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Hi Everyone,

I would like any advice any of you would like to throw my way. I am a General Manager in a retail business. I moved to a new area about a year ago although I’ve been with my company for about six and a half years. I’m hoping to be promoted to District Manager this next year.
It’s taken about a year, but my boss came to me recently and asked me if I would be willing to contribute more in her district. She has asked me to take on a few of her weekly and monthly tasks. She also asked me to come up with something that I feel strongly about that I would like to contribute. I put together an agenda of monthly topics that I could relay to the team through email or during conference calls. The topics ranged from One on One’s, Giving Feedback and some specific industry topics. She really liked the idea and now she wants me to run a monthly meeting covering these topics. Needless to say, I will be relying heavily on Mike and Mark’s suggestions.
My first meeting takes place in about two weeks. I have worked on the agenda, the presentation and I will be practicing with a camcorder religiously until the day arrives. This will be my first presentation other than in school and I have a couple of questions. My biggest dilemma is that when I came to this new area there were already a couple of G.M.’s that were vying for the same promotion as me. They are my peers and the competition among us is quite strong. The meetings that I will be leading will be for them and I really want to not only do a great job, which I will thanks to M&M, but I want to go into these meetings positive although I know that they will be looking at me negatively because this is probably something they wish that they were doing.
I’ve done one thing to help my cause and that is to get a couple of other managers to help me out with my presentation so that at least I know that I have their support. They are new to our company and I wanted to get them involved as well as gain some support.
I would love to hear other ideas that you guys have to help me win my peers/competitors over. Any advice would be much appreciated.
Thank you again Mark and Mike for such wonderful content and maybe even more so to those of you that contribute so much to these boards.

Thanks,
Mike

jhack's picture

Have you solicited input from the two managers whom you perceive as rivals? Do you know what their interests are aside from the promotion? Can you include their interests in your recommendations?

Also, make sure you listen to the podcasts on handling questions in a presentation.

John

PierG's picture

I'd start listening to the How To Prewire a Meeting (Manager Tools Members Only)

PierG

WillDuke's picture
Training Badge

I was going to say what PierG said about the PreWire podcast, so ditto.

Also, I'm a fan of good communication. It can never hurt to use DISC to identify people's style and adjust your delivery accordingly.

But mostly do the pre-wire stuff. :)

Mark's picture
Admin Role Badge

PRE WIRE.

And, don't argue with them when they behave poorly in the actual meeting. Be willing to say, "thanks for bringing that up," or, "interesting point."

But meeting behavior is dwarfed in leverage value by Pre Wire.

Cool news, too. Do try to give your boss something other than management when you can, too. Ops stuff, sales stuff, marketing stuff. Not yet, though...get through the management stuff.

Mark

michaelami's picture

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.

Mike

michaelami's picture

Tomorrow's the day. I'll let you know how it goes. I prewired.

Thanks again,

Mike

US101's picture
Licensee Badge

So, how did your pre-wire go michaelami?