Make Promises You Can Keep

Being dependable is important—not only to the people you work for, but also to the people who work for you. One of the best ways to win respect is to be known as a person whose word is good.—always
Promises are easy to make, sometimes hard to keep. It’s bad business to make them lightly. The person to whom you’ve promised improved results will not forget it quickly if you fail to produce. Neither will the employee you’ve led to expect a pay raise you couldn’t deliver. If you are not in a position to give a raise then you shouldn’t promise one. Employees will not only trust you but may feel you promised something just to make them happy when in reality it won’t.
Why are we so quick to make promises? It’s probably because it’s the easiest thing to do when we are in a situation we’re not sure how to handle. The problem with that is, there comes a time when we have to pay up. If we are not in a position to make good on the promise, then we begin to have problems.
Actually, there’s nothing wrong with making promises, provided you observe a few precautions:
Are you sure you will be able to keep your promise? Eager young manager will promise things they cannot deliver. Let say you want to promote one of your employees to an assistant manager, you feel that if you do not do something to motivate him or her you might lose them. So you tell them that you are promoting them. You must make sure you are in a position to do that. If you are not and your boss doesn’t agree than you lose credibility with that employee and they will end up leaving you anyway.
Do you honestly intend to keep your promise? During the course of the day and with the pressures we feel as managers, it’s easy to promise something even when you know you can’t deliver. You might think the employee will forget about it. After all with all the things you have going on it’s natural for you to forget about it. However, that’s all the employee has on their mind, the promise you made to them. Since it is always on their mind you better make sure it’s always on your mind.
Are you particularly careful not to mislead people? A good manager will spend time talking to their employees about the future they have with the company. If you feel someone deserves a promotion, tell them. But tell them what you will do for them. If it’s writing a recommendation to your boss than that’s what you tell them you are going to do. You aren’t promising the promotion but promising you will do everything in your power to help them.
Do you make a practice of delivering all that’s promised? If you force someone to settle for less than you promised can lead to disaster. When you make a promise people expect what you say you will give them. Don’t ask them to settle for less. It creates resentment and you lose credibility.
Make promises you can keep. If there’s the slightest possibility you might not be able to, don’t promise. Deliver more than you promise, rather than promise more than you can deliver.

Finding the Solutions to Your Problems

How well do you handle your problems? Think back to the last on you faced. Did you stand up to it or were you intimidated by it? Did you look for ways to solve it or did you ignore it, hoping it would go away? We all have problems we wish would disappear, but realistically, that doesn’t often happen. So we need to face our problems and develop a good attitude about them. And when you view your challenges as opportunities, it’s easier to stand up to them and therefore, to solve them.

Here are four specific steps you can take to help you move from problems to solution.

Be Still. Whatever you do, don’t run from your problem. It will find you. You may get a temporary reprieve, but you will eventually come face-to-face with the problem once again. Running away also causes confusion within your mind, and a good solid solution cannot come from chaotic thinking. On the other hand, if you stay still and face your problem, your mind can remain calm. Answers become clearer.

Sharpen Your Mind. This step should really be an ongoing process, but if it hasn’t been so for you, now is the time to start. Sharp minds cut through problems, breaking them down so that they aren’t at all overwhelming. How sharp is your mind? If you’ve let your mind get dull, you can take charge and resharpen it. This way you’ll be in top-thinking form when problems come. If a person reads, he will sharpen and toughen his mind. Read about international events. Get a weekly news magazine and read it through. Then get deeper reading matter on international affairs. Get a tough book. How long has it been since you’ve wrestled with a tough book? I mean a really tough one, one so hard to understand that maybe even the author was straining his own understanding when he wrote it.

Know That There Is A Solution to Every Problem. We will all face incredible problems in our lives. Some of these problems will seem so large and cumbersome that our sharp and calm minds will not be able to immediately see beyond the trouble at hand. At times like these, we must remember that there really is a solution to every problem. I believe this because I’ve observed that the world is based on a system of opposites. This is the way God made the universe: night and day, love and hate, young and old, up and down and so on. It naturally follows that wherever there are problems, there are solutions.

God permits problems to exist for the ultimate benefit of mankind. It is from problems, hardships and suffering that we learn some of life’s most valuable lessons. We become better, stronger people. Businessman and author W. Clement Stone has always had a terrific outlook on problems. “A problem is always good,” he said “It means we may find a better way of doing things” Stone has spent his entire life taking problems apart. He believes without question that every problem has its solution, and that anyone can find it if he believes he can.

Keep Your Eyes Open. I tell you this because I want you to be aware of the good that can come out of a problem. I share W. Clement Stone’s philosophy: Problems can lead us to a better way of doing things; whether it’s running a business or the way we conduct our personal affairs. I’ve seen problems change the way people live: alcoholics who have hit bottom turn around and become productive citizens; welfare mothers who strive for independence and gain it’ poverty-stricken youth who work hard to rise above their experiences; failed businesspeople whose beliefs in their own abilities lead them to eventually success. It’s as though life’s deepest punches awaken the greatness of some individuals and they are the ones who truly define what it means to be an optimist.

Some people think optimism as something cheery. But true optimism is not super-cheeriness. It is the belief that the good in life out-balances the evil, and that always behind a difficulty there is an inherent good.

Remember, never run and hide from your problems. Instead, greet them with the attitude of a conqueror.

Get To Know Your Employees

Some people are more interesting than other. You’ve probably experienced that when you are somewhere where you do not know a lot of people and begin to talk to them. After awhile you tend to move on to talk to someone else.  The same applies to certain kinds of work. As a result, it’s easy for managers to find themselves spending more time with employees who interest them, and less time with those whose personalities or assignments are less stimulating. If we have an employee who’s interested in the same things we are we tend to spend more time with them because we have more in common and it’s easy to talk to them. If an employee has interests that we are not familiar with we will stay away. It’s your job as a manager to get to know a little about that employee and their interests.

Nevertheless, people work better for managers they can talk to and who are familiar with their problems. One of the most important qualities of good managers, in fact lies in the inspiration and guidance they give people by taking an interest in them and their work.

Managers who isolate themselves from some of their people lose touch with what’s going on in their department. They may also lose control over what they themselves are doing. By the time they learn about problems, what should have been molehill may have grown into mountains. It’s very easy to talk to all your employees. We all have something in common. Current events, sports, weather, family and more. People love to talk about themselves. Give them a chance and you will see that they are more interesting than you think.

It’s a natural reaction to ignore people and activities that don’t particularly interest you. It’s something, therefore, that a smart manager is careful to guard against. It just doesn’t pay and it’s neglectful, intentional or not.

Some otherwise good managers surprisingly find it hard to talk to co-workers. They prefer to communicate impersonally by writing memos. If you haven’t realized it by now what you mean doesn’t always get interpreted the way you meant.  Gradually, they lose the values that accrue to both sides from face to face contact.

It’s nice to have an office where you can get away from it all, but you still have to periodically make the rounds, chat with people, show an interest in them and their gripes, listen to their ideas. People need to talk to their manager about how their jobs are going and how they feel about their work. They may still have to solve their own problems, but being able to get things out in the open helps. It’s also the best way for a manager to help nip trouble in the bud.

Good managers get out of their chairs and find out firsthand what their people are thinking and doing.