The Mistake:Setting one worker against another

The Mistake:Setting one worker against another"You know,cindy, I had this account all sewn up.We had agreed on an approach, and a price, and I thought my customer was all ready to sign a contract.next thing I get a call from the guy he says he's thought it over and decided maybe we should do something else instead. He still want to work with us but now he want to start all over with a whole new analysis.I just don't understand what went wrong.Well,I know exactly what went wrong, mary paul portris, Who's going to do the work on the project,got to him.paul's one of our best workers-and our worst enemies.You've got to figure a way to uotsmart him or all your projects are going stagnate forever.

WHY WAS IT A MISTAKE?
Even workers who don'y do exactly what you {or the rest of the staff}Would like are part of the team.As soon as you set workers up against one another you undermine the teamwork that needs to occur among everyone in the workgroup.When kids act out, their parents don't tell the other kids,Go get em.And when the right fielderthrows theball awat, the rest of the team doesn't go out to beat him up.You can't build a team if the team members are pitted against one another-at home, on the field,or on the job.

HOW CAN YOU RECOVER FROM IT QUICKLY?
You can get together with maryand oaul as soon as you possibly can and help the two of them work out their differences-together.Begin the meeting by explaining what you see as their position:Paul, it appears that you' re not satisfied with the analysis mary has done and think it needs to be revised.mary, it seem that you think Paul is getting in the way of getting contract signed and want to get too much done upfront without a commitment from the customer.Is that a fair characterization?So how can we change our process to satisfy both your need?
Then, when you've resolved the problem between mary and Pual,or gotten them to the point where they can resolve it themseves,you need to explain to mary that your initial reaction was speaking from frustration-that you don't consider anyone on this team to be an enemy.Wwhether you agree with them or not, all of your people are working toward the same goals.

leadersandmanagersmistakes

What if you've been a supervisor for three or four or five years?
Won't you already know by now what to do and what not to do?
Not necessarily.The effects of many mistakes aren't obvious immediately and may never become clear.you might complete an entire managerial career oblivious to office politics,ignoring opportunities for networking, and saving your workers from their own mistakes all without ever understanding how much better and more effective you could have been.
WE all make mistakes,and we all try to learn from our errors.But mistakes continue to haunt us.The job of being a manager is increasingly difficult and prone to errors in both judgment and execution .Mistakes can help you deal with errors in two different ways :
[1] It provides you a guide to the most common mistakes made by managers in almost any situation or environment.Although the article is written primarily for managers in traditional organization,it also addresses problems that arise when you implement teams and give those teams decision-making responsibilities.If you know where the pitfalls lie you can avoid them more easily.
[2]When you do make a mistake,you can get specific guidance on how to recover from it quickly and how to prevent it in the future. In these day of rapid change and experimentation,no manager can avoid mistakes entirely.Instead,the critical skill is learning from them.
MISTAKE-FREE MANAGEMENT.
Is it possible to become a mistake-free manager?Probably not. Even as you conquer one problem,some new situation will present itself which has the potential for a whole new set of mistakes.But what can you do to lessen the risk that you'll FALL PRONE TO THEM.