By Steve McKinney. President

McKinney Consulting Inc. 

Every New Year brings to your memory new beginnings. New ideas pop into your mind that you have not implemented. Second chances are given to people and programs that did not perform up to your expectations. Additional energy is directed at your core competencies.

Primarily you are defined by your ability to execute and deliver on your core competencies. As a leader you “stand for something or fall for anything.”

What can we learn from a 19th century “fictional” country boy about professional management? Do your employees or team members beg to be allowed to work each day? Do you want them to? Imagine what that would do to your career. Read on!

It is kind of a push versus pull thing. Two managers who do the same activities appear completely different - one is always pushing while the other one has to be pulled into doing everything.  The appearances from the outside are worlds apart. 

For example, there are the “pulled” managers who say “Do we have to stay until 6 p.m.?”  Meanwhile, there are the “push” managers who say “Do we have to leave at 6 p.m.?”

Push, ownership and trust defines the Tom Sawyer Management Method. In the story about Tom Sawyer and the whitewashed fence, he demonstrates this method with his friends.  Tom demonstrates enthusiasm and sales opportunity, which is contagious.  He is so successful that his friends push him into allowing them to whitewash the fence for him. 

Jim is captivated by the process of the whitewashing, and is further tempted by the prospect of being able to see the sore toe underneath Tom’s bandages.  Ben is captivated by the enthusiasm Tom has about liking this work.  Tom declares, “What is work?” He instilled ownership in the project based upon opportunity.  Tom describes that it is not every day a boy gets the opportunity to whitewash a fence.  It is all about attitude.  Is the paint bucket half full or half empty?

In addition, other friends stop by and pay him with their personal treasures to have the opportunity to do some whitewashing. Tom went from poverty in the morning to wealth in the evening.  In the end he received “…twelve marbles, part of a jew’s-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spoon cannon, a key that wouldn’t unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a dog-collar-but no dog - the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, and a dilapidated window-sash plus other odds and ends.”

According to Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), “There are two levers to set a man in motion: fear and self-interest.”  Tom brought out the self-interest in his friends to get them to work. Or, you could say he had the self-interest of not wanting to work, but the necessity of needing to get that fence whitewashed.

Our employees develop ownership in a project, and they develop their confidence, by the trust we place in them. Galileo Galilei 1564-1642, Italian physicist and astronomer stated, “You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him to discover it in himself.”

Trust is the factor that really motivates your employees to do their best.  In the story, Tom displays trust in his friends who are whitewashing, but expressed a strong desire to have quality work done.  At one point he described that there was probably only one in two thousand who could do a good job on that fence.  It was an important assignment for Ms. Polly.

Management is more than just getting the job done.  It is about providing vision, support, correct principles and leadership for your people. Providing those things is about courage. When your people feel they have a muscular backer, they cannot help but kick sand in the face of the competition. They feel empowered to do anything.

What kind of manager are you? Before you can even think about getting promoted, you need to know your own strengths and weaknesses and then benchmark your results with other successful middle managers. How have other middle managers in your company been promoted in the past? What did they do differently from what you are doing? Find out.

We must continually be educating ourselves on new techniques and new technologies. When I was in the athletic footwear business we would globally design approximately 300 new creations a quarter.  How many different footwear designs can you think of that are useful and commercially viable?

No one can predict the future, but we all can predict that there will be changes.  Take any sector of business and compare the changes that have occurred during the past ten to twenty years.  Can you imagine conducting work or schoolwork without the aid of a computer?

We need to develop transferable skills.  The best skills can be used in a variety of industries and company types.  Take for instance a chief financial officer.  Every major company has a CFO.  His or her skills are transferable with minimal re-training and sometimes no additional training.

One universal item that, regardless of title and position, we must all do is to develop strong communications skills. Often managers will accomplish a lot, but senior managers fail to recognize their achievements. You must be good at your current job and communicate it properly if you even want to have a chance to be promoted.

A huge suggestion that will change your life and is guaranteed to advance your career is to keep a daily diary.  Write down daily accomplishments in the following three-sentence method.  The first sentence should state what the accomplishment was.  The second sentence should explain how you executed the accomplishment. And finally, the last sentence should describe the result of the achievement in quantifying terms.

Here is one example of a major achievement in one of my former positions:

Coordinated the activities of four departments within the Global Footwear Development of Adidas. Analyzed work flows and travel requirements, interviewed and hired candidates, created job descriptions, developed long-range goals and objectives. Results: New team was instrumental in USA sales growth of 42%, an increase of $145,000,000, which contributed to a global sales increase of 20%, an increase of $440,000,000, while reducing travel expenses by $900,000.

Armed with this detailed information you are then capable to communicate with your superior's specific achievements and your skills utilized to achieve the results.

Being a good middle manager trying to make the next step is not easy, and I think it is fairly complicated. It involves a little of everything - incentive alignment, putting the right people in the right positions, and having a set of core “values” in the company that goes beyond just money.

Push, ownership and trust defines the Tom Sawyer Management Method. All of you know the old saying that if you “Give a man a fish he will eat for a day, but teach him to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.” Remember that to take the next step requires strong leadership skills.  Peter F. Drucker has said “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.”

Steven B. McKinney, Certified Master Coach and President of McKinney Consulting, Inc., a Retained Executive Search & Coaching firm based in Seoul, South Korea. With over 25 years of experience in Asia, he has a refined expertise in helping multinational companies and leaders succeed in the region. Steve is a member of the International Coaching Council. McKinney Consulting is a member of AESC The Worldwide Association for Retained Executive Search Consulting Firms. He can me contacted at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it