DrContrarian

Failure to assess your own competence In many ways this related to the prior posting about inability to recognise weaknesses. But it actually goes further than that: people simply over-rate themselves. We have been fed an American diet of: over-achievement, positive thinking, self-belief, that we end up believing our own press. Capability and talent is distributed on a normal distribution curve. Half the world is below average. (Of course the readers of this blog do not fall into that half J .) But the reality is that not everybody gets to be no 1, gets to be the CEO or whatever. Because people believe they are better than they really are, they end doing poorly in jobs/ situations which they never should have let themselves get into. (May I confess that I am not exempted.) It has been documented a long time ago that there is a Peter Principle at play in the management ranks. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Principle ) The phenomenon of overestimating our abilities is re...

The contrarian's view of winning at office politics. Rule 1 : Make friends and shape that into a network. You need them to help you win the war. No individual can beat the whole system. (S)He with the most friends win - no matter what stunt the other person pulls. Rule 2: Make friends by GIVING and sharing and helping without an expectation of anything in return. (A paradox, I know, but that is how you do it.) You may be cynical about this, but your connections are what keep you 'connected' to the system - to state the bleeding obvious. Rule 3: Good defense will win the day. Office politics is not about being able to trample allover someone else, but more importantly it is about protecting your own turf. This is often a cliched football analogy, but it is really true: good defense wins the game. And for fun guide to OFFICE POLITICS - check this out.

This series does not cover the ‘reasons for failure’ in any particular order, but if it did, this particular malady would be very near the top of the list. Poor networking is the underlying cause of many, many failures. In any business, whether it is just you in a start-up, or whether you are part of a corporate machine, the art of networking underpins your success as a manager. The old cliché about ‘who you know’ and not what you know, is alive and well. Your network is the system that will: Alert you to a potential problem – before it becomes a problem Identify great opportunities that you would not otherwise be aware of. Provide you with resources & advice when you need it. Provide you with an ‘out’ if you get stuck in a dead-end. Give you a sense of connectedness when the madness and pressure are worst. MOST IMPORTASNTLY be the vehicle that will allow you to help other people, and so help you build your credits in the bank of recipr...

Part 5 in this short series. (Who knows how long it will be? J ). Initially I thought I’d stick to the fundamental, root causes only, but the reality is that most people will only read titbits, and not necessarily in one go, so I will simply highlight these reasons as they come to mind; whether it is primary or secondary cause… Inability to influence. Managers spend more than half their time influencing other people would be my guesstimate. Some time to do own work and some unproductive time etc. but the bulk of productive time is spent influencing people. The difference between a good manager and a poor one is directly correlated to their ability to influence others. Failure is usually a result of an inability to influence – especially an inability to exert upward influence. It is something we learnt as children, but many of us lose the knack for making people with more power do the stuff we want them, or rather need them to do. The psychology of influence is fascinating. But ...