10 Typical Management Mistakes

1. No Ongoing Training
In any business it is important that knowledge stays relevant as new innovations come along in your industry. Implementing ongoing training will teach your staff how to work with new products or build on what they already know. Updating your own and your company’s skill set will ensure that the business continues moving forward professionally. Changes in technology and the IT industry happen very quickly, so if you hope to remain at the forefront of the field you must keep up to date with new trends and developments as they emerge. Personal training in a certain area could help you perform your job better too with an overall benefit to the company.

2. No Accountability

The key defining element of accountability is answerability – the requirement to provide information and justify one’s decisions. A common mistake made by managers is to either delegate blame or simply not accept responsibility for that which happens. Being in charge means taking responsibility for whatever happens. Accepting responsibility for mistakes is a crucial part management and shows a willingness to act in good faith by being fair and open.

3. Hiring Poorly
The skills that a potential employee may bring to your company are important but it is also important that the people you hire will work together well as a team. Too often an employee is hired on the basis of his CV alone or on the recommendation of a recruitment agent. Getting your team involved in the hiring process is one way to ensure that the candidate has the requisite skills and relates to the other staff. Always make sure that there is some sort of temporary position available before any permanent role is offered. This is the best way to ensure that the employee will be a good fit with your company and if it doesn’t work out, you can both walk away with relative ease.

4. Lack of Planning and Organization
Effective planning is the key to preventing errors in the future. Too often managers do not have all the checks and balances in place before embarking on a project and then when something unforeseen happens, the whole project becomes unstable. A well organized and thought out approach before starting any new venture is essential to keeping a business on a smooth footing. With good planning, projects can run on time and everyone involved can understand what is wanted, what their individual roles are and emerging problems are dealt with long before they cause damage.

5. Unrealistic expectations
Before stressing your team out with a whole lot of project goals and timelines that are impossible to achieve, discuss with them clearly what their capabilities in terms of the project are. Think about breaking the project down into short and medium term goals and focus on what will constitute success. I find that it is always better to overestimate the time a project needs in case your team over promises and under delivers.

6. Lack of communication
The health an organization depends on the widespread dissemination of information throughout an organization and the communication that enables this dissemination to happen. There are many different forms of communication (both verbal and non-verbal) but in order to be effective in management it is most important that you work on the interpersonal communication. A good channel of communication between and employee and employer leads to stronger relationships and less chance of misunderstandings.

7. Never change
Management often fears change of any kind because they are worried about it ruining the things that work and the habits that we have grown accustomed to. Although this might be true, letting go of old practices can revitalize a business both in terms of the product and the employees. Being adaptive and open to change can give the business the boost it needs in a changing technological and competitive environment.

8. Failing to delegate
Some managers take the approach that it is easier and better to certain tasks by themselves rather than getting someone else to do it. Whilst it may indeed be quicker and easier to undertake some tasks on your own, there are benefits to training someone to do them for you. First it means that your skills can then be used in some other area and it frees you up to pursue these things, and secondly it means that you are developing the employees skills and abilities so while it may mean that it takes a bit longer the first time, in the future, the project can be delegated with some degree of confidence.

9. Not recognizing employee achievements
Appropriate praising and commendation helps to build the culture of teamwork and striving for excellence that all companies want. Recognition can motivate your team members to do an even better job in the future, since they know you appreciate their efforts. Not only is recognizing the skill and dedication of employees one of the most effective ways to boost morale, implementing a creative employee recognition program is one of the best ways to spread best practices throughout the company.

10. The ‘Quick’ Fix
A quick fix is not really a fix, it may work but it is really a temporary measure before the problem needs to be resolved properly. Real long-term solutions take time and commitment and sometimes removing the quick fix in order to implement the proper result can be more time consuming than if the problem had just been fixed correctly in the beginning. If a solution is water tight from the beginning, then long term problems are better avoided.

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