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Don’t Hire Managers – Build Leaders

Today, I want to talk to you about building leaders that will help you explode the growth of your company.  At some point in the development of your organization you will need to hire a manager or supervisor.  This hire will be vital to the future success of the company because it is the people that make an organization great, and if those people are not inspired by a true leader, they will not perform to their peak potential.

I learned this later in my career as a business owner using a 360-survey tool.  Honestly, if you had asked me, and the survey did, I would have told you my team and I worked well together.  The truth was we didn’t!  While I thought I was inspiring them, they thought I was intimidating and difficult to communicate with.

Imagine if you could take that newly hired manager or supervisor and fine tune their ability to communicate and motivate the rest of the team.  The result is a team of employees who are all on the same page and are motivated to deliver on the mission of the organization.  A 360-degree survey, done correctly, allows the manager to go on a journey of self-exploration that not only allows them to grow but empowers them to build leaders below them who can later be promoted.

When done right, 360-degree feedback boosts employee performance and professional development.  Some of the main advantages of using this tool are:

  • Increased self-awareness: 360 feedback employees become aware of their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Identification of skill gaps that helps leaders recognize blind spots and hidden strengths.
  • Provides an overall employee assessment. This knowledge is critical to growing your business as it guides training efforts that promote business success and individual development.
  • Improves productivity: Fosters good working relationships and increases employee productivity. Positive feedback boosts employee confidence and encourages them to do more.
  • Provides leaders insights: Leaders can better understand employees’ skills and decide which roles best suit them.
  • Increases transparency: Helps build trust and facilitates open communication.

The truth is not all 360-degree surveys will deliver these results.  Three persistent issues prevent 360-degree surveys from delivering the total value of the organization’s investment. For decades, 360 reports have been:

  • Data heavy
  • Complicated and difficult to interpret
  • Lack a plan for effecting real change or improvement

Some 360s are so complex that organizations hire certified experts to interpret the data and debrief the results. Participants can be overwhelmed by the amount of data and daunted by figuring out what to do with the feedback.

I recently started working with a company that I recommend to my clients because they have solved these problems with a simple yet elegant 360 report that incorporates a proven change model with the feedback. The combination simplifies the data and illuminates how to use the feedback to improve performance.  They utilize a self-debriefing action report that results in personal, practical, motivating action plans that participants implement to achieve success.

If you are building out a management team, or already have one that could use some improvement, I highly recommend using a 360-degree survey tool like the one described here.  If the feedback isn’t easy for the manager/leader to understand and get on board with, change will not take place.

As always, feel free to leave me a comment below or reach out directly, if I can help you with this or any other issue that will help grow your organization.

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Create Safe Accountability in Your Organization

 

  1. Set clear and mutually agreed upon expectations with people in regard to both performance and behavior.  This reduces confusion, mixed messages, and judgments of non-performance.
  2. Share information openly and timely to avoid unnecessary surprises.  Develop a communications strategy for informing everyone about relevant and current information.
  3. Surface any conflict directly with the person involved.  Focus on ways to avoid conflict in the future. (This is far more effective than avoiding the person, telling everyone about the conflict, or blaming the person as the one who was wrong.)
  4. Provide encouragement, guidance and other forms of support to individuals who need to make a change but who may not realize the importance, or the process, of doing so.  Typically, we either ignore people who are struggling, or we sympathize with their discomfort and let them off the hook.
  5. Focus on functional roles and processes, rather than position and power, to accomplish outcomes.
  6. Support the development of people and systems in order to respond to the needs of tomorrow and to avoid reacting only to crisis.
  7. Monitor and measure the results of each team and individual so that people know exactly where they stand.  This is the only way to let people know of their successes and their need for improvement.
  8. Do not allow people to perform poorly without making it clear that their performance is unacceptable.  Skirting the issue only causes people to feel deceived and victimized.  No one benefits by carrying a poor performer.
  9. Follow up on commitments so that people can depend on your words and your consistency.  If you are unable to keep a commitment, let people know as soon as you know.
  10. Let others know the care, appreciation, and compassion you feel, instead of holding back.  Honor their humanity as well as your own.  When all is said and done, we are FIRST human beings with fears, needs and imperfections, and SECOND, employees hired to complete a job.

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A Foundation of Trust!

“Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.” – STEPHEN R. COVEY

I think this statement is essential for every leader to really understand and embody in the everyday relationships they have with their employees.   As a leader you will need to have difficult conversations with your team from time to time and if a foundation of trust is not in place before hand these conversations will be more difficult and less impactful.

I remember a situation I encountered as a young manager that stands out in my mind even today some thirty years later.  I managed a small team of employees in a relatively small company.  We worked hard together and often worked late into the night.  I counted on this team to respond to customer’s calls at two and three in the morning with a smile on their face and urgency for the task at hand.  We worked in the medical industry and our clients and their patients depended on us getting there quickly.  Customer satisfaction was a key performance indicator (KPI) I used to measure the impact my team was having in growing the business.  Happy customers called more often so it was critical that we kept them happy and calling.

One morning I received a call from a customer about one of my best employees.  The complaint was concerning his personal hygiene.  Simply put, he had body odor that was offensive to the staff at the hospital and if not corrected he would not be allowed to service the customer.  I look back at it now and we all knew this was a problem before the customer called.  I hadn’t had the courage to have the difficult conversation necessary to correct an ongoing issue in the workplace.

I went home that night and wrestled with how I would approach this with him in the morning.  Needless to say there was no sleep to be had that night.  In the morning I called the employee into my office and after much small talk about how important he was to the organization I dropped the bomb.  Unexpectedly, he was not upset and in fact he was not even that surprised.  He admitted he had struggled with this problem for a good portion of his life.  Immediately I jumped in and offered to help with some suggestions on ways he could improve the situation – I won’t go into the details here!

A week or two later I had a visit from his wife who wanted to thank me for being there for her husband and helping them both correct a situation that had been a problem for a long time.  I realized then that even though the topic and conversation were of a sensitive nature my team knew that I was coming at it from a place of trust and support.  My goal was to improve their lives and enhance their careers.  They understood I was not only looking out for the wellbeing of the company.

I later developed a saying that I would repeat again and again to all of the leaders in my company – “Lead from the front”.  My meaning was for them to be out there in front of their teams showing them the way by example.  Don’t be that manager that sits in the background letting their staff members take all the risks and do all of the heavy lifting.  Employees need to know first and foremost that you have their best interest at heart.  What you do every day is not for the good of the one but for the good of the many.  I have seen too many leaders get tunnel vision, focusing on their careers, forgetting that the people working for them are the fuel powering the career in the first place.

Trust is the foundation of every relationship.  Without trust there can be no open and honest communication.  My conversation could have gone very differently if my employee thought my goal was to terminate the problem versus resolve it with him as a team.

Feel free to comment below with your stories of how trust made your difficult conversations easier and more impactful!

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How do you measure performance?

We have all heard the saying – “if it is not measurable it is not manageable.”  Why then do we spend so much of our time managing the softer side of our employees rather than the results they actually achieve throughout the year?  In some businesses it’s all about the statistics of achievement.  In the sport world for example, each member of the team is evaluated on each aspect of their game and ranked against others in the same field.

In the business world some would say that’s just not possible.  I say that’s due to the fact that not everyone on the team understands how they contribute to the overall success of the organization.  Okay, in the sports world it’s easy, right?  Everyone knows what the vision of the organization is – win the championship of course.  There are clear parallels in business but they might not be as easy to define.

Vision

Most businesses have a vision for the organization.  The question is – can it be as clearly defined and understood as winning the championship?  The easy part of the sport world is that the path to the championship has been well defined.  Rules have been set up that allow the manager or owner of the team to build a clearly understood strategy that can then be passed on to the coaches and players.  In your business you can do the same thing!

The first step is to determine your vision for the organization.  Keep it simple!  Keep it measurable!  If it’s not measurable it cannot be managed – Right?  If it’s too complex no one will understand how to break the vision down into departmental and then individual goals.

Vision Statement

In the next Timeframe the company will Attainable Goal by Differentiator!

Most sports teams set out to win the championship but not all of them have the tools and resources to win it this year.  So their timeframe might be to win the championship within the next three years by rebuilding the existing team.  The same goes for your organization.  You might not have the tools on board today to attain the ultimate goal but everyone should understand that’s where you are headed.

