Managing: Yourself, Your Employees (Or Team), And Your Managers.

There are three levels of management: managing yourself; managing your employees or team; and, managing your managers. Each requires different skills, and you must master each level before you can proceed to the next. Most entrepreneurs and aspiring leaders spend their entire working lifetimes struggling with the first level.

We are all actors, playing certain assigned roles in our various businesses. I have found that in order to become an effective manager, you must graduate, at some point along your career trajectory, from being an actor to being The Producer. We move from being actors to "acting" as producers.

Acting, and working in concert with other actors (interacting, quite literally), gives you the inside vision to know what you can come to expect as a producer.

Analogously, in the corporate or organizational world, it is best to have been an employee in the department which you will ultimately manage. The greatest challenge, however is to graduate from being a manager to a corporate or organizational leader. You must know enough about role and operations of every department to be able to manage all of your managers. This is a quantum jump -- to manage managers.

You'll find it more difficult to manage managers than to manage employees. There is generally more ego invested, more of a feeling of possessiveness to be overcome, and a fear, on the part of every manager in your charge, that he or she will be subjugated into once again being merely an actor or actress. People dislike demotions, perceived or real.

You always have to manage; it is a part of life. However, a career in management requires that you learn to manage others, as well as yourself.

Good luck.

Faithfully,

Douglas E Castle

Tags, Labels, Keywords, Categories And Terms For This Article:

• Actions versus Words
• Author Douglas E. Castle
• behavioral psychology
• Broadening Your Skill Set
• Choosing Your Management Team
• Douglas E Castle
• Enlightened Leadership
• Entrepreneurial Business And Growing Companies
• Entrepreneurs and Small Business
• Expanding Your Knowledge Base
• Management Science
• Managing Human Assets
• Managing Your Management Team
• Sustainability
• Taking Action
• The Power Of Perception
• TNNWC GROUP - Douglas Castle
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• Leadership Skills and Requirements
• Team-Building

Article Title as published in Douglas Castle's Daily Burst Of Brilliance .001 Blog:
"Management Requires A Graduation. Leadership Requires A Quantum Jump."
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NOTICE: This article is Copyright © 2011 by author Douglas E Castle with all rights reserved. It may be republished without permission provided that it is published in full, with all hyperlinks and exhibits left intact, and with full attribution given the author. This article does not contain or constitute medical, health, psychological, legal, regulatory, investment, securities, financial, tax, or any other form of professional advice -- the reader acknowledges and accepts this disclaimer. Further, the reader indemnifies and holds harmless both the author and all publications in which this article appears of any damages, claims, loss, responsibility or liability emerging from the reader’s utilization of any information contained herein.

About This Author: Further information regarding this author’s professional experience, expertise and service offerings can be found at ABOUT DOUGLAS E CASTLE

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• Miscellaneous Tags and Topics: acting, managers, leaders, careers, Douglas E Castle, producers,responsibilities of leadership, Small business, Team Building, TNNWC Management Consulting.

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BRAINTENANCE: Fun With Metaphors/ Improve Your Speaking Skills.

Dear Colleagues, Readers, Members and Friends:

The post which follows was "borrowed" from Douglas Castle's blog, "BRAINTENANCE."

Braintenance: Fun With Metaphors.

http://Braintenance.blogspot.com

Dear Fellow Brain Wrinklers:

Metaphors are excellent tools for clarifying concepts. They utilize easily visualizable examples to "bring an idea" to life. Good communication often requires the use of metaphors to reduce complex or cumbersome ideas (usually ideas that would take a great deal of time to clarify without the aid of visual examples that most people can relate to easily and comfortably). US President Obama, whether or not you like or dislike him, has been slinging metaphors about for some time now. I would venture to say that Mr. Obama is as good with metaphors as Former President George W. (dubbya) Bush was with malaprops --- my favorite example is, "This is not rocket surgery, people!"

The following example comes to us courtesy of Yahoo! News.

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SEATTLE — It started out simple enough. There was a car (the economy). And a ditch (the recession). Republicans had been driving the car (were in power) for eight years. It went into the ditch. And now that Democrats have dug the car out (won power and passed a bunch of economic recovery policies), the Republicans want back the keys (power).

