Great Managers Are From Earth: Six Down-to-Earth Rules for New Managers

Managers should make environmental investments for the same reason they managers to bring the environment down to earth: to think systematically and First, they lower the outlays for salt: textile companies using Ciba's new dyes . The U.S. companies that make up the CMA must comply with six management codes.
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Later, these results became the source of various training programs for managers. By November , the program had been in place for several years, and the company could point to statistically significant improvements in managerial effectiveness and performance, including manager quality for 75 percent of their worst-performing managers.

In Project Oxygen, they found that successful managers consistently had these eight qualities, in order of importance:. What's striking about most these traits is managers' deep commitment toward employee success. Take the most important activity for management success, that of being a good coach.

Google's Answer to 'What Makes a Great Manager?'

Google emphasizes the practice of regular one-on-ones, and using the pull, not push, method of asking questions rather than prescribing answers, and contributing constructive feedback that balances the negative and positive. In this digital age, I have advocated extensively for the near-extinct practice of one-on-ones , as I find it the ideal platform for giving feedback especially when good managers have to give bad employees feedback.

It still remains one of the best and most effective leadership strategies to help improve employee performance. You'll also note that number eight on the list was technical skills, where, at Google particularly on the engineering side , managers spend a majority of their time. Laszlo Bock, former senior vice president of People Operations, told The Times , "It turns out that that's absolutely the least important thing. Much more important is just making that connection and being accessible.

It's still about the people, and making sure their human needs are being met so the whole organization thrives. These are people promoted to management without having the capacity to lead others. If hired from the outside, they don't always understand the unique aspects of managing at Google.

Sometimes a teammate needs a warm hug. Sometimes the team needs a visionary, a new style of coaching, someone to lead the way or even, on occasion, a kick in the bike shorts. For that reason, great leaders choose their leadership style like a golfer chooses his or her club, with a calculated analysis of the matter at hand, the end goal and the best tool for the job.

Goleman and his team completed a three-year study with over 3, middle-level managers.

Imagine how much money and effort a company spends on new processes, efficiencies, and cost-cutting methods in an effort to add even one percent to bottom-line profitability, and compare that to simply inspiring managers to be more kinetic with their leadership styles. Here are the six leadership styles Goleman uncovered among the managers he studied, as well as a brief analysis of the effects of each style on the corporate climate:.

Harlequin Nonfiction, June Flickr user Bas Kers ]. By Robyn Benincasa 6 minute Read. Ask Yourself These 5 Questions Before Deciding On A Leadership Style Conversely, a leader can be anyone on the team who has a particular talent, who is creatively thinking out of the box and has a great idea, who has experience in a certain aspect of the business or project that can prove useful to the manager and the team.

Here are the six leadership styles Goleman uncovered among the managers he studied, as well as a brief analysis of the effects of each style on the corporate climate: The pacesetting leader expects and models excellence and self-direction. This water is diverted to individual fields through an intricate network of earthen channels. Prior to the annexation of Ladakh to the kingdom of Jammu, the king's edicts had defined the rights and rules governing the allocation of water within and between villages.

These records were replaced by the Riwaz-i-abpashi. The Riwaz-i-abpashi , similar to the mamulnamas of the tanks in South India, outlines the rules for water distribution. Amazingly, it exists only in oral form. Churpun s use these rules even today. The cultivation period is limited to months of the summer, when it is warm enough to grow crops.

Then the churpun swings into action, regulating water in each and every canal.

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In case of dried-up fields with standing crops, it is totally the churpun 's discretion to divert water and save the standing crop. So his knowledge is crucial for averting crop damages," says Loldan. Wheat and barley are the two major crops grown every alternate year and any change in cropping pattern is also decided by the churpun. Once a churpun is selected, a document called the kamgya is drawn up. It is like a contract between the newly appointed churpun and the village community, outlining responsibilities and stating his moral obligations, in that he must be impartial.

The kamgya also mentions how much the churpun will receive for services rendered. In this way, a certain formality defines the process which both villagers and churpun adhere to. Impartiality is built into the rules for allocating water within a village: By this, each household's turn for receiving water is determined.

This is followed most stringently, when there is scarcity of water at the beginning of the season. Apart from supervising maintenance, the churpun mediates major disputes. According to the people, the likelihood of a dispute occurring is inversely proportional to the abilities of a churpun. Disputes are usually petty, and resolved with the imposition of minor penalties by villagers themselves.

