How To Get More Done In A Shorter Time

Aren't our daily lives chocked full of things to do these days? 

But do you remember when computers were just beginning to come into widespread use in offices and we were constantly told that we'd have so much leisure time as a consequence, we'd have trouble filling it?

Someone certainly got that one wrong!

Instead, computers have simply meant that we are required to do more work in a shorter time and most of us struggle to keep up with all the demands on our time. From work targets and deadlines, to family duties, ferrying our children to and from extra-curricular activities, baking home-made muffins (just to prove that we can be creative too), right down to organizing a full and interesting social life........there just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day!

And when bedtime comes around, our sleep is of poor quality as we worry and fret about how we failed to get through every essential item on our 'To Do' list for the day. We feel that we will be starting tomorrow already paying catch-up and that leads to further feelings of anxiety and failure.

So, to help you out a little, here are a few guidelines on how you can accomplish more of those tasks on your list and end up with a little 'me time' at the end of the day. The secret is all in how you organize your time and how you discipline your mind to focus on one task at a time. Easy!

1.  Prepare & Plan.

Before you fall, exhausted, into bed at night, spend just 5 minutes quietly thinking about the following day. Prepare your mind for what needs to be done and plan how you are going to tackle your tasks.

Jot down on a piece of paper all the things that are dependent on a time for the following day  ie: a dentist's visit, getting your kids to where they need to be for a certain time or an appointment you may have. Plan to allow yourself time to get ready, travelling & parking time and the time you expect the visit to take.

Be realistic, so that you don't have to rush and feel pressured by your lack of time.

Then, once these must-do things are in place, prepare the things you need to do in order of importance. Put the most critical task at the top - the one that has the most dire consequence if you fail to do it. That is your priority for the day and the task that must be completed before all others. Plan to do nothing else until it is finished and done with and plan to work at it without distractions. That means you need to be disciplined enough to turn off your phones, close down your email and ignore everything that isn't actually life-threatening until you are done.

2. Separate out What You Must Get Done & What You'd Like To Get Done.

We are all guilty of piling too many jobs upon ourselves and then beating ourselves up mentally when we inevitably fail to finish all of them. Some jobs may remain on the list for weeks, or even months, just demonstrating how unimportant they are in reality! Nevertheless, their very presence, day in day out, simply serves to subconsciously re-inforce our own inability to Get Things Done.

By really sorting out the important tasks from the less important ones, you can free yourself from that subconscious pressure very easily.

So what if your cupboards/garage/garden shed doesn't get re-organized? What's the worst consequence of not taking care of that job? Looking at a jumbled space from time to time!

But meeting a work deadline has much greater impact. Clients may become angry at not receiving the service/product they have paid for or your boss venting his anger on your inefficiency and threatening your job security.

What is more the more important use of your time? Having the pleasure of seeing clean cupboards or having the security of a job that provides an income to pay your bills?

3. Be Realistic in Your Choices

Once you have identified what tasks you need to get done as a priority, it is critical to remain realistic in estimating the amount of time each will take. 

There's no point in planning to accomplish 5 crucial tasks in a day, if each of them will need 6 hours to complete properly!

Instead of overloading your schedule, give yourself  'permission'  to work for long enough to make a good job of each one in turn. Don't flit from one to another in the mistaken belief that you are working hard - you're not! 

'One job, one focus, one accomplishment' should be your mantra from now on. 

Plan & prepare to tackle the next most important task, work without distraction, focus on that task and that task alone and grant yourself permission to dedicate your time (however much time that may be) until you have completed what you need to do.

It'll be hard at first - you will need to train yourself to leave your old, fuzzy ways of working behind - but once you have, you will quickly find that you can work more efficiently, more happily and experience the huge buzz of completing each job well and in good time. 

What a great reward that will be!

4.  Persevere - Never Stop, Never Give Up, Finish the Task and Then Relax.

Finally, keep on keeping on. Plug away at what needs to be done, however much you yearn to stop for a coffee or to wander down the hallway to see what other people are up to. Persevere, persist and beaver away until the very last iota of the task is done with.

