Management 101

I studied engineering in school. Then, out of school, I worked as a government environmental regulator. No design engineering, although I did two or three small projects that involved design.

Management as a job position never interested me. What is management anyway? I've seen the Dilbert cartoons. I know management staff are not really like that. Actually, I know there is a need for management. Okay, but I'm not interested.

I changed jobs about two years ago, and since there was no one to report to me, I figured I was safe from management responsibilities. That may be true in some sense, at present, but there are numerous projects to accomplish, most of which involve other people's work in addition to my own to make it all happen as it should. Maybe I need to learn something about management. Uggghhhh....

Get enough sleep, get exercise, follow directions, listen to my management's direction. Pray, read Proverbs, ask the Lord for wisdom, trust Him and the mind He has given me, though my mind is tainted with sin and faulty. But the Scripture says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of a sound mind.

While pedaling in place this evening, I listened to a teaching tape on management. The speaker made several points - let's see what I can remember.

- Management (of people) is essential in a business. There must be persons who don't do any work, except to oversee the work of others. One reason this is needed is that our own natures are wayward, we want to do things our own way.

- Management is, to a great extent, personal interaction with those one manages. Sure, we can have SOPs, standards, performance criteria, but people have to be personally coached and confronted with these standards.

- The manager's decisionmaking. He made an interesting point. Significant to me because I constantly second-guess myself, especially when decisions involve directing people. The manager has to make the decision or take the action that is needful, as he sees the need. This is true for all sorts of jobs and decisions. It was a significant point for me because I am quite aware of the process often in my mind - "so this is what I think, but there may be a better way, so let me get more data."

A couple of other management principles I have accessed recently, via a book and via other connections in my brain:

a. have a set of decisionmaking principles, communicate those to all levels of management and staff, and all know that we make decisions based on those principles;

b. be faithful to the law - the law might be, in fact, the local, state or federal laws that are written that regulate my work resonsibilities. In the law, at least in the case of my job, there are standards and do's and don'ts. Be faithful to accomplish those standards. So one has to take the steps that will lead to those standards.

Today, I managed to pedal one hour again. Then I ran and exercised for about 30 minutes.

I am eating a little better, but I'm not sticking to the diet that was so easy to write down a few days ago.

Eq. total miles*: 549 + 30 = 579

* This assumes 15 cycling miles for every hour pedaling on the track stand.