39. Know what you are actually doing

"You can't sail her with just two men. You'll never get out of the harbour!"

"Son, I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?" Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

So what are you doing? Important but overlooked rule, this one. Go on, answer the question, what are you doing?

To answer this you need to have long- and short-term plans formulated. If you haven't got a plan, you don't have a map. If you don't have a map, you'll never find the treasure. If you know who you are and where you are going, you are indeed Captain Jack Sparrow - you're a pirate and clearly so.

So, are you laying the groundwork for future promotion? Marking time until you decide what to do? Counting down the days until you retire? Collecting information so you can go to a rival and use it profitably? Waiting to be head-hunted? Learning more about the industry so you can make a sideways move? Enjoying yourself and having a ball? Doing a hatchet job for the management and making a third of the workforce redundant?* Trying hard to be noticed by senior management? Working hard just to do a good job and stay ahead of the game? Building a social network to have fun with? Stealing ideas, resources, staff and machinery to start your own rival business (oh, I've seen this done, and a very successful job they made of it too - they knew exactly what they were actually doing).

There are no right and wrong answers. Well, actually a wrong answer would be, 'I haven't a clue.' You have to know what it is you are actually doing. Not what you are supposed to be doing. Not what you want to be doing. Not what the company thinks you are doing. But what you are actually doing. Once you know that you can work miracles because you have secret knowledge. Perhaps everyone else also knows; perhaps no one else knows. But you know and that is the important thing.

Now have a quick look round at your team and tell me what each and every one is actually doing. Good exercise.

I knew a general manager of a big engineering concern who was brought in from the USA to do exactly that - and the workforce knew it. His first mass meeting was greeted with boos and catcalls. He stood his ground and just said, 'I arn not the enemy here. The enemy is the downturn in business. 1 am not the enemy so don't shout at me.' Worked like a charm.

40. Be proactive, not reactive

"The greatest advancements of this century, the light bulb, the airplane, and the computer, were created by innovators -- people who imagined things that did not exist and asked why. Being an outstanding employee requires a touch of this inventor's spirit, a determination to persistently strive to create value." Bernie Milano, 'How to be Proactive, Not Reactive'

I know, I know, it takes you all your time just to get the job done, the paperwork tidied and the plants watered without having to think about the future or be a whiz innovator. But the smart manager - that's you again - puts aside 30 minutes a week for forward planning. Try asking yourself simple questions: 'How can I generate more sales?' 'What can I do more expediently?' 'How could I cut staff turnover?' 'How can I convert more leads to sales?' 'How could I streamline the accounting procedure?' 'How could I move into another sector?' 'How could I get my team to work harder, faster, brighter?' 'How could I get them to brainstorm more freely?' 'How could I hold meetings that wouldn't waste so much time?'

There is an old saying, 'If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got'. And by golly it's true. If you aren't proactive you'll stagnate. And if you do that the croco­diles will bite your bum. You have to keep paddling, keep moving forward in the water. Sharks have to keep moving forwards all their life to keep water passing through or over their gills. They never stop. Be a shark. Keep moving forwards. Because if you don't there will be plenty of others willing to do so.

And believe me I know what it's like. You open your mail box and there are loads of e-mails to deal with. Then there's the post. Then there's the staff issues. Then there's lunch. Then there's the afternoon work to be done and then there's a panic to get all the post ready to go out and then there's a quick cup of tea and then it's about time to pack it all in and go home and there's this idiot telling me I've got to take 30 minutes out of a jam-packed day to think about the future. Yeah, in your dreams.

But that 30 minutes can be combined with another task. Once a week I have lunch on my own and spend the time being proactive, thinking about the future, thinking of ways to be one jump ahead of the competition. But I do have to go out alone for that lunch or people come and interrupt my mental planning session.