Iron will and self-discipline can move mountains so determine to develop & hone yours until you become super-efficient and ultra-focused in whatever you are doing.

This way, you will be able to achieve more, in a shorter time than before and you really will be able to claim your leisure time each and every day"

http://howtobeconfidentfast.blogspot.com/p/how-to-get-more-done-in-shorter-time.html

Twenty top predictions for life 100 years from now

Last week we asked readers for their predictions of life in 100 years time. Inspired by ten 100-year predictions made by American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins in 1900, many of you wrote in with your vision of the world in 2112.

Many of the "strange, almost impossible" predictions made by Watkins came true. Here is what futurologists Ian Pearson (IP) and Patrick Tucker (PT) think of your ideas.

1. Oceans will be extensively farmed and not just for fish (Jim 300)

IP: Likelihood 10/10. We will need to feed 10 billion people and nature can't keep up with demand, so we will need much more ocean farming for fish. But algae farming is also on the way for renewable energy, and maybe even for growth of feedstock (raw materials) or resource extraction via GM seaweed or algae.

PT: Good chance. According to Dennis Bushnell, chief scientist at the Nasa Langley Research Center, saltwater algae that's been genetically modified to absorb more nitrogen from the air than conventional algae could free up to 68% of the fresh water that is now tied up in conventional agriculture. This water could go to thirsty populations.

2. We will have the ability to communicate through thought transmission (Dev 2)

IP: Likelihood 10/10. Transmission will be just as easy as other forms of brain augmentation. Picking up thoughts and relaying them to another brain will not be much harder than storing them on the net.

PT: Good chance. Synthetic telepathy sounds like something out of Hollywood but it is absolutely possible, so long as "communication" is understood to be electrical signals rather than words.

3. Thanks to DNA and robotic engineering, we will have created incredibly intelligent humans who are immortal (game_over)

IP: Likelihood 9/10. It is more likely that direct brain links using electronics will achieve this, but GM will help a lot by increasing longevity - keeping people alive until electronic immortality technology is freely available at reasonable cost.

PT: Good chance. The idea that breakthroughs in the field of genetics, biotechnology and artificial intelligence will expand human intelligence and allow our species to essentially defeat death is sometimes called the Singularity.

4. We will be able to control the weather (mariebee_)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. There is already some weather control technology for mediating tornadoes, making it rain and so on, and thanks to climate change concerns, a huge amount of knowledge is being gleaned on how weather works. We will probably have technology to be able to control weather when we need to. It won't necessarily be cheap enough to use routinely and is more likely to be used to avoid severe damage in key areas.

PT: Good chance. We will certainly attempt to. A majority of scientists in the US support a federal programme to explore methods for engineering the Earth's climate (otherwise known as geoengineering). These technologies aim to protect against the worst effects of manmade climate change.

5. Antarctica will be "open for business" (Dev 2)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. The area seems worth keeping as a natural wilderness so I am hesitant here, but I do expect that pressure will eventually mean that some large areas will be used commercially for resources. It should be possible to do so without damaging nature there if the technology is good enough, and this will probably be a condition of exploration rights.

PT: Pretty close. Before there is a rush to develop Antarctica we will most likely see a full-scale rush to develop the Arctic. Whether the Arctic states tighten control over the region's resources, or find equitable and sustainable ways to share them will be a major political challenge in the decades ahead. Successful (if not necessarily sustainable) development of the Arctic portends well for the development of Antarctica.

6. One single worldwide currency (from Kennys_Heroes)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. This is very plausible. We are already seeing electronic currency that can be used anywhere, and this trend will continue. It is quite likely that there will be only a few regional currencies by the middle of the century and worldwide acceptance of a global electronic currency. This will gradually mean the others fall out of use and only one will left by the end of the century.

PT: Great try! The trend on this is actually more in the opposite direction. The internet is enabling new forms of bartering and value exchange. Local currencies are also now used by several hundred communities across the US and Europe. In other words, look for many more types of currency and exchange not fewer, in the coming decades.

