder how much of the current credit crunch could have been avoided if the loan givers had made sure the borrowers understood the terms, conditions and consequences of the loans they were selling.