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Management is a practice, a discipline, and, above all, a process, so good managers are therefore systematic. At one time, management wisdom said to “match authority and responsibility.” However, practically speaking, responsibility always exceeds authority, and good managers are those who find ways to fulfill their responsibilities nonetheless.
Good managers structure the work that must be done in ways that develop the people doing the work. Becoming an effective manager is difficult because of the great gulf that separates the work of management from the work of individual performers. Many managers think at first that managing others will be an extension of managing themselves.
Those who become managers must learn to see themselves and their work differently. They must develop new values, deeper self-awareness, increased emotional maturity, and the ability to exercise wise judgment.
Becoming a manager requires so much personal learning and change that it is truly a transformation, akin to the transformations required by such life events as leaving home, finishing school and beginning a career, getting married, or having a child. Like these profound inflection points, becoming an effective manager will call on you to act, think, and feel in new ways; discover new sources of satisfaction; and relinquish old, comfortable, but now outmoded roles and self-perceptions.
Your 3 Imperatives as a Manager
What makes management difficult isn’t the idea of management. That couldn’t be more straightforward. Management is responsibility for the performance of a group of people. It’s a simple idea. The people you manage do the work and you’re responsible. Yet, if the idea isn’t difficult, putting it into practice is.
Even at higher levels of an organization, general managers who run significant business units spend 70 to 90 percent of their working time with others, face-to-face, on the phone, conferencing on the Web, or interacting online through e-mail or more sophisticated social networking tools. Whatever form they take, most of their interactions are reactive, not proactive; many are interruptions.
Consider this maxim, “To focus on the work people do, focus on the people doing the work.” To be successful at it requires that you work through others—that you include and work with them, rather than simply issue directives they must follow—a difficult task for anyone who prefers direct action and personal results.
Paradox: You Must Both Develop Your People and Evaluate Them
It is a boss’s dual responsibility both to foster the development of her people and to determine if and when those same people must be removed because they cannot do the work.
Paradox: You Must Make Your Group a Cohesive Team Without Losing Sight of the Individuals on It
A team needs to be diverse as well—members must bring different competencies, experiences, mind-sets, and individual interests—if the team is to be innovative. You will struggle constantly to balance the dual needs for diversity and cohesiveness.
Paradox: To Manage Your Group, You Must Manage the Larger Context Beyond Your Group
Paradox: You Must Focus on Today and Tomorrow
You need results today, but if you don’t prepare today for the future, you won’t get results tomorrow when tomorrow becomes today.
Paradox: You Must Execute and Innovate
To survive and succeed, all groups must simultaneously change in some ways and remain the same in others. Much business thinking tends to distinguish management and leadership. It says management focuses on doing work on time, on budget, and on target—steady execution—while leadership focuses on change and innovation. A few years ago, management was the broader term and included leadership. Being the Boss returns to that approach.
Paradox: You Must Sometimes Do Harm in Order to Do a Greater Good
Make choices for the greater good that harm some of the individuals or groups involved—for example, when you must cut costs, lay people off, or promote only one of three candidates.
Remember the paradoxes. You will encounter them every day in almost everything you do as the boss. They are never fully and truly resolved. Because of them, the “right” management action will always be a matter of judgment.
Even successful managers report feelings of overload, conflict, ambiguity, and isolation. The paradoxes are a key reason. They come at you relentlessly—day after day after day.
Add to the Paradoxes a Dynamic Workplace and a Changing Workforce
Employees of different generations—there are now four in the workplace—bring to work diverse aspirations, motivations, values, and feelings about authority and organizations.
The old saying that “People go to work for a company but quit a boss” is probably more true today than ever. Only good bosses, supported by well-run organizations, will be able to hold good people.
The effective manager’s three imperatives are:
- Manage yourself;
- Manage your network; and
- Manage your team.
Manage yourself deals with changes required in how you think about yourself and your role, how you relate to others as a boss, and especially how you try to influence others.
The bottom line—becoming an effective boss—is about knowing how to use yourself as an instrument to get work done and contribute to your organization.
Manage Yourself
I’M THE BOSS!
Don’t Depend on Your Formal Authority
People Want More Than a Formal, Authority-Based Relationship with the Boss
Many managers—especially those who were achievement-driven stars as individual performers—don’t even think about relationships.
The problem is that most people don’t want your authority to be the be-all and end-all of the relationship. They want a personal, human connection, an emotional link. They want you to care about them as individuals. They want you to encourage their growth and development. Research tells us this kind of human relationship with the boss is a key factor determining an employee’s level of engagement with the work.