7. We will all be wired to computers to make our brains work faster (Dev 2)

IP: Likelihood 10/10. We can expect this as soon as 2050 for many people. By 2075 most people in the developed world will use machine augmentation of some sort for their brains and, by the end of the century, pretty much everyone will. If someone else does this you will have to compete.

8. Nanorobots will flow around our body fixing cells, and will be able to record our memories (Alister Brown)

PT: Good chance. Right now, medical nanorobots exist only in theory and nanotechnology is mostly a materials science. But it's a rapidly growing field. Nanorobots exist within the realm of possibility, but the question of when they will arrive is another matter

IP: Likelihood: 7/10.

9. We will have sussed nuclear fusion (Kennys_Heroes)

IP: Likelihood 10/10. This is likely by 2045-2050 and almost certain by 2100. It's widely predicted that we will achieve this. What difference it makes will depend on what other energy technologies we have. We might also see a growth in shale gas or massive solar energy facilities. I don't think that wind power will be around.

10. There will only be three languages in the world - English, Spanish and Mandarin (Bill Walker)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. This does look like a powerful trend, other languages don't stand a lot of chance. Minor languages are dying at a huge rate already and the other major ones are mostly in areas where everyone educated speaks at least one of the other three. Time frame could be this century.

11. Eighty per cent of the world will have gay marriage (Paul)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. This seems inevitable to those of us in the West and is likely to mean different kinds of marriages being available to everyone. Gay people might pick different options from heterosexual people, but everyone will be allowed any option. Some regions will be highly resistant though because of strong religious influences, so it isn't certain.

12. California will lead the break-up of the US (Dev 2)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. There are some indications already that California wants to split off and such pressures tend to build over time. It is hard to see this waiting until the end of the century. Maybe an East Coast cluster will want to break off too. Pressures come from the enormous differences in wealth generation capability, and people not wanting to fund others if they can avoid it.

13. Space elevators will make space travel cheap and easy (Ahdok)

IP: Likelihood 8/10. First space elevators will certainly be around, and although "cheap" is a relative term, it will certainly be a lot cheaper than conventional space development. It will create a strong acceleration in space development and tourism will be one important area, but I doubt the costs will be low enough for most people to try.

14. Women will be routinely impregnated by artificial insemination rather than by a man (krozier 93)

PT: Pretty close. At the very least, more couples are choosing advanced fertility techniques over old-fashioned conception. Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, in which an artificially inseminated embryo is carefully selected among other inseminated embryos for desirability, is becoming increasingly common in fertility clinics. Using this technique, it's now possible to screen an embryo for about half of all congenital illnesses. Within the next decade, researchers will be able to screen for almost all congenital illnesses prior to embryo implantation.

IP: Likelihood 5/10.

15. There will be museums for almost every aspect of nature, as so much of the world's natural habitat will have been destroyed (LowMaintenanceLifestyles)

PT: Pretty close. I cannot comment on the museums but the Earth is on the verge of a significant species extinction event. Protecting biodiversity in a time of increased resource consumption, overpopulation, and environmental degradation will require continued sacrifice on the part of local, often impoverished communities. Experts contend that incorporating local communities' economic interests into conservation plans will be essential to species protection in the next century.

IP: Likelihood 2/10.

16. Deserts will become tropical forests (jim300)

IP: Likelihood 7/10. Desert greening is progressing so this is just about possible.

17. Marriage will be replaced by an annual contract (holierthanthou)

IP: Likelihood 6/10. I think we will certainly see some weaker forms of marriage that are designed to last a decade or two rather than a whole lifetime, but traditional marriage will still be an option. Increasing longevity is the key - if you marry at 20 and live to well over 100, that is far too long a commitment. People will want marriages that aren't necessarily forever, but don't bankrupt them when they end.