The negotiators

The symbolic power of disrepute is enough to prevent people from stealing water or disrupting the system. For disputes of a more serious nature, the village head also mediates. In case the problem is really serious, people refer to the tehsildar , who takes recourse to the Riwaz-i-abpashi to clarify the existing norms. Jairam Sravan, a staunch patkari in Jaikheda village of Nasik district in Maharashtra, is now redefining his life.

For 11 years now, he has had no patkari work to do. First, the irrigation department took over. Then, the bhandara broke down and the main canal got clogged and blocked up.


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Farmers sold off their lands. Just before Independence, there were 66 bhandaras on the Panjhra river in Dhule districts, with a command area of hectares ha. A study of the Panjhra project in recorded about 45 functional bhandaras. When the Panjhra Medium Irrigation Project came up in , most bhandaras downstream became non-functional.

Today, the patkari or jagliya tends to a mere ha. Except in a few villages, a management practice first evolved in the 17th century has ceased to exist. Neerkattis used to manage 1,60, tanks in the three states. But now, as the Dhan Foundation's estimate shows, they look after a paltry Says A Vaidyanathan, former director of Madras Institute of Development Studies, "The intervention of government in irrigation is the sole reason for the decline of the neerkattis.

Google's 8 Qualities of Great Managers Revealed

Large dams, canals, and irrigation departments replaced the water managers. Overall, there was a great expansion of government control over irrigation. Says S M Ratnevel, retired chief engineer of the Public Works Department, Tamil Nadu, "In the process government forgot the traditional managers and they are not serious in rehabilitating them. The emergence of well-driven irrigation ensured farmers lost interest in tanks, and their management.

A well is a private resource; a tank, on the other hand, is a common property. Moreover, well irrigation is more stable and reliable. So farmers preferred individually owned wells rather than community owned tanks. Consider the scenario in tank-irrigated Andhra Pradesh. In , when the state was formed, there were 58, tanks irrigating about Since then, the number of tanks have increased 70, in , but - amazingly - the area under tank irrigation has declined to 8.

Why is this so? It is so because, in the same period, the area irrigated under wells increased from 2. Such is the impact of groundwater use that in Karnataka, most existing water managers have abandoned their profession. In Pavagada taluk - with bore wells and open wells in every field - a handful of farmers depend on tank irrigation.

Rues Ramanjanayappa, neerkatti of Doddachelluru village, Chitradurga district, "I cannot give up my traditional profession because it gives me something to eat. The first water legislation related to control, maintenance and management of irrigation channels or guhls was passed in This was the Kumaon Water Rule, which transferred ownership of water resources to the state. The rule stated any guhl to be constructed by an individual or community Had to have the prior permission of the irrigation department. This system persisted after independence.

Says Raghubir Singh Negi, the head of village Maletha in the Tehri-Garhwal district, "Since the government has taken over the management and maintenance of guhls and levy water tax on people for the same, water managers no more find acceptance at the village level. The kollalus are appointed on a temporary basis to only distribute water in summer. The task of maintaining guhls is now in the hands of the irrigation department chowkidar.

Now, the number of guhls in the Almora district alone has reduced significantly: This bears testimony to the fact that these farmer managed irrigation systems have died out. Other developments have also affected the water manager: Says Ravi Chopra of People Science Institure, a Dehradun-based NGO working to revive traditional management mores, "How will we cultivate or irrigate small terraced fields when we don't have labour in the rural areas?

People are now taught to think that management is best done by the irrigation department. Even here, there isn't much space for water managers. The Andhra Pradesh Farmers Management of Irrigation Systems Act - which created about 70, water users associations at the village level to control local irrigation - doesn't include neerkattis in the scheme. Even Ladakh has been shaken up. After the war with China, a huge military build-up occurred in the region.

In , the region was opened to tourists. Such new connections with the wider world means that villages like Saboo, closer to Leh town, are today growing potatoes on nearly 50 per cent of the land, completely changing the cropping pattern. In such places, the churpun is now paid in cash, and not in kind.

The prestige accorded to the churpun has also declined. People are reluctant to take up the responsibility, for it is not commensurate with earnings. Is it time for Union minister of water resources Arjun Charan Sethi to pay heed to traditional methods to resolve disputes? Out of India's 18 major rivers, 17 are inter-state rivers. All are embroiled in conflicts over sharing of water. In no case is a solution visible.