Make A List Of Your 20 Most Important Relationships (ePub)

I know a manager who once evaluated his company's power or negotiating advantage over other companies by whether he had to adjust his work schedule to theirs or whether they had to accept the schedule he set. go out. Nothing gives him more pleasure in asserting his own importance than forcing others to change their plans to suit his schedule.

I'm not sure if I agree with that manager's attitude, but I see how he uses the element of power. The more honest you are about your ability to influence other people's schedules and, in turn, their influence on yours, the better organized you'll be. People frequently deceive themselves about their true independence and can thus throw even the simplest organizational system into chaos.

Similarly, a few years later, when I worked for Arnold Palmer and other clients, my work schedule was built around their needs. Because we are pursuing a business that innovates every day, I have to be ready to go wherever I need to go. A client could win the Masters at any moment and I had to make it profitable immediately. You won't be able to do that if you've planned to go to Europe or stay in Cleveland to do some priority work.

With the above standards of managers, I now have power. I have had the pleasure of being able to schedule as many or as few meetings as I need. This didn't make me any better organized than when I was a junior in Cleveland, but it made me feel more or less comfortable.