Bad Habits: What managers should do

A lot fail to understand the role of a manager. Everyone wants to be a manager, but really - what is the job scope of a manager? A manager is to manage. That's clear. But how to manage? What do you start to do to manage?

I have seen so many teams fall apart. Some fast. Some suffer a slow death. Why to teams or sections fall apart? Why do companies fail to meet their goal? How can managers help? The answer is real simple. Managers must start with giving a clear direction. Clear directors to everyone is dead important. I have some statistics to prove it.

Let's say there are 10 persons in the team. Most team have about that many person. If everyone has a 90% correct understanding of the team's goal, the team is almost doomed. Why? Statistically, the chances of reaching the goal is only about 35%. That's 0.9 to the power of 10. Mind you, 90% understanding isn't bad for an individual, but as a team, that's real bad.

If you have a team of 5 with each individual's understanding of the goal 80% correct, the chances of success are 32%. However, if there are 5 members with an 90% correct understanding of goals, the chances of success would now be about 60%.

This clearly shows that small groups are easier to manage. More importantly, the manager's roll is really to make damn sure everyone has at least a 99% percent of correct understanding of the goals and objective of the team. Once the understanding is clear, things will move along better. Not trouble free, but at least the chances are better.

So, what's the success factor of your team?