Issue No. 129 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting highlights a mentoring book with an outline for eight Monday morning sessions. Who are you mentoring or coaching? And this reminder, check out my Management Buckets website with dozens of resources and downloadable worksheets for your staff meetings.
Chief Bucket-Filler
What if every person on your team had a Monday Morning management mentor for the next eight Mondays? That’s the idea in this week’s book—and in less than 100 pages, David Cottrell, a management consultant shows you how to do it.
In this brief review, I must first mention the topic for Monday Morning #7, “Buckets and Dippers.” The mentor says, “As a leader your job is to keep everyone’s bucket filled. You are the Chief Bucket-Filler, and the best way to fill buckets is with excellent communication.”
He describes four To-Do’s to keep your team members’ motivation buckets full: 1) Know the main things; 2) Give feedback on performance; 3) Provide recognition; and 4) Communicate the team score. He lists a dozen ways you can show team members you care about them, and he punctuates the 12 one-liners not with bullet points, but with buckets. (I really like this author.) Example: “Follow the platinum bucket-filling rule: Treat people the way they wish to be treated. And, “Keep a camera close by to record significant bucket-filling events.”
The eight Monday morning topics—written in story form with a mentor and a manager—focus on many of the Management 101 essentials: hire tough, do less or work faster, live in the learning zone (read 10 minutes a day) and more. Maybe your best inspiration from this book is just…do it! Use Cottrell’s book (eight Monday mornings) or mine (20 mornings), but…do it. Mentor your managers.
To order this week’s book from Amazon, click on this title: Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can’t Afford to Miss, by David Cottrell. You can also order a PowerPoint slide deck and a facilitator guide and notes directly from the author’s company, CornerStone Leadership.
Your Weekly Staff Meeting Questions:
1) The author warns that “people quit people before they quit companies.” Think of a previous job you held at another company or organization. Does a “Chief Bucket-Filler” come to mind? What did he or she do that was memorable?
2) You’ll have to read the book to get his answers, but…for now, guess what David Cottrell’s three rules in hiring are? What are your rules?
Keep Dating - Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets: 20 Critical Competencies for Leading Your Business or Nonprofit
One of the big ideas in the Board Bucket, Chapter 14, in Mastering the Management Buckets, is to help your board members hone their board competencies regularly. I use the dating analogy in the Board Bucket because too often, once a board member is recruited and the wedding ceremony (board member installation) is a done-deal, the dating usually stops. That’s unfortunate.
Professional development for every board member should be an on-going and annual expectation. Ensure that each board member hones their board competencies regularly. Most will bring a diversity of expectations into your board room. They’ll also bring the delightful dysfunctional baggage they’ve picked up from other board experiences. How do you fix that?
Use your board meetings, conference calls, mailings and at least one board retreat each year to help members become life-long learners on board best practices. Introduce them to board governance workshops, books, articles, websites and CDs. Invite resource people—consultants, other CEOs, professors, for example—to train, motivate and inspire your board team. Bless your board members and they’ll be a blessing to your organization.
For more board governance resources and ideas, visit the Board Bucket page of my website and check out the five book recommendations. Also note the CLA TeleSeminar below on “Six Best Practices for More Effective Boards.”
CLA TeleSeminar With John Pearson on March 27, 2009
Join other nonprofit leaders, board members and pastors for a one-hour TeleSeminar on Friday, March 27, at 9 a.m. Pacific Time, hosted by Christian Leadership Alliance, on “Six Best Practices for More Effective Boards.” I’ll present six very practical tools you can use (and download) to improve your board governance practices and speed up board meetings. Visit CLA for registration details.
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