18. Sovereign nation states will cease to exist and there will be one world government (krozier93)

PT: Great try! However, I think that the trend is in the direction of more sovereign nations rather than fewer. In the coming years, corporations or wealthy private citizens will attempt to use earth-moving technologies to build their own semi-sovereign entities in international waters.

IP: Likelihood 2/10.

19. War by the West will be fought totally by remote control (LowMaintenanceLifestyles)

IP: Likelihood 5/10.

20. Britain will have had a revolution (holierthanthou)

IP: Likelihood 7/10. Well, possible, but not as likely as some other trends.

You can continue to contribute to the debate on Twitter using the hashtag #100yearpredictions. Ian Pearson is a future technology consultant and conference speaker. Patrick Tucker is spokesperson for the World Future Society and deputy editor of The Futurist magazine.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16536598

NAIROBI SECURITIES EXCHANGE CHAIRMAN’S 2011 YEAR REVIEW NAIROBI SECURITIES EXCHANGE CHAIRMAN’S 2011 YEAR REVIEW

NAIROBI SECURITIES EXCHANGE

CHAIRMAN’S 2011 YEAR REVIEW

On behalf of the Board of the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE), I would like to highlight the reasons why we remain optimistic that the market will rebound in the medium term despite the economic turbulence experienced last year. It is true that the domestic and global financial markets are experiencing a general downturn caused by the high international oil prices, fluctuations in the exchange rate, inadequate rainfall and rising global food prices. Here in Kenya the inflation hit a high of 19.72% in November 2011 and the real GDP growth slowed to an estimated 3.6% from a projected figure of 5.3%.

REVIEW OF MARKET PERFORMANCE IN 2011

The Capital Markets registered a decline in performance in 2011 in comparison to 2010 characterized by decreased activity in the secondary markets. Reduced economic growth resulted to lower turnovers in the equity market caused by; the rising inflation in the second half of the year, higher and volatile interest rates, depreciation (and volatility) of the shilling against major currencies and Kenya’s incursion in Somalia. We also witnessed a shift of investors from equities to fixed deposits, treasury bills and bonds which are considered lower risk assets. The NSE 20 Share Index reported a 27.7% decline, closing at 3205.02 points at the end of 2011, down from 4,433 points reported at the end of December 2010. The All Share

Index (NASI) reported a 30.6% decline closing at 68.03 points at the end of 2011 down from 98 points at the end of December 2010

POSITIVE MACROECONOMIC OUTLOOK

We however maintain a positive outlook for the medium term. According to the World

Bank, the real GDP growth is expected to rebound to 5.9% in 2012, as the economy recovers from the drought in 2011. The World Bank forecasts that growth will be in the 5-5.6% range in 2013-16. After surging to a high of 19.72% in 2011, inflation is forecast to retreat to 6.7% in 2012 and to remain in the 5-6% range in 2013-16, helped by prudent monetary policies and more stable global commodity prices. Additionally, after rising to 8.1% of GDP in 2011, underpinned by costlier oil, the current account deficit is expected to narrow gradually, helped by steady growth in earnings from exports, tourism and remittances.

STRUCTURAL REFORMS

On January 31 2011, the Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IM F) approved a three-year arrangement under the Extended Credit Facility for Kenya in an amount equivalent to SDR 325.68 million (about US$508.7 million). The program aims to protect Kenya’s external position, while allowing a gradual fiscal adjustment. In December 2011, following the completion of the second review of Kenya’s economic performance the IMF Board approved an augmentation of access equal to 60 percent of quota, leading to a total access of 180 percent of quota, an amount equivalent to SDR 488.52 million (about US$760.63 million). The government further aims to quicken the pace of structural reforms in 2011-12, including deregulation and trade liberalization (especially within the EAC). It also plans to dispose of full or partial stakes in some state enterprises in a range of sectors, either by selling shares to strategic partners or through flotations on the Nairobi Securities Exchange. In 2011, we witnessed the beginning of an overhaul of company law, insolvency law and capital markets regulations. Although the 2012 elections may distract policymakers, the elections are unlikely to trigger any major policy shifts, as all key parties support a free market system which supports the Economic pillar of Kenya’s Vision 2030. Foreign policy will continue to be driven by economic interests, including the maintenance of close relations with key donors and the advance of regional integration, especially within the East African Community (EAC).