Every individual in an organization possesses knowledge, skills, and new ideas of potential value. (If they don’t, it’s your responsibility to replace them with people who do.) Managing people primarily by exercising your formal authority—by telling them what to do without truly seeking their input—is far less likely than a more open approach to capture that full value.
Organizational success today requires the involvement of everyone at all levels. Less authority-driven organizations are more likely to elicit and take full advantage of the talent and experience of their people.
Research confirms the old saying that “power corrupts.” The frequent exercise of formal authority can lead you to inflate your own sense of self-worth and denigrate the value of those on whom you exercise it. Don’t let being the boss go to your head.
We know managers at the other end of the spectrum—bosses who shrink from exercising their authority. So don’t draw the wrong conclusions. You cannot ignore your authority and never use it. It’s not the use but the misuse of authority that creates problems.
Most effective managers are driven by a strong need to have an impact on others—not for their own satisfaction or self-aggrandizement but to achieve the goals of the group. In short, they use authority to do useful work, not to serve their own ends.
Wise managers solicit opinions, get information, and ask advice. They involve those who will be affected by a decision or plan. They act transparently by making clear both what they do and why. They manage with the door open, so to speak.
Effective managers go beyond involving others. They share or delegate their authority by giving others freedom to act within their own areas of responsibility.
Mary Parker Follett, who studied workers and the workplace nearly a century ago: “The test of a [manager] is not how good he is at bossing,” she wrote, “but how little bossing he has to do.”
I’M YOUR FRIEND!
Beware the Pitfalls When You Create Relationships That Are Too Personal
One new manager said he had to “fight the burning desire to be accommodating…so that [my people] would like me.” To confuse being liked with being trusted or respected is a classic trap for all managers.
Bosses and direct reports are not equals inside the organization. Even if the boss keeps her stick of authority hidden most of the time, she will still need to use it on occasion in ways that may not please her subordinates.
As a Practical Matter, You Cannot Be Friends with All Your People Equally
It must remain a relationship that never loses sight of one fact: it exists to accomplish work. It is a means to an end. You and your people need to connect as humans but always, in the end, to focus on the work. It is possible to care deeply while focusing on the work.
Seeking the right balance in the ties between you and your people means you’ll always have a certain level of tension in the relationships—a constant but easy give-and-take as you and each of them constantly negotiate boundaries and appropriate mutual expectations. Relationships often tend toward one of the extremes—toward distance or toward friendship.
Friendly but not friends. The penalties of failing this requirement will be painful to you, both as a boss and a person.
CAN PEOPLE TRUST YOU?
Influence Begins with Trust
Trust is the basis for all forms of influence other than coercion. It’s a necessary element in effective relationships in all cultures.
Whether it’s called trust, respect, reputation, or credibility, it all comes down to whether people believe they can count on you to do the right thing. It’s based on two beliefs: (1) People’s belief in your competence as a manager; and (2) People’s belief in your character as a person.
Competence means you know what to do and how to get it done. It means you have some expertise as a boss. Confidence in your competence will grow as you demonstrate that you know the “what” and “how” of managing, especially as you develop a track record of managerial accomplishment.
Managerial competence has three elements: technical competence, operational competence, and political competence. Technical competence is about what you know. Operational competence is about knowing how to apply it. You need to know how to function effectively in that context. That means you must know how organizations, yours in particular, work and how to get productive work done in them. Political competence is about knowing who does what and how to influence them.
While competence is about knowing the right thing to do and how to get it done, character is about your intention to do the right thing. People respect a good work ethic and tend to trust a manager who invests great personal effort—does homework, comes prepared, and takes the work seriously. If you work hard as a manager, it means you value the group and its work and want it to succeed.
Are you consistent in what you believe, say, and do? This is integrity. Do you demonstrate in your own work the commitment you want from others?
Your personal success now requires that you find satisfaction in the success of those who work for you.
Would people say you try to see the world from their point of view? Empathy isn’t about putting yourself in someone else’s position. It means seeing through their eyes based on their experience, needs, and values.
Fairness doesn’t mean you treat everyone exactly alike. Individuals differ. “To treat people fairly is to treat them differently,
Do people think you listen well? You may think you do, but here’s what it means to truly listen. When you’re talking to someone, are you willing to change your mind? If not, you’re telling and selling, not listening.
