rampant Irishmen.synchronizes.coerce deceivers …

I agree that when you're the boss you can do certain things differently. For our customer service department I adapted our P&P to a close-to-GTD methodology to ensure we are proactive and nothing slips through the cracks. It has been working quite well.

Also for people who report directly to me, I ask them to keep track of the outcomes (projects) in a list I've assigned to them and give me a weekly report on actions they've taken to move each of the projects forward. I also ask that they have a next action for each project defined when they submit their progress.

If I had peers, I think this would be a harder sell (even if it would be for their own good!)

Your subordinates though, not only can you change the way they work, but you should insist on it. I've walked into several extremely poor IT departments with lackluster performance, horrible rep in the company, and very little self-generated workflow. Any work being completed was accomplished because of overbearing top-down micro-management. I did this myself in some cases to bad result (as I would expect now).

After leading through example, and then insisting and evaluating performance on standards of responsiveness and follow-through similar to what I set for myself, three types of employees come out … those that can't or refuse to change and leave or get left behind, those that want to change but don't even know they have a problem, and those that see what you're doing and want you to mentor them.

The tough ones are the 2nd type, and they take the most work as a manager. I have had employees who are so close to being able to change that you want to just kick them in the butt over the fence, but they just can't quite seem to make it. Others struggle for years and keep getting second-rate reviews and 3/4 or 1/2 of the raises they could have gotten because of lack of follow-through, poor communication, etc.

The greatest feeling though is when you have an employee who really sees what it is you've been doing, adopts their work style to it (and even uses some of the same tools you do), and then goes above and beyond. You usually wind up 'losing' those to better positions in or out of the company, but it's sort like watching your son graduate.