This week, we conclude our discussion on managing through a personal crisis. Last week, we discussed the preparation; this week, we discuss ACTIONS.

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This cast gives managers specific steps to take when dealing with a personal crisis of a direct report.

This cast describes how to help your group become a team.

Mark gets asked all the time to lead "Team Building" sessions for clients. He steadfastly refuses.

Because "Team Building" does NOT work.

There are plenty of exercises and efforts and courses and energizers and outdoor experiential programs. And none of them work.

None of them work.

Team building doesn't happen somewhere else. People don't have a BFO to become members of a team. Teams really aren't built the way houses or structures are built. Great teams HAPPEN, and great managers help them happen...but it's not because somebody catches you in a trust fall.

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This cast shares our most important principle in The Manager Tools Effective Hiring Process: Set the Bar HIGH.

We believe that the biggest invisible organizational personnel failing is hiring poorly. It's that simple: the vast majority of companies do a terrible job - compared to what they COULD DO EASILY - in hiring the right people.

Mark recently blogged with our first ever management koan, "What Would An Effective Manager Do?" It was clearly a big hit - we got 45 responses within 2-3 days.

No, I'm not sharing the answer yet.

So, you're a manager, and you've got a boss and a team. Let's assume for a moment that all of your responsibilities - your goals and objectives, rolling up all your tasks, can be represented by a bucket of balls (as in, "juggling a lot of balls.").

Today, we finish up our series on building a sense of urgency in your team.

Here's a brief outline of the Sense of Urgency series:

1. Ask the right questions
2. State the deadline ... don't ask
3. Know how to combat bad answers
4. Accelerate all deadlines
5. Use passive updating
6. Feedback every time ...
   

You know you're a manager - really, truly in a role of managing others - when you get frustrated that things don't happen as fast as they used to. "Gosh, why don't they GET IT? Can't they SEE what kind of pressure we are (I AM) under?" What is taking SO *(@((&$^*@^Q@*#% LONG?"

That's what all that extra pay is for. ;-)

If you've wondered whether it's just YOUR team, it's NOT. We find a lack of a sense of urgency to be pandemic. Most managers spend time complaining about this very thing when we coach them.

Last week, in our detailed review of the Late Stage Coaching Model, we covered steps 1 and 2 (Feedback and Systemic Feedback) of the six steps. Today we review the last 4 steps.

As a reminder, the 6 steps of the Late Stage Coaching Model are:

1. Feedback - Key point here is one of FREQUENCY versus significance. Good adjusting feedback is relaxed, it's professional, it's simple, it's respectful. But it is also DELIVERED.