8 Habits of Highly Effective Managers

These were put together by Google. Some good advice...

1. Be a good coach

• Provide specific, constructive feedback, balancing negative and positive
• Have regular one-on-ones, presenting solutions to problems tailored to the employee's strengths

2. Empower your team and don't micro-manage

• Balance giving freedom to your employees while still being available for advice
• Make "stretch" assignments to help them tackle big problems 

3. Express interest in employees' success and well-being

• Get to know your employees as people, with lives outside of work
• Make new folks feel welcome, help ease the transition 

4. Be productive and results-oriented

• Focus on what you want the team to achieve and how employees can help achieve it
• Help the team prioritize work, and make decisions to remove roadblocks

5. Be a good communicator and listen to your team

• Communication is two-way: Both listen and share
• Hold all-hands meetings and be specific about the team's goals
• Encourage open dialogue and listen to the questions and concerns of your employees

6. Help your employees with career development

7. Have a clear vision and strategy for the team 

• Even amid turmoil, keep the team focused on goals and strategy
• Involve the team in setting and evolving the team's vision, goals, and progress 

8. Have key technical skills, so you can help advise the team

• Roll up sleeves and work side-by-side with team, when needed
• Understand the specific challenges of the work

Synod: Funding the Future

Intense and interesting debate last night at Synod, primarily around the issue of funding. Briefly, there is a draft report before the Synod which proposes to fund much more of the "head office" activities from "parish taxes" (to use some loose, but understandable, terms). This proposal would effectively raise parish tax rates by about 50%, although from an admittedly low base. My back of the envelope calculation suggests the proposal would cost my church about $7k a year.

Synod passed a motion to send the report to Standing Committee - basically to do some more work on the drat and bring it back next year for approval. I was surprised that this motion passed without dissent, as I knew some people strongly opposed much of the report. As the night wore on, I understood what was happening. Derailing a bill like this is very difficult, so no-one tried. Instead, they attempted to "de-fang" it in various ways via ammendments. All of the ammendments went down, but some had considerable support in the house. A number of other people rose to, in theory, give speeches in support of the bill, but in reality to tell the house what was wrong with the bill. Standing Committee is "on notice" that the report needs some serious attention, or it will face some opposition next year.

My thoughts? Still quite undecided. I know that we need to restructure our finances, no question, but something about this proposal niggled at me. Sandy Grant may have nailed it when he pointed out that the bill put all of the "non-negotiable" head office costs on the parishes, effectively reserving all of the discretionary spending for the distributions from the endowments. This effectively means there is "no room to move" when it comes to parish taxes, as there has been in the past when various "taxes" have been raised for specific purposes, and voted for by the house.

Another thing bothers me a bit. A couple of people made the point that the endowment is "inheritence" money, and you shouldn't spend your inheritence on the groceries (ie. recurrent expediture). However - in the past, significant amounts of endowment money has been poured into recurrent expenditure in various parishes, mostly to subsidise "strategic" staff costs. My own parish has benefited from this. At least one ministry with an income of over half a million has had it's staffing costs subsidised for years, to the tune of many hundreds of thousands of dollars. I'm sure this situation will continue once the endowment distributions are freed up again. So the truth is that everyone is proposing the inheritence money be spent on the "groceries"! And one could argue that the net effect is that all parishes are being taxed a bit extra, for the purposes of subsidising the favoured few.

Synod - no fireworks, just constructive discussion

Synod tonight discussed the report from the Archbishop's Strategic Commission on Structure, Funding and Governance. Hmmm...obviously no poets involved in the naming of that group. The report recommended a pretty major overhaul of the way the diocese manages it's investments. I expected some fireworks, but instead the discussion (not really a debate) generated much light, and little heat. There were obvious tensions between the Commission and the Anglican Church Property Trust, but there also seemed a desire to bridge the gap. No-one spoke against the motion (to send the report to Standing Committee), and only a few very minor amendments were raised. I guess the collective mind of Synod felt that reform was needed, and this was the only credible way forward.

I must say, I expect tomorrow nights debate on parish cost recoveries (ie. taxes), to be a bit more fiery...

Synod 2011

It is Synod time again for the Sydney Anglican church. For those who don't know, a Synod is the governing body of the diocese, kind of like a parliament that meets once a year. It consists of both clergy and elected lay representatives (such as myself). In some ways, it can all seem a bit far removed from the day to day world of the pews. This distance, though, is a bit illusory - the decisions of Synod can (and do) profoundly effect what happens at the local parish level.

 

For those who want some more detail, the Synod 2011 home page is here. There are a lot of links to more links there. I'll give you some more help. The "guiding document" is the Business Paper, which lays out exactly what Synod is going to discuss and vote upon. You can see the Business paper here. The final two pages are an "Indicative Timetable for Synod Business", and they highlight the big ticket items. More on that below.

 

As per the usual pattern, Synod will run from Monday to Wednesday this week, and Monday/Tuesday next week. It starts about 3 in the afternoon, there is a break at 6 for dinner, then it resumes from 7pm until about 9. The critical bills are usually reserved for the time slots after 7pm - presumably to allow those who are working regular business hours (like myself) to participate. Furthermore, the pattern seems to be to have these more contentious bills on Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week.

 

What's hot this year? Funding is going to be the big debating point. On Tuesday evening we'll be discussing the report from the Archbishop's Strategic Commission on Structure, Funding and Governance. You can read the report here (pages 1-57). This commission was established after the bodies charged with managing the diocesan investments lost a cool $140M when the GFC hit. The report is pretty dry reading, but it recommends a substantial restructure. Synod wont be voting on the restructure itself, it will simply be asking Standing Committee to come up with legislation to implement the restructure, which will be voted upon at future Synods. Still, there will be a fair bit of debate about the recommendations, and also some more discussion about the failures of the past.

 

Wednesday night will see the Parochial Cost Recoveries Ordinance etc put forward. You can see the text of this bill here, and some background info here. Essentially this proposes to raise "Parish taxes" slightly to pay for head office functions - functions that were previously funded by investment income. The increase is slight, but I suspect this bill will be controversial, because it is the start of a longer term game to shift more head office costs on to the Parishes. This is no secrets, as that evening we will also be discussing a draft of Funding Principles and Priorities for 2013-2015, which you can also download here (pages 83-86). If the principles in this document were adopted, one estimate suggests it could increase parish taxes by an average of around $10,000 per year. This will certainly "bite", and I expect this to be another controversial discussion.

 

Lots to think about, and I look forward to seeing where the debate heads. As always, it will be an interesting Synod this year!

Thomas Dykes Bio

http://books.google.com/books?id=G_UDAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA481&dq=Memoir+of+the+Rev.+Thomas+Dykes&hl=en&ei=d-aHToHVL9CKmQW5opQb&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Memoir%20of%20the%20Rev.%20Thomas%20Dykes&f=false