Page 33 - Becoming a Successful Manager

24 KNOWING THE TERRITORY

The principles, stories, and Discovery Lessons in this book
will help you understand and adapt to the dynamic, environmental
challenges inherent in your world as a new manager. Throughout
the process, you will learn to effectively evaluate and leverage the
challenges and gifts of today’s environment to grow your depart-
mental garden productively and profi tably.
The environmental challenges include:

• Capturing the value and mix of four generations of workers
Managing the gift of a multigenerational workforce

• Harnessing the value of technological innovation and access
to real-time information
Managing the gift of technology as a means, not an end

• Aligning the efforts and purpose of virtual communities and
global resources
Managing the gift of multicultural and remote contributions

When managed correctly, today’s combination of the gen-
erational mix, technological advances, and cultural diversity can
provide you sustainability, flexibility, and departmental strength.

However, your staff’s individual and collective success and con-
tributions are directly related to what you do and how you work
with them. As you refl ect on the principles and perspectives in
this book, think about how to incorporate them into your goals,
attitudes, and interactions as a manager.
Management has been defi ned as “the art of getting things done
through people.” In a world that is more agile and portable, that
defi nition has changed. Management now is “the art of getting
things done through people of multiple generations, across the world,
while leveraging technological innovations.” While writing the afore-