The first time President Barack Obama used the metaphor at a Democratic fundraiser in April, he spent exactly four sentences on it: “And yet, after driving our economy into the ditch, they decided to stand on the side of the road and watch us while we pulled it out of the ditch,” Obama said at the Los Angeles event for Sen. Barbara Boxer of California. “They asked, ‘Why haven't you pulled it out fast enough?’ ‘I noticed there's, like, a little scratch there in the fender. Why didn't you do something about that?’” (See: White House searches for a villain)

It has since become the Mr. Potato Head of campaign stump speech metaphors.

The president keeps expanding on it. This week, as he repeated it at fundraisers across the country, it continued to balloon into several paragraphs and with bells and whistles tacked on in all directions.

Obama changes features around. He introduces new characters. He adds new props. The other day he decided Republicans were sipping Slurpees as they watched Democrats dig out the car. (Incidentally, Obama is the only president to ever use the word “Slurpee” in a speech, according to the archives of The American Presidency Project). (See: Mosque debate strains tea party, GOP)

There’s been a lot of mud in the ditch. It’s been all over Democrats as they push and shove, sometimes with their shoulders. In some speeches Obama has the Democrats wearing boots. Other times they’re wearing galoshes. He’s added bugs and sweat to the scene. There are sore backs and “huffing and puffing.” His family and political friends get cameos. And while he’s insistent that Republicans can’t drive, he’s offered for them to hop in the back seat.

“We put on our boots and walked into the ditch. It’s muddy and hot and dusty and bugs everywhere, and we’re pushing,” Obama said, having fun with the metaphor at a fundraiser Tuesday for Washington Sen. Patty Murray in Seattle. “And we’re slipping and sliding and sweating.” (See: Rossi to face Murray in November)

The scene of when Democrats have dug the car out of the ditch (stabilized the economy) differs from event to event. In one speech Obama has the car finally set on “the blacktop” when Republicans are wanting the keys back. But sometimes he puts the car “up on pavement.” Or, he’ll just simply place it “on level ground.”

Various people have interacted with the figurative car as Obama has shaped his favorite metaphor.

Last month he said Missouri Senate candidate Robin Carnahan’s opponent “had his hands on the wheel” when it went into the ditch because he had been part of Republican House leadership. (See: The latest news on midterm elections)

At a fundraiser for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada in July ,Obama accused Republicans of trying to get in the car and run over “me and Harry.”

“Harry Reid and I, we got mud on our shoes. We're — we've been pushing and shoving — car is just kind of getting out, almost on some pavement,” Obama said during remarks in Las Vegas. “Suddenly, they're all, ‘No, no, we want to pull into reverse.’ Run right over Harry and me. Get you back in the mud.” (See: Hot button: GOP candidates knock global warming)

Obama even introduced his 12-year-old daughter Malia to the ditch. It was during a Carnahan fundraiser that same day in Kansas City. “I don't have a teenager yet, but in a couple years, Malia is going to be able to drive, right?” Obama said. “That’s what happens with teenagers, right, they go get the learner's permit, they — now, if your teenager drives into a ditch, your car, bangs it up, you've got to pay a lot of money to get it out, what do you do? You take the keys away.”

This week the president brought some hypothetical passengers into the fold.
“If we give them the keys to this economy, they are going to drive it right back into the ditch,” Obama said of Republicans. “And riding shotgun will be the big banks and the insurance companies and the oil companies and every special interest under the sun.” (See: JetBlue quitter inspires RNC)

In many ways, Obama is continuing a long history of presidents overusing anecdotes and metaphors to drive home their points. Ronald Reagan was known as a great storyteller — and embellisher, said Ross Baker, a political scientist at Rutgers University. Abraham Lincoln — one of Obama’s favorite presidents — “was the greatest of all spinners of anecdotes,” Baker added.

“There ought to be a separate chapter in all American history books devoted to the rhetorical excesses of American presidents,” he said. “More recent presidents use these case studies of ‘ordinary Americans’ who have encountered some hardship or achieved something remarkable as examples of American pluck and determination.”

Obama may have claimed the ditch and the car by now, but he is not the first Democrat to use the metaphor.

