Increase Your Self-Confidence

If self-confidence is not the key to success, it is certainly a major ingredient. People tend to see you as you see yourself. Act uncertain of yourself, assume that you cannot do something, dwell only on your shortcomings—and other people will share your low opinion of yourself.

Conversely, when you’re sure of yourself and your abilities—they’ll buy that, too. How, though, can you find the energy and determination that comes from total self-assurance, even when you feel temporarily low?

Here are four techniques for boosting personal morale that have worked for others. They may work for you.

Keep a record of your successes. Next time you need some instant reassurance, review this written record of your most outstanding successes and perk up.
Follow a big success with a big “try.” Take advantage of the flush of success by tackling a tough job while you are still in a mood to conquer. You may surprise yourself.
Act as if failure were impossible. Act confident (by your bearing, your manner, your dress) and you will be confident.
Stick your neck out. Promise someone you wouldn’t want to let down that you will finish that tough project within two weeks, for example, and the desire to please that person will do the rest. End result: growing self-confidence.

12 Ways To Manage Your Time More Effectively

Put your goals in writing. Then set your priorities. Make sure you’re getting what you really want out of life .
Focus on objectives, not on activities. Your most important activities are those that help you accomplish your objectives. Set at least one important objective daily and achieve it.
Question all of your activities. If they do not contribute to the realization of your goals, eliminate—or at least modify—them.
Get rid of at least one time waster from your life each month.
Make a to-do list every day. Be sure it includes your daily objectives, priorities and time estimates, not just random activities.
Schedule your time every day to make sure you accomplish the most important things first, but leave room for the unexpected, including interruptions.
Make sure that the first hour of your workday is productive.
Set time limits for every task you undertake.
Take the time and make the effort to do things right the first time, and you won’t have to waste time doing them over.
Block out an hour a day of uninterrupted time for your most important chores.
Get the habit of finishing what you start. Don’t jump from one thing to another, leaving a string of unfinished chores behind you.
Don’t spend your time on less important things when you could be spending it on more important things.

How Not To Handle Employee Complaints

Handled correctly, a grievance can be a healthy safety valve that permits the griper to get things off his chest and, consequently, satisfaction.

Mishandled, even a minor complaint can mushroom into anger, stubbornness, spitefulness, lack of cooperation and, finally, disloyalty. In dealing with other people’s dissatisfactions, supervisors are frequently guilty of thoughtlessness and haste. Here are the most common blunders to avoid:

Making it difficult for workers to come to you. Of course you’re busy. You have meetings to attend, paperwork to get out, superiors to report to, work to oversee. Under such circumstances, an employee’s grievance can seem very insignificant. But if the worker can’t turn to you, to whom can he go? Deny him the one logical outlet for what is troubling him, and you are setting the stage for massive discontent. So make yourself available.

Not giving him your complete attention. Allowing the employee to tell his story is not enough. You must give him your undivided attention. It is insulting to invite a man to talk to you, then riffle through papers, take telephone calls or walk around while he is unburdening himself.

Not taking the complaint seriously. Shaking your head, clucking your tongue, smiling in an all-knowing manner while a worker is relating his problem to you—these are only a few of the ways you can tell him that you think his complaint lacks merit. If one of your people feels strongly enough to articulate a grievance, you owe him the courtesy of serious, attentive hearing.

Expressing an opinion too soon. To reach a conclusion before you have all the evidence is not only manifestly unfair, but by doing so, you risk appearing ignorant of subordinates. And once workers lose respect for their supervisor, his ability to supervise is irreparably damaged

Hiding behind red tape. “I’ll have to check that out with the boss.” “As soon as I get the proper forms, I’ll pass your complaint along.” The supervisor who puts an employee’s gripe off by appealing to bureaucracy may succeed in temporarily stifling the complaint, but at the same time he is laying the foundation for another, larger beef.

Not letting a worker know what’s being done about his complaint. Because an employee’s complaint is just one of many items on a supervisor's calendar, a supervisor may neglect to keep an individual informed of its disposition. But just as we can only think of the one tooth that aches, so an employee dwells on the subject of his discontent.

Not checking on the settlement of a complaint. Grievances are seldom pleasant. Perhaps that’s why some supervisors are eager to drop them as soon as possible. A crucial final step, however, is to see that a complaint is resolved—by removing the cause of it, compensating for it in some way or proving, to the employee’s satisfaction, that his complaint was unwarranted. Like any other job, in short, a grievance should be seen through to the end.

Not forgetting a grievance once it is resolved. When we bear a grudge, we bear the heaviest, most profitless burden of all, for it consumes valuable energy better spent in other activities, it poisons relationships, and it undermines the very essence of team work. Unfortunately, it is all too human to remember complaints, particularly if we figure in them. But dwelling on the past accomplishes little. And, as a supervisor, one of your main concerns is necessarily with accomplishment. So, in the matter of employee grievances, resolve that once a case is closed, it is closed forever. Your people will respect you for it.