Yesterday we completed day 4 of the AUGI board meeting. This was a pure board meeting with action items and agenda setting. We met with Kelly Rupp who is the Director of the Worldwide Sales Programs. We had discussions about AUGI connections that were global in nature. Creating country chapters where they do not exist now. It was very encouraging. We are still meeting today and I will keep you posted.
Continuing the efforts of the Board…
We finished up the opening portion of the meeting which was three days of discussion, contemplating and arranging the work effort of the board. This was an educational event where we looked into options for how we get our work done. Thursday we will be reviewing the planning efforts for the next year.
Another day of meetings with AUGI.
This month I am asking about User Groups.
I am in San Rafael at the Winter AUGI Board meeting.
I mentioned that my laptop took a dive.
I had a system crash this past weekend.
People want and need to have something to look forward to. It gives them a reason for pressing ahead. It provides them with hope that their CAD problems might be answered, the project problems might go away and that the next release of software is actually going to do what it says it will do.
When a CAD Manager speaks, people listen. If you are the CAD Manager, you may not think people are listening, but they are. They listen to what you are excited about, what you are depressed about and what you complain about. They hear what you say and they remember what you promise.
The promises are the focus of this post.
Promises hold a lot of weight with people. You may not be making them outright. You may not be saying “I promise…” but people often take your words as promises. Keep this in mind at all times. Even when you are not “promising” anything, some users will hear it as a promise. There is not really much you can do to prevent some people from holding you to promises you never made except to remind them that you never promised anything.
The topic of this post is to discuss the promises that you do make.
When we speak as a CAD Manager, and we “promise” to get something done, people take it as a contract. They hold you to keeping your word and deadlines. We should be keeping our word as a person with character and integrity.
We offer false hope when we tell someone that something will happen by some certain date and it does not happen. We offer false hope when we say that a problem will be fixed by a specific time and it is not fixed. We offer false hope when we talk about how the next release will be better than this one and it is not (which is totally out of our control).
False hope can degrade positive progress in keeping people motivated and moving. Change is part of our workflow. We are constantly moving people to new software, new tools and new methods. Keeping the hope alive is vital to the change process.
I am a big supporter of teamwork. If you have read my stuff or heard me speak, you know that I believe in working with and through teams. Teams are one of the best ways to make progress and get everyone moving in the same directions.
Teams are not an excuse to pass the buck on making decisions. Letting others make decisions that you should be making is not good for you in the long run. You are called on to decide the overall direction that CAD should be going in your firm. Making decisions is part of that process. I published some tips for making decisions in the last CADD Manager Journal. Give it a read.
Making tough calls can be hard to do at times, but the calls have to be made. Don’t let someone else decide.
Maybe you get tired of taking all the heat so you pass the authority on and allow someone else to make the choice. Then you hide behind that decision so that no one will think you made a bad choice. That is not the way of the Leader. A leader faces the outcome of decisions and is honest when mistakes are made. If you made a bad decision, admit it, think of how to make the best of what you have and then modify the direction and move on.
Letting others make the critical decision instead of making them yourself can lead to stagnation in your career advancement because no one sees you as being decisive.
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