SMART Goals

Thankfully the hard part is done right?  Wrong!  Countless businesses I work with have the vision of where they are headed well in hand and simply cannot understand why they haven’t gotten there already.  The long term goal (The Vision) needs to be broken down into yearly, quarterly and even daily goals for each member of the team.  This is a very difficult task and can only be accomplished through strong communication and teamwork within the leadership of the company.  Obviously, the real long term goal of a sports organization is to build the value of that organization by driving up revenue attained from broadcasting rights and game attendance.  Can you imagine if that is what was communicated to the offensive line on a football team?  They would have no way of relating their performance to that high level goal of the organization.  So winning a championship becomes the goal.  Every athlete can relate to this goal and understands what it means to their financial future.

But winning the championship is still too broad a goal to drive performance on the team.  So that goal is broken down further in to win this week’s game and then again into scoring the touchdown.  But it doesn’t stop there!  It’s about first downs – achieving them for the offense and preventing them for the defense.  “If you control the line of scrimmage you win the game.” 

So what are the SMART goals for you team?  How can you break them down into bit size measurable indicators that can be monitored and improved upon each day?

I like to use the example of the airline that wanted to improve on time performance (Goal) in order to raise the overall rating of the airline.  Anyone who travels can understand how this impacts their lives and therefore they pay attention to this rating when selecting their airline of choice.  In turn this will drive revenue for the airline.  So increasing revenue is the high level goal but the employees cannot directly relate to this goal.  Not everyone in your business understands business and therefore you need to make the goals at the employee level relatable to the worker.

But on time performance was still too broad a goal.  This goal was in turn broken down further in to Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) for the baggage handlers, maintenance workers, gate attendance, pilots and flight attendants.

Baggage Handlers: Have all bags loaded 20 minutes prior to the flight’s departure

Maintenance Workers: Have all flight checks completed 40 minutes prior to flight departure

Gate Attendants: Have all passengers loaded 10 minutes prior to departure

Pilots and Flight Attendants: Arrive at the plane 30 minutes prior to departure

Of course there is more to it than this but for the purposes of our discussion today you can see my point.  These are KPI’s related to the goal that can be reported and monitored to better understand where the weak points in the operation are.  Once identified you can put improvement plans in place that might include training or improved technology to report problems ahead of time.

So start today.

  • Make sure your vision is clear and relatable
  • Ensure the strategy to attain the vision is well thought out and documented
  • Breakdown the goals into (KPI’s) that can be measured at the department and even employee level.

When differences are discovered through the reporting process, don’t shoot the messenger.  Sometimes the process is to blame for good people achieving poor results.  Ask them for their help in fixing the problem.  If you hired the right people, and they understand what they need to do to achieve the goal you will be surprised at what can be resolved if you are willing to listen with an open mind.

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Five Things Strong Managers Know!

 

Managers are key contributors in an organization. They have many responsibilities, but here are 5 responsibilities that effective managers pay close attention to:

  1. Carry out assigned duties: Know and understand what is expected of you from your boss. That means asking questions, checking in, and making sure you are aligned with his/her priorities at all times.
  2. Keep your manager informed: There’s nothing worse than being blind sighted by someone who seems to know more about what is going on in your department than you do. Make sure you do not put your boss in that position. Let him/her know if something is going wrong and how you intend to handle it. If you’re not sure, ask to brainstorm together for possible solutions.
  3. Build employee morale: If your people are disgruntled, you need to address it immediately. One bad apple does spoil the whole bunch. It’s the manager’s responsibility to monitor what is going on in their department, including at the water cooler. If you hear something negative, don’t ignore it and hope it will blow over. Interject yourself. Get to the bottom of it and let the negative person know, that doesn’t fly with you. If they are uncomfortable or know they will be called out for negative behavior, it is less likely they will continue.
  4. Give clear instructions: Communication is a 2 way street. When you give a directive, you are responsible to make sure people really understand what you expect. Of course it’s clear to you; it’s in your brain. But everyone else doesn’t have the same brain. Instead of asking closed questions like, “You got it?” or “Any questions?” try open ended questions like, “So where do you think you’re going to start on this?” Or “What obstacles do you anticipate that might interfere with us completing this on time?” People tend to answer closed ended questions with the yes or no they think you are looking for. You really have no idea whether or not they understood and if you are going to get the results you want.
  5. Cooperate with other departments: Successful managers play nice in the sandbox, even if there’s a bratty kid in there. Focus on the issues and results you want, while keeping in mind that others have responsibilities and goals as well. Listen actively. Find the common ground. Work as a team.

Develop your Manager’s Toolbox by attending one of our public training classes!

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