E-learning and other developments in Training were significant in 02. Stories from the management quadrant were often less than inspiring. Enough said.

This is an action time rather than a reflection time, given that the last years of ´99 and early 2000s were spent doing exactly that. I think we're all ready to move on now. We have seen the past. It's time to create the future.

For 2003 I made a resolution to cover more management topics. Since my articles are about what's happening in Canada along with real voices, views and events of Canadians in business, I'm going to share with you the management challenges and resolutions of some of today's Canadian managers in business, both small and large.

First, though, let's take a look at how the concept of management has changed. Nary a decade ago management was mostly about how to supervise people, delegate work, hire, fire and manage staff to make or deliver product or service to clients and customers. Things seemed less complex and rather academically simple. Now we manage technology, manufacturing processes, services, information, quality, logistics...the list goes on. Managing people means managing human resources, performance, training, business planning and deliverables.

We even manage our customers. We used to have conversations with our customers. Now they are part of a customer relations management process.

Some of our managers are actually machines! Think technology systems, human resources systems. The manager has become the system. The interpreter of the system can be a salaried employee, salesperson, customer, a manager with a very different title, even another machine!

Management has become a rather mountainous and academic exercise, routinely systemized through technology.

Some good questions arise from this. Is this over-management? Have we become technological micro-managers when simpler solutions, more human contact would yield more...more business, more satisfaction, better quality through direct communication.

We seem to have lost the art of simple clear conversation through our deployment of technology. Is this the end of civilized business as we know it?

Here's my own example of technology overload. I really love cappuccinos in the morning as much you prize your morning tea.

But when the cappuccino clerk feel leads me through a five-question survey of choices by rote rather than really listening to my order, it changes flavor when it becomes a "technologically guided customer experience process".

Here's the process.

"Can I help you?"
Yes, a large cappuccino with cocoa please"
"Will that be a latte or cappuccino?"
"Cappuccino, please." (Again!)
"Whole milk or 2%?"
I think "I don't really care which." but I say "2%."
"Will that be large or small?"
"Large" (Again!)
"Cocoa or cinnamon?"
"Cocoa." (Again!)

Its makes me think how technology has made us dumber in ways. We seem to spend more time adapting and learning to configure technology than using its output products. My hunch is that for the near future we will be selective about refining our use of it for more elegant and purposeful means.

Getting back to management, we now notice how all manageable systems are interdependent. You can't impact on performance without a corresponding impact on quality without a corresponding impact on customers and so on until the feedback loop returns. The mental dynamic of managers, staff and others has also changed significantly. We rarely think in terms of horizontal ladders of influence and hierarchy anymore...even the corporate structures that work are more circular, more fluid.

Management has evolved because we have evolved. It is interconnected because we are interconnected. Everything we have created as a system has been born out of our own realization - our supreme understanding and recognition of these as whole systems. Of course we'll refine and smooth out the edges, remove the unnecessary complexity where it doesn't add value or meaning. This is an exciting time for managers. This is fusion, a time when managers or management processes having learned the basic beat, scales and technical mastery can finally jam! What interesting music we'll make now.

I asked several Canadian Managers for their biggest current management challenge and their #1 Management Resolution for 2003. Here they are:

Challenge: To give businesses the vision that growth is not as much influenced by outside factors than by desire and determination from within.

#1 Management Resolution: Stay with the success formula: (Knowledge Attitude Action) x Discipline = Results
Ernst Marsig, Principal Consultant, Y2Marketing.

Challenge: Within a small company is ensuring that the business objectives are achieved as set down within the business plan each year. As a manager you must have the conceptual skills to visualize where the company is going and the technical and people skills to get it there.

#1 Management Resolution: Encourage the staff to work together as a team using all their specific skill sets towards the companies end goals and objectives.
Lynda Humes, General Manager, Krytech Associates, a technology company that services and designs computer networks

Challenge: As a leader, people follow people they trust. To trust me they need to know me - both the practical and the emotional sides. Letting people know me emotionally is not about knowing all the details of my personal life but rather it is about how our work and vision impacts me emotionally.
Jody Eagen, President, Edge Associated, training & coaching firm

Challenge: Dealing mainly in finance/accounting, my biggest challenge is trying to work efficiently and effectively with fewer resources.

#1 Management Resolution: Having a concrete plan for staff training. I feel if I can get staff motivated for continuous self-improvement, it's going to be a win-win.
Janice B. Taylor, Accountant

Challenge: As a ''people manager'' within a consulting environment, my biggest challenge remains keeping my remote (client-site) consultants enthusiastic and well aligned to the corporate goals and values. Consultants deployed in long-term engagements can sometimes lose clarity between ''employer'' and ''client'' goals.

#1 Management Resolution: Communication: To staff, to clients, to peers. Everything else comes second.
Stephen Tomkins, Sr. Director, Consulting Services, Cognicase.