Maryland Rep. Chris Van Hollen, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was talking about the ditch months before Obama. In January, three months before Obama first spoke of “the ditch,” Van Hollen used the metaphor in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

“Why would you hand the keys to the car back to the same guys whose policies drove the economy into the ditch and then walked away from the scene of the accident?” Van Hollen said. “For the Republicans to say vote for us and bring back the guys who got us into this mess in the first place, I don’t think it’s a winner.”

Usually Obama reserves the ditch-car routine for campaign events only. But he used it once in a speech to the AFL-CIO’s executive council earlier this month.
It was there that he played up his favorite addendum to the metaphor: “Somebody pointed out to me that when you're in a car and you want to go forward, you put it in ‘D,’” he said.

“You want to go back in the ditch, you put it in ‘R.’ So I just want everybody to think about that.”

Just as Obama has cribbed from others — some credit Democratic strategist Paul Begala as the first one to use the ‘D’-drive and ‘R’-reverse bit — others are now cribbing from Obama. 
At a Chicago fundraiser earlier this month, Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn of Illinois took to the podium before Obama and robbed him of his metaphor. Quinn, whose delivery was much less animated than Obama’s, forced the president to back into his signature moment. (See: The Arena: Fair and balanced political giving?)

“I think Pat may have mentioned to you, they're trying to get you to forget that they drove the car into the ditch,” Obama said of Republicans. “And after we've pushed it out, now they're saying, ‘Give us the keys back.’ But we don't — we haven't forgotten, because we've got mud on our shoes, our back is sore from pushing that car out of the ditch. And I mean, if they want to get in the back seat, that's OK. But we're not going to put them behind the wheel.”

For a moment during another fundraiser in Chicago that same day, the metaphor even seemed to become too much for Obama.

“I also want to make a simple point — not to belabor this analogy,” he said, “but when you want to go forward, what do you put the car in?
And this time the audience got involved. "D!" the crowd shouted. “D,” Obama replied. (See: GOP's 'really inspiring,' Obama jokes)

With his rhetorical Christmas tree now festooned with flies, bugs, Slurpees, backaches, back-seat drivers, car accidents, sweat, dust and galoshes, who knows how Obama’s ditch will grow from now until November?

But there’s one question that will remain unanswered for another three months: Who gets the car? ####
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Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

Tags. Labels and Terms: maintenance, Braintenance, metaphors, anecdotes, cliches, word pictures, speechmaking, TNNWC Group, Douglas Castle, The National Networker, politics, the Sloganator.

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Douglas Castle

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UPDATE! Bulletin - TNNWC Weekly Newsletter - 08.15.2010 - Bigger, Better, Faster.

UPDATE! Bulletin - TNNWC Weekly Newsletter - 08.15.2010

Bigger, Better, Faster..................The Power Of TNNWC's Cooperative Business Community ("CBC"). The most efficient way to get the word out, to connect, to buzz, to brand, to build connections and to rapidly expand your emerging enterprise - exponentially, collaboratively and (ahhh...) affordably.

We at TNNWC (http://www.tnnwcgroup.com/) are delighted to announce that we have two new organizations which have joined the esteemed ranks of our CBC's Management Committee. You've probably heard of them before:

BNI - Dr. Ivan Misner's worldwide network of business networking groups. The first of its kind, with an enormous membership that encircles the entire globe (perhaps with one notable exception -- would anyone be interested in starting a BNI Chapter in Nauru? One may be available there...). TNNWC welcomes BNI.

CEO Space - A training center, a launching pad, a nexus and a nucleus for business leadership, planning and real-time, real-world dealmaking. CEO Space boasts a blockbuster enrollment of famous and successful members. Their conventions are legendary for bringing the right people together in the right setting. TNNWC welcomes CEO Space.

