No Bull Business Blog

How many writing mistakes can you find?

Can you find all of the mistakes in the paragraph below? Note: We're not trying to trick you. Every error below is a common mistake by businesspeople every day.

Nothing is more embarassing than making a writing mistake. Of course, we all think its funny when we spot a mispelled word in magazine ads or on billboards. If one of your employee’s are making the the mistakes, it can be disasterous. And if you have a typo in a memo to the boss, how do you think they will view your professionalism? These kind of mistakes can be prevented, irregardless of the persons job title. The people that make the mistakes can seriously effect how other’s view you’re company. That can cost any organization money and hurt it’s profits. 

Okay, how did you do? If you found all 16, then you're brilliant.

To see the answers to this quiz, go to the PBP Executive Reports site.

10 mistakes new rookie managers make

Excerpted from the Executive Report - Motivating Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know

Managing is hard work – motivation is even more difficult.

Many managers and supervisors were promoted into their jobs simply because they were the best at performing a set of specific tasks among a team of people.

However, becoming a manager requires different skills, skills that the recently promoted employee may never have been trained to do.

No wonder so many mistakes are made.

Here are 10 typical mistakes made by first-time supervisors:

1. They persist in still doing their old jobs, rather than their new ones. As a result, they don’t delegate; they burn themselves out while the people who report to them can’t grow and thus feel unmotivated.
2. Out of a sense of insecurity, they sometimes view smart new people as competition, rather than assets. As a result, this de-motivates the people who could well represent their best hope for making the team a success.
3. They can be so afraid of making a mistake that they make no decision at all. By their indecisiveness, they lose the respect of their people – and with the loss of respect comes the loss of any chance to motivate people.
4. They fail to consider the consequences of their promotion on their former relationships with teammates. You can’t be best friend with a subordinate.
5. As a result of these factors, new managers play favorites based on former friendships. That destroys the morale and motivation of everyone else.
6. They see themselves as crusaders. They represent their people against the company, which is bound to end in disaster – or the other way around, which is guaranteed to turn everyone into an enemy unmotivated to perform.
7. When pressured to act unethically, they’re afraid to take a stand and do the right thing. Loss of integrity in the eyes of the workers will inevitably result in de-motivation.
8. They fail to adequately communicate laterally other managers, as well as up to their bosses and down to their own team. To be properly motivated, people can’t be kept in the dark like mushrooms.
9. They fail to reach out for help, thinking they have to be all-knowing. Admitting one doesn’t have all the answers can be an important factor in gaining respect.
10. They’re either too direct or too indirect in their dealings with their subordinates. They have a hard time finding a middle ground.

DIGGING DEEPER
Getting the most from your staff is critical. It's hard to achieve high productivity if employees aren't motivated. To find out what you can do, you invited to check out the Executive Report - Motivating Employees: What Every Manager Needs to Know.

No one ever changed the oil in a rented car

Excerpted from the Executive Report: Leadership Skills: the 7 Essential Steps to Delegating

You don't always have the power, authority or means to reward people the way you'd like or give them the growth they desire. Now what?

Realize that there's almost always something you can do to provide an incentive. It may not be a pay raise, but it might be:

• a small bonus
• more time off to spend with the family
• training and learning opportunities, or
• an incentive tied to the company's financial performance.

And you can modify and adjust incentives based on your knowledge of the employee involved.

Just as some people like opera while others like baseball, so can incentives be adjusted to target an employee's likes.

So, while your authority to award incentives is limited, your imagination is not.

Another incentive for successful delegation is to give the subordinate a sense of ownership of the task - a reason to be invested in its success. As the adage goes, "No one ever changed the oil in a rented car."

If you don't own a project, why would you care?

The sense of ownership ties in with other incentives - a bonus, a chance to move up, more independence. There's a difference, however:

While you might offer an incentive for taking on the delegated task, you might also offer an incentive for any successes that result from the person's taking it on.

Again, what you offer may be limited by your budget and authority. Still, almost all of us can come up with a reward for success.

DIGGING DEEPER
The ability to delegate is what turns good managers into great managers. Learn how to do it the right way by reading the Executive Report: Leadership Skills: the 7 Essential Steps to Delegating