h2 - h2 Practices

                                      h2 Notes from The Back of An Envelope ™

Listen ...      Say what you mean.      Consider the other person as you express yourself.

■ Select A Leader. Along with purpose, vision, technical competence, trust, future potential, and all

else that matters, consider the final candidates' readiness for leadership responsibility in the terms

of hypothesis two*.  ( See the accompanying reprint "Executive Brief". )

■ Just ask! Information Flow.   Ask the members of your immediate reporting team what regular, scheduled reports and meetings each would like to have with you, ideally as a minimum, if any - individually, and as a group. Ask yourself what minimum regular information channels you would like

with them. Take a few days for each to consider and present their requests – then decide as a

group. Sketch a simple graphic inventory of the resulting "minimal" channels.

Revitalize / Revise these your primary "organizational synapses" as needed or desired. Maintain an optimal report / meeting balance to support all of your group communications and operations.

Also, develop and maintain a lean, mutually useful reporting pattern with your peer managers or

executives – across groups, departments, firms, institutions.

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■ Reinforce Teamwork and Quality of Performance. With your direct reporting team, define and on occasion discuss "teamwork" as "the influence of one's work on the quality of others' work".

■ Clarify Performance / Increase Productivity. For selected repetitive activities, develop generic

productivity control charts of output per period vs. input per period ( by definition, lines of constant productivity

pass through zero ) - for direct analysis and use by the responsible operating members on each

successive organizational level – starting at first levels of supervision.

If an h2 Note appeals to you, use it! Adapt it to your operations. Use these elemental "Notes from The

Back of An Envelope" to maintain a lean responsive organization. Inspire initiative and creativity —

enforce integrity in and beyond your operations. Extend the reach of your leadership and experience.

Distilled from extensive experience, and building on classical principles, these MODULAR h2 Notes can

be used by any operating executive or manager, starting on any organization level. We offer them as a core

leadership system for the effective management of our industries and cities, resources and open spaces.

* Using this criterion, effective leaders span all personality types – from quiet to outspoken – and transcend stereotypes.

This model is especially useful because it provides a universal, practical potential for increasing one's own effectiveness

under pressure, and for selecting for and cultivating "readiness for responsibility" in others.

– Maturity in Motion

– h2 Menu –

Two Modes of Inquiry –