RECENT years have seen the emergence of a new breed of high profile, management "gurus". Tony Robbins and his ilk have built a hugely successful (and profitable) industry around helping company managers to "improve" themselves and their company culture.
Their evangelical style may be a little over the top for the average Irish executive. But if you cut through some of the more off pulling jargon and self help babble, at the root of their theories you will find a wealth of sensible and constructive ideas for improving your company and employees' performance.
Stephen R. Covey is another `management prophet' making headlines. His teachings have the endorsement of President Clinton who recently urged every worker to buy a copy of Covey's book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (Simon & Schuster).
Unlike quick fix training programmes, Covey emphasises long run permanent change. His teaching is based on the natural principles that include trust, fairness, honesty and integrity. If individuals and organisations stray from these principles, they stand no chance of long term success. Covey believes that learning is a sequential process and therefore time is required to develop your character before you can develop as a manager. He gives seminars worldwide where executives practise integrating the Seven Habits into their lives and using them to devise new, effective management systems for their companies.
Covey's Seven Habits:
. Be proactive: Take the initiative for making things happen. He encourages people to focus on the areas over which they exercise control and avoid areas that affect them but which are controlled by others.
. Begin with the end in mind: Know what you want to accomplish and have a plan to obtain that goal.
. Put first things first: Selling priorities by categorising tasks as "important and urgent", "important but not urgent", "urgent but not important" or "not important or urgent".
. Think win win (co operation): Cooperation in dealing with all business contacts. He advises to seek benefits for both sides, using a win win approach to negotiations.
. Seek first to understand: Seek then to be understood (seeing the other person's point of view). This requires careful listening but he claims it builds trust and credibility with employees.
. Synergise (team work): The ability to unite the individual employees in a team effort to achieve a larger end result that could come from separate efforts. It is consensus decision making.
. Sharpen the saw: The effective manager, says Covey, refuses to allow backsliding. To maintain output, executives must renew themselves "physically, mentally and spiritually".
Covey claims his Seven Habits have identified the "universal value system of all mankind". Whatever about that rather sweeping claim, mastering Covey's Habits and adopting his enthusiastic approach could only be of benefit to any company.
Tom Kavanagh is managing partner at accountants McGrath & Co.
