The Winning Manager’s Playbook

Table of contents

1. Cover Page
2. Title Page
3. Copyright Page
4. Dedication
5. Acknowledgments
6. Contents
7. Introduction
8. Chapter 1: Set Goals All the Time
   1. The Value of This Chapter
   2. Company goals come in three flavors
   3. Some guidance on vision
   4. Creating your vision
   5. Near-term goals
   6. Directly related to fulfilling the company vision
   7. Challenging yet reasonable
   8. Measurable
   9. No more than three
   10. Established at least yearly
   11. Examples
   12. Financial health goal
   13. Customer-related goal
   14. Strategic goal
   15. Individual goals
   16. Don’t pick up nails
   17. Say no to the hamster wheel
   18. Points to Remember
9. Chapter 2: Focus on the Process, Not a Plan
   1. The Value of This Chapter
   2. Most businesses don’t have a plan
   3. The process is more important than the plan
   4. Creating a planning process
   5. Identify the right information
   6. The traditional approach
   7. A Business Plan Outline
   8. An additional approach
   9. Engage everyone in collecting information
   10. Create successful strategies
   11. Be a spider
   12. Use the information wisely
   13. Chickens and eggs, strategies and goals
   14. So, what do we actually do?
   15. Modify the strategies in light of new information
   16. Do this frequently
   17. Survival of the fittest ideas
   18. Points to Remember
10. Chapter 3: Coach the Right People
    1. The Value of This Chapter
    2. Never try to teach a pig to sing
    3. Matching people to the position
    4. Define the Position
    5. POSITION DESCRIPTIONCHIEF ESTIMATOR
    6. Find the right person
    7. Coach them to excellence
    8. Hire the right person, not the right resume
    9. Points to Remember
11. Chapter 4: Serve the Right Customer
    1. The Value of This Chapter
    2. Define the right customers
    3. Create the right strategies for your right customers
    4. Generic strategies
    5. Low cost
    6. Differentiated products and services
    7. Differentiated customer service
    8. All three simultaneously
    9. Specific strategies
    10. Create a sales process to secure and serve your right customers
    11. The sales funnel
    12. 1. Lead
    13. 2. Strong Lead
    14. 3. Highly Likely
    15. The sales process
    16. Create an operations process to serve your right customers
    17. Constantly build the culture
    18. Invest Them with Importance
    19. Drive Them Home Every Day
    20. Look for People Who Buy In
    21. Points to Remember
12. Chapter 5: Empower Your Entire Team
    1. The Value of This Chapter
    2. How can you empower your team?
    3. Management would be easy if you didn’t have to deal with people
    4. Enabling real empowerment
    5. Goals and boundaries
    6. Manager’s route to a goal
    7. Establishing the boundaries
    8. Early steps to goal achievement
    9. Out of Bounds
    10. Reaching the Goal
    11. Conditions for empowerment
    12. Example Principles
    13. Wide boulevards, high curbs
    14. The process as a diagnostic tool
    15. Points to Remember
13. Chapter 6: Do the Right Things Right
    1. The Value of This Chapter
    2. A system of managing
    3. The Three Cs of an Effective System of Managing
    4. The Goal Management Team (GMT)
    5. The six tools
    6. GMT Meetings
    7. Team Resourcing
    8. Team Resourcing Ground Rules
    9. Position Descriptions
    10. One-on-Ones
    11. The daily huddle
    12. Football, construction, and the Blue Angels
    13. What’s in this for you?
    14. A company-wide reward program
    15. The company goals
    16. Available reward money
    17. The payout
    18. Should we also reward individual performance?
    19. Points to Remember
14. Appendix A: Using Your Financial Statements to Generate More Profit and More Cash
    1. What can you do to make more profit?
    2. General Ways
    3. Taking Discounts
    4. What can you do to get more cash?
    5. Managing inventory
    6. A trick done with mirrors
    7. But inventory is boring—I like to do the fun stuff!
    8. Accounts receivable
    9. Another trick done with mirrors
    10. Points to Remember
15. Appendix B: Business Plan Outline and Guidance
    1. How to use this outline
    2. Business Plan Outline
    3. 1. Purpose
    4. 2. Executive summary
    5. 3. The company
    6. 4. Marketing plan
    7. 5. Operational plan
    8. 6. Legal and professional issues
    9. 7. Financial plans
16. Appendix C: The Interviewing Process: One of a Manager’s Most Critical Activities
    1. Isn’t this a job for the HR department?
    2. But I’m too busy to do all this
    3. So, what’s the answer?
    4. So, how do you do this?
    5. What’s different about this approach?
    6. An example
    7. A four-step process
    8. Here are the questions we created
    9. Great Communicator
    10. High Energy
    11. Goal-Oriented
    12. Competitive
    13. Always Positive
    14. Strong Work Ethic
    15. Humor
17. Appendix D: The Sales Process: An Example Step
18. Appendix E: Improving Communications
    1. The jury paradox
    2. Humans are like radios
    3. Why is this so difficult just because I’ve added a few folks?
    4. So, how do we fix it?
19. Recommended Reading
20. Index
21. About the Author
    1. Your Comments