In the medium term, the expectations about Kenya’s economic projections continue to be optimistic, with economic recovery projected to accelerate largely due to improved performance of key sectors and domestic demand. Indeed, in anticipation of an improved economic environment going forward, and in order to improve our reach, we continue to innovate and benchmark against best practices.

THE NSE MILESTONES

As part of our Vision “To be a leading securities exchange in Africa, with a global reach.”, last year saw us accomplishing the following major milestones;

1. NAME CHANGE

The Nairobi Stock Exchange changed her name to the Nairobi Securities Exchange Limited. It reflects the fact that besides stocks, the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) offers a platform for the issuance and trading of debt securities. The NSE is also growing its portfolio of information products and services. This name change is in line with the 2010 – 2014 strategic plan of the Nairobi Securities Exchange to evolve into a full service securities exchange which supports trading, clearing and settlement of equities, debt, derivatives and other associated instruments.

2. RE-REGISTRATION OF THE COMPANY

The Nairobi Stock Exchange converted from a company limited by guarantee to a company limited by shareholding; a function that was also marked by the re-registration from the Nairobi Stock Exchange to the Nairobi Securities Exchange Limited.

3. REDUCTION OF THE SETTLEMENT CYCLE

The equity settlement cycle moved from the previous T+4 settlement cycle to the T+3 settlement cycle. This market milestone is in line with international best practice.

Trading in debt securities was already on a T+3 settlement cycle. We expect that the efficiency gains from this shorter settlement cycle will improve liquidity in the market for listed equity securities thus making our market more attractive to domestic and foreign investors.

4. NSE BROKER BACK OFFICE SYSTEM

The Broker Back Office (BBO) went live and is now undergoing the test phase to optimize system customization. The BBO system automates the entire process of transacting in shares with minimal manual intervention and is interfaced with the Automated Trading System (ATS) and Central Depository System (CDS). This system will reduce the risk of trading in securities listed on the NSE, boost investor confidence and facilitate greater access by enabling internet trading. The Broker Back Office will improve the integrity of the Exchange trading systems and facilitate greater access to our securities market.

5. COMPANY RECLASSIFICATION

We reclassified the industry sectors under which our listed companies are placed.

Equities are now classified under ten (10) industry sectors. Debt securities including preference shares are classified under three (3) categories. This reclassification brings us closer to international best practise and will enable domestic and international investors to more easily compare company and sector performance. We are convinced that the reclassification will provide a more accurate reflection of the diversity of the companies listed at the NSE and by extension reflect the increasing diversification of our economy.

6. FTSE NSE KENYA INDEX SERIES

On November 8, 2011 we successfully launched the FTSE NSE Kenya 15 and FTSE NSE Kenya 25 Indices. The launch of the indices is the result of an extensive market consultation process with local asset owners and fund managers and reflects the growing interest in new domestic investment and diversification opportunities in the East African region. Designed to enhance and capture the depth of information available on the Kenyan market, the indices are also suitable as the foundation for ETFs and other index-linked products which can also be utilized by global investors wishing to access this frontier market. These indices are running concurrently with the NSE 20 Share and NSE All Share indices. The branded indices give the NSE the opportunity to use FTSE’s expertise to design, manage and distribute branded indices and index related products, domestically and internationally. Overall, the indices should improve capital flows into the domestic market and enhance liquidity and market capitalization.

