Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss - MML

Monday Morning Leadership: 8 Mentoring Sessions You Can't Afford to Miss - MML

• Posted by Marco Malupa 

My Summary: MML is about a manager who has almost run out of luck, after almost losing hope he hesitantly turns to a good friend of his father for advice. His mentor asked the manager to commit himself for 8 weeks to learn about 8 simple rules to be a good manager. The rest is history.

How this helped me: This was first learning I took in my professional career that really had an impact to my performance, I suggest all new and seasoned leaders read this, reading this summary again made me realize the value of the words this book has to share.

** Yours in learning, Marco

Ground Rules for MML:

• Start and Finish on Time

• Tell the truth

• Try something new

Drivers and Passengers

• Be a Driver and until you accept total responsibility for your job duties, you will not be able to put plans in place to accomplish your goals.

• Transitioning from manager to leader requires that you make different decisions.

Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

• Crisis should not be what drives your job duties. A leader’s job should not only be crisis management and the leader and his/her subordinate leadership should not be firefighters.

• What are you job duties as a leader? What are your and your organization’s goals? What are the main things that are important to doing a good job?

• Know your main things and those of your employees. Share the main things with each other. This is the first step to team building

Escape from Management Land

• To get out of management land you need to get in touch with your employees. What are their concerns, what are their main things, who are the superstars, the mediocre employees, and the falling stars?

• Your job, as a leader, is not to lower the bottom by adjusting and accommodating the falling stars (failing employees). You as a leader should be raising the top by recognizing and rewarding superstar (successful employees) behaviors.

The “Do Right” Rule

• To do the right thing as a leader you need to develop your action plan before you get into a crisis.

• The only way to fix the problem is to go directly to what’s causing the light to flash and fix the problem. Address problems in a pro-active manner. An action plan should have been decided upon long before the crisis developed.

• Guard your integrity like it’s your most precious management possession.

• Everything you do contribute to your leadership score.

Hire Tough

• The most important thing you can do as a leader is to hire the right people. You can’t have a strong and effective team with weak and ineffective people.

• The most important asset in your company is having the right people on your team.

• Never lower your standards just to fill a position. You will pay for it later.

• Interview at least three times during different periods of the day (Makes you get to know the person during different times of the day to check for consistency)

Do Less or Work Faster

• You time is your responsibility. Take control of your time so you can take control of your life.

• Look for small increments of time by prioritizing, limiting interruptions, and effectively managing meetings.

• There’s a myth that no one seems to recognize, and it’s this: No one can save time… we all have the same amount, and can’t save time; we have to make better decisions on how we spend our time.

• There are two ways to spend time better: 1) you can do less or 2) you can do things faster. Of course, there are some things that we can eliminate and just say no to.

Buckets and Dippers

• Fill lots of Buckets – 1) Know you and your employees main things. 2) Give employees feedback on performance 3) Provide recognition 4) Communicate to the team and let them know how they are doing by providing them with their team score.

• The more buckets you fill, the more your own bucket is filled.

• Look for easy bucket fillers (Birthday Greetings, Quick Pat’s on the back, etc.)

• What to do when someone gets their Dipper in your Bucket

Enter the Learning Zone (Leadership and the learning zone)

• Get out of the comfort zone. Don’t live Groundhog Day forever

• Reading Room: You have to reach to earn, Spend 10 minutes a day reading leadership related materials.

• Listening Room: Listen to your employees and your supervisor(s). Listen better from outside seminars; make better use of your time while driving.

• Giving Room: Give back what you learn, more you teach the more accountable you are for what you teach!

• Set goals (SMART goals) Writing goals commit you to it. Fail faster and more often don’t be afraid to set goals if you think you will fail. Do not take this to an extreme though.

• Stay positive, never give up. Bad things even unfair things happen to the best people. The question is, how will you move forward after hitting that problem? It’s all about your attitude!