Ivar Raav

I’ve been getting questions in the last few days asking me, since the reader is not a manager, whether my book “The Footprint of Management” could still be of value to them. These questions are a great symptom of just being valuable. If we continue to separate the worlds of subordinates and managers and assume

I sincerely believe that no one should tolerate bad management! I was on TV3’s Stuudo and I talked about a book 😊 A book that talks about leadership from a slightly different angle for non-leaders and also for leaders. It was a short but nice chat! https://play.tv3.ee/embed-video/ivar-raav,clip-4955980?autoplay=true&muted=true

We always see the things we look for and believe are there. A good example is when the outgoing manager gives the new manager an overview of his or her team’s perspective and the new manager starts to assess people and seek validation for this. However, people are still constantly changing with new information and

Unfortunately, suppressing emotions and pretending to be happy is still common in the workplace. Man is an emotional being. Why do we find it difficult to cope with workers who cry or otherwise express their negative emotions? I wrote more about this in Director.

We all come from our childhood and carry it with us. Subconscious patterns affect us more than we know. So we adopt one mask or another, also in the work environment. But what potential lies behind the masks? It’s not about labelling people, it’s about finding the potential that may not be visible behind the

Think how many unnecessary conflicts would be avoided if we could ask one simple question: “Do you want a solution or do you want to be heard?”. or simply start with the assumption that a hearing is wanted. You will be notified when solutions are needed. Very often, however, we do not do this and

In one training session, a participant said the golden words: “Be specific in what you give out and fully open to what you receive.” He meant verbal communication and the ability to share information, but I’ll extend this to expressing emotions, using the example below. A leader’s clarity in his messages may be very precise,

Many organisations measure the frequency of praise in employee satisfaction surveys. Most often the question is “My manager praised me in the last 7 days.” I know a manager who keeps an Excel spreadsheet of when he praised someone, while proudly talking about the success of his recognition. It shows how silly the measurement of

It is surprising how few managers have regular one-to-one (1-1) conversations with their team members. I don’t call it a 1-1 conversation when you sit in the same room with an employee and “talk every day anyway” or call to talk about a specific job. Nor do I have in mind an annual review or