7. NEW LISTINGS

2011 was a year of listings at the NSE. We welcomed three (3) new companies and saw the reinstatement of one. CFC Insurance Holdings listed on the Main Investment Market segment (MIMS) under the Insurance subsector joining three (3) other insurance companies. Transcentury Ltd listed by way of introduction joining seven (7) other companies listed on the Alternative Investment Market Segment (AIMS), British American Investments Company Ltd. (Britak) was the third company to list joining four (4) other insurance companies on the Main Investment Market Segment (MIMS). In 2011, we witnessed the re-listing of Uchumi Supermarkets Ltd on the Main Investment Market after a five (5) year suspension from trading. On the Debt market, we also witnessed the listing of the first Tranche of the Shelter Afrique Kshs 3 Billion Medium Term Note (MTN) Issue. This illustrates the confidence our corporates have placed in our market’s ability to meet their ongoing needs.

The Board and Management will continue to support innovations that will aid in the growth of the market. In 2012, we will prioritize the following initiatives:-

2012 OUTLOOK

1. TREASURY BOND INDEX

Together with FTSE International, we are working on introducing a Treasury Bond Index, which we believe will enable our investors to accurately measure the performance of their bond portfolios.

2. GROWTH ENTERPRISE MARKET SEGMENT (GEMS)

We are in the process of setting up the Growth Enterprise Market Segment (GEMS), a Mid Cap Market Segment. This market segment will facilitate the listing of Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs). The establishment of the Mid Cap market segment is not only expected to diversify the avenues of long term capital for SMEs, but also raise the level of savings and investments within the capital markets through additional listings. The introduction of the Mid Cap Market is in line with the Government focus on the SME sector as one of the key drivers of Vision 2030, destined to play an effective role as an engine for economic growth, poverty eradication, and employment creation. The Board of the Capital Markets Authority approved the rules and regulations for GEMS. The regulations will now be forwarded to the Minister for Finance for gazettement and the market is expected to be operational in the second half of 2012.

3. NEW LISTINGS

This year, we anticipate an estimated five (5) companies will be coming to the market to raise capital. When a Company is listed, it makes a statement of its commitment to transparency and good corporate governance. The shareholders have an opportunity to scrutinize and question the Board and Management on the performance of the company. Through its share price, the company will also get a market viewpoint on its performance. We shall continue to support such transactions that provide value to the shareholders, employees and our economy.

4. DEMUTUALIZATION

February 3, 2012 marked the end of a five (5) months legal process after Justice Cecilia Githua ruled in favour of the NSE in a matter against Francis Thuo & Partners that had halted the demutualization process. In her ruling, she held that the Nairobi Securities Exchange is a Limited Liability Company and that therefore the NSE is not amenable to judicial review. I am happy to note that this ruling marks a significant step towards the completion of the Demutualization process. The NSE remains committed to settling any outstanding issues with Francis Thuo & Partners Ltd. As I have repeatedly stated, demutualization of the NSE is a statement of our commitment to transparency and good corporate governance and that this improved governance is critical in attracting investors and increasing opportunities to raise debt and equity through the capital markets, which resonates with the NSE’s vision, To be the leading securities exchange in Africa with a global reach.

APPRECIATION

On behalf of the Board of the Directors of the NSE, I wish to express our unreserved appreciation to all investors– domestic and foreign, our listed companies and our market intermediaries for their continued support. I wish to appreciate the Government of Kenya for showing commitment to the capital markets, and to the President, His Excellency Honorable Mwai Kibaki for honoring us with his distinguished presence twice in 2011 during our listing ceremonies. Indeed, I wish to reiterate that the NSE remains committed to facilitating the Government’s efforts to tap private capital to support investment in Vision 2030 projects.

EDDY NJOROGE

CHAIRMAN

http://www.nse.co.ke/

An Instructive Quote

« If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. »
Sun Tzu

What if leadership wasn't a promotion?

Josh Bersin recently wrote a stellar post titled "The End of a Job as We Know It." One of the jobs that might end is the one called "boss."

For me, a "boss" is someone responsible for the performance of a group. There is plenty of leadership without position going on every day, all over the world, but I write this blog specifically for the men and women who are organizationally responsible for group performance. That requires position as well as influence.

Well, if Josh Bersin is right, many of those classic boss positions may become a thing of the past. He's not alone in that prediction. I recently wrote "You can eliminate the bosses, but," sparked by one of Harold Jarche's posts. Many others have said similar things. The powerful part of Bersin's post, for me, was the way he combined two insights. Here's one of them.