For those of you who might not be intimately familiar with TNNWC's Cooperative Business Community, or the concept of exponentiality (Bonnie Ross-Parker of The Joy Of Connecting has truly come to fancy that term), please simply click on:
http://www.thenationalnetworker.com/cbcommittee.shtml, and come right back here to re-join us, or, you can read the following synopsis and then click on that same link later:

*The Exponential Power of Large Numbers*
Combination + Cooperation + Collaboration + Organization = STRENGTH

If you are the entrepreneurial leader of an emerging enterprise or growing business with 1) products or services to sell, or if you are 2) the publisher, producer or owner of an e-zine, newsletter, newsgroup, forum or special membership organization, you face several major challenges:

• Marketing your membership, services and products to a larger audience;
• Building your subscriber list or client base rapidly;
• Attracting media buyers’ and advertisers’ attention and dollars – admittedly a wonderful source of ancillary income – to a subscribership list which may be too small;
• Finding other like-minded organizations who will cross-sell your products or services to their clients and increase your distribution and revenues;
• Finding other like-minded organizations which have exceptional products or services of their own which you can market to your clients to generate additional diversified sources of revenue;
• Getting your brand, site location and value proposition properly buzzed through the social media channels – the ever-increasing noise-to-signal ratio makes it hard for you to stand out;
• Saving money by getting the best terms from service providers, vendors, and contractors by acting as part of a large, powerful, organized group… think of the example set by collective bargaining organizations, purchasing cooperatives, political action committees or by organizations such as AARP – they are negotiating powerhouses because they are LARGE.

Going it alone is not the answer. Competition is fierce, and resources are scarce for smaller businesses. You need help. We offer it through providing you with the opportunity to become a Member of our CB Community™. It may sound trite, but it is unquestionably true: “In Unity There Is Strength.”

TNNWC’s Cooperative Business Committee™ (our CBC™), headed by The Joy Of Connecting Founder and CEO, Bonnie Ross-Parker, lets your company or group be a part of something enormous, united and powerful in order to get more of everything your business needs to increase profits and that your organization needs to grow more rapidly.

Bonnie, along with 8 other specially-selected delegates of certain organizations will comprise the CBC™, which will be the Active Governing Board (and dynamic nucleus) for the larger group, the CB Community™), which will be the infinitely-expandable.

Our Members don’t compete – we profit and grow together using the cooperative and coordinated leverage of large numbers and a unified focus.

What’s more, you do not have to give your mailing list to anyone – it remains yours, and it remains proprietary for your use. This keeps us abuse-proof and spam-free for the integrity and benefit of all. Any “Supergroup” mailings are done by each of the individual CBC Members, each through his or her own email list management and mail handling program.

We are a growing powerhouse of product and service providers, member-based organizations, publications, special opt-in email networks and other concerns who have agreed to combine, cooperate, collaborate and join forces in order to accomplish amazing things:

• Cross-sell (to an ever-increasing prospect list) and endorse each other’s memberships, services and products in a non-competitive, informative way – no direct ads or sales literature is distributed – not ever;
• Give our respective lists of subscribers special discounted access to TNNWC™’s Unique Suite of Service Offerings to produce additional “look-at-me” subscriber benefits and additional streams of income for all CBC Members and their individual list members;
• Use TNNW BUZZWORKS™ in combination with each CBC™ Member’s own social media, publicity efforts and regular mailings in order to create bigger, longer-lasting and more magnetic social media blitzes and publicity campaigns for each Member;
• Attract the attention of, and negotiate the most lucrative deals with media buyers and advertisers;
• Get the best pricing and terms from all outside service providers, vendors and contractors for each other, and for our respective constituents.

Want to be considered for a position on Our CBC™?
Want to join us and become a Member of our CB Community™?

Question: Would you like your message to get out to millions of pre-qualified prospective viewers and prospects instead of several thousand?

You must first become a 1) member of TNNWC (which is free) and; you must be 2) running a member-based or subscriber-based organization (i.e., an organization or enterprise with a loyal list of at least 2,500 followers, and; you must 3) complete our simple CBC Application Form (which is exactly the same for both the CBC™ and the CB Community™), which follows.

Most importantly, you must agree to our Terms of Cooperation, which are set forth in a downloadable .pdf document which you may print out.

Simply click on http://bit.ly/TermsOfCooperation and review the TERMS OF COOPERATION document carefully.

Click here for the CBC Application Form

Read more about TNNWC Group™ - Community - Cooperative Business Committee™ by www.thenationalnetworker.com

With Our Very Best Wishes (and Actionable Plans!),

Adam J. Kovitz and Douglas Castle

TNNWC Group, LLC

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