Top 14 Mistakes Senior Managers Make
by Robert Dunham

1. You’re Not Listening!
   
   Your people are not listened to, only spoken at, resulting in a lack of engagement, loyalty, and ownership, in addition to increasing staff resentment and negative morale.
2. Indulging in Overcommitment
   
   Not producing a staff that can say "no" results in overwork, underachievement, customer dissatisfaction, and "dead heroes" – never a winning strategy.
3. Blinded by the Numbers
   
   The numbers are only a by-product; taking actions to change the numbers without managing what generates the numbers - valuable offers, excellent execution, customer satisfaction, and employee passion - is ultimately destructive.
4. Allowing Fuzzy Commitments and Avoidance of Commitment
   
   Fuzzy agreements and lack of standards for generating and managing commitments (the "C" word) produces waste and resignation.
5. The Customer Comes Last
   
   Working on "tasks" without remembering, being aware of, or caring, about the reaction of customers to what is done and how it is done, killing customer satisfaction.
6. Fear and Loathing of Performance Evaluation
   
   Speaking honestly and directly is a skill, and requires some courage. Senior managers must learn to provide direct and timely feedback on performance.
7. Teams in Name Only
   
   Teams are not just groups of people working together, and the skills of building real teams that have trust and effective performance seems to be rare - they must be learned.
8. The Management Toolbox is Empty
   
   Effective management requires a range of skills, and most managers do not have the complete set: team building, ability to evoke commitment, ability to listen, managing morale, coping with breakdowns, managing customer satisfaction, effective planning and projects, clear shared standards, clear ethics, presence, and not being reactive are key ones.
9. "Giving Orders" instead of "Requesting and Establishing Commitment"
   
   Ownership and excellence do not come from order takers, and usually ordering produces resentful avoidance, when what we really want is the ownership, pride, and passion that comes when people commit to what they are doing.
10. Inability to Build Trust /Cope with Distrust
    
    Trust is not some vague background feeling, and trust building, repair, and sustaining are skills, skills that too few have – it must be learned.
11. No Clear Game Plan
    
    A quantitative objective or vision statement are only pieces of a game plan, which also requires a clear strategy, clear roles and responsibilities, explicit value for customers, and a team able to execute.
12. Because I Said So
    
    Arrogance of office leads to just giving orders, not gaining the respect and commitment of others, and erodes the strength and vitality of the organization, leaving only the weak and beaten.
13. Lack of Commitment to Learning
    
    We must learn or be passed by -- learn from our mistakes, successes, and experiences, and learn from others in the world, particularly from those who have risked and have experience in success and failure.