"What this all means is that in today's high performing companies, people now take on 'roles' not 'jobs.' They are responsible for 'tasks' and 'projects' and not simply 'functions.'"

That's pretty straightforward. I've heard it from Susan Finerty in our conversations over the last year or so. Susan thinks that every organization is becoming a matrix organization, whether it's officially called that or not. That means multiple relationships and reporting points, and, often, less hierarchy. Now here's the other Bersin insight.

"And leadership, by the way, is just a 'role' like any other - with its own particular set of skills."

That resonates with me because I think that leadership is a kind of work. Some people are suited for it, want to do it, and will do it well. Others will not.

Moving from individual contributor to a leadership role is more like a career change than a promotion. It's like changing from engineering to architecture. Leadership work is important work, but it's not more exalted work.

If we see leadership as a role, not a promotion or a position in the hierarchy, lots of things become possible. People can lead in situations where their strengths leverage the strengths of others and their weaknesses are irrelevant. Groups and teams can select a leader, instead of always having the leader selected from above. People can try out the role and decide if they like it and, if they don't, they can never do it again, with no stigma or career penalty.

Will things turn out this way? We can't ever be sure of the details of how big changes will end up. Because the change looks so clear, it's tempting to think it will happen quickly. Probably not. If history is a good guide, this kind of change will take a generation cycle or two to become the norm, so probably twenty to forty years.

Does all this make sense to you? How do you imagine that things will change?

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2012/02/02/what-if-leadership-wasnt-a-promotion.aspx?ref=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Measuring the Efficacy of the World's Managers

Published:	January 30, 2012
Author:	Carmen Nobel

Firms in the United States, Japan, and Germany tend to be managed especially well, while firms in Brazil, China, and India tend to be managed poorly.

Those are among the initial findings of the World Management Survey (WMS), a huge international research initiative to measure differences in organizational management practices all over the world.

The project was borne of a widely perceived gap in economic research. In business academia, there is an optimistic tendency to assume that managers generally make decisions in the best interest of their firms' performance. Reality is more frustrating. The fact is, some companies are managed beautifully, others dismally.

"During the interview she got a marriage proposal. The manager wanted her to marry his son."

"It's very tough to believe that there are such wide differences in management out there," says Raffaella Sadun, an assistant professor at Harvard Business School who coleads the WMS with Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and John Van Reenen of the London School of Economics. "If you really want to be convincing, it's important to have large-scale statistical evidence," she adds.

To that end, over the past seven years, large teams of affiliated WMS analysts have interviewed managers at some 10,000 organizations in 20 countries, setting out to determine how and why management practices differ vastly in style and quality.

Best practices

The researchers used an evaluation tool designed by a leading consultancy firm that broadly rated management practices in three areas: monitoring—how well managers keep track of what's happening in a firm and make good use of that information;targets—how well organizations set appropriate goals and outcomes, and whether they take action if the two are inconsistent; and incentives—whether organizations promoted and rewarded employees based on performance and tried to keep the best performers from quitting.

To collect the data, the researchers hired teams of MBA students who could interview managers in their respective native languages. The respondents chosen for the survey included primarily middle managers in manufacturing plants, although over time the data collection was extended to other industries, such as retail, schools, and hospitals. The approach was to interview those who were high enough on the corporate totem pole to have a good overview of management practices, but low enough that they were familiar with day-to-day operations. The researchers also chose to target primarily small and medium-sized firms, employing between 100 and 5,000 workers, to maximize the chances that the interview would capture salient features of the whole organization, as opposed to the characteristics of single plants.

Rather than limiting the responses with multiple choice or yes/no questions, the interviewers kept the questions open-ended to get a complete picture of the actual practices adopted in the organization. This method was also useful to build an effective bond between the interviewer and the manager, which sometimes led to answers that were both thoughtful and entertaining. (Responding to a question about staff retention, for instance, one manager said, "I spend most of my time walking around cuddling and encouraging people. My staff tells me that I give great hugs.")

"We had very interesting experiences," Sadun recalls. "Once, a student was interviewing a manager, and during the interview she got a marriage proposal. The manager wanted her to marry his son."

Key findings

The researchers have summarized the initial results of the study in a new working paper, Management Practices across Firms and Countries,—also coauthored by Christos Genakos of the Athens University of Economics and Business—and have posted a comprehensive collection of the survey data on theWorld Management Survey website. The WMS site also features individual policy reports for manufacturing, education, health-care, and retail organizations, providing a management benchmark for executives in any of those fields.

On average, based on the evaluation tool, the research showed that firms in the United States, Japan, and Germany tend to be the best-managed in the world, while firms in Brazil, China, and India scored poorly.

"You have a lot of companies where the transmission of leadership is based on criteria completely unrelated to your ability to lead."

Of the 20 countries in the survey, the United States received the highest overall management scores in retail, health care, and manufacturing. But US schools scored comparatively lower, coming in fourth behind the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Canada.

"US schools in particular tend to be particularly poor at incentives management—that is, promoting and rewarding high-performing teachers, and retraining and/or firing badly performing teachers," the paper states.

In the United States, India, and China, managerial use of incentives are much more common than the use of monitoring and target-setting, especially in the manufacturing field. In Japan, Sweden, and Germany, monitoring and target-setting far exceed the use of incentives.

But the differences surpassed international boundaries. "There is so much dispersion, even within the same industries and same countries," Sadun says, explaining that the researchers managed to discover certain ownership patterns that help to explain the dispersion.

For instance, government-owned organizations tend to receive low management scores across all the sectors and countries in the study. "They are particularly weak at incentives," the paper explains. "Promotion is more likely to be based on tenure (rather than performance), and persistent low-performers are much less likely to be retrained or moved."

Family-owned businesses scored even lower—particularly those run by a firstborn son who inherited the role of CEO. Family-owned businesses that employed a non-related CEO scored much higher. "The finding there is not so much that family ownership per se is associated with lower scores, but rather family ownership when the selection of the CEO is not meritocratic," Sadun says. "Especially in Europe, you have a lot of companies where the transmission of leadership is based on criteria completely unrelated to your ability to lead."

Also receiving low management scores across the board: organizations at which the company founder was also the CEO. "We systematically find that founders have lower levels of scores," Sadun says. "One possible explanation is that founders are great at the start-up phase because they have the vision and the motivation. But as the firm grows, to do the ongoing management on a daily basis requires a different set of skills."

Market competition appears to be good for management. The research showed that a company's overall management score wass directly related to how many competitors a firm faces—the higher number of reported competitors, the higher the management score. And multinational firms scored higher than their domestic counterparts across all the industries and countries in the survey.

Education makes a difference, too. The data showed that the greater the percentage of employees with a college degree in manufacturing and retail firms, the greater the management scores. In hospitals, a greater management score correlated with the percentage of managers who also had clinical experience.

Next steps

With the initial data tracked and scored, the researchers are now working with the US Census Bureau to build an even larger set of management data. Last spring they conducted a survey of more than 48,000 US companies, using the questions and the evaluation tool from the initial WMS survey. The Census Bureau already keeps general track of firms' financial performance in the United States. The WMS team plans to match the management survey data against the financial performance data in order to investigate the link between management quality and the bottom line across an even larger number of organizations.

The researchers have also started to work on management experiments, modeled on the randomized control trials adopted in the medical field. This experimental approach is much more costly and labor- intensive than the survey methodology, Sadun says, but it allows them to identify with much greater precision the causal link between management and performance.

"We want to get at the causality between management and performance," she says. "And to do that, you have to go beyond surveys and start running experiments with firms. That's the most challenging but also the most interesting part of where this research is going." 

http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6918.html?wknews=02012012

About the author

Carmen Nobel is senior editor of Harvard Business School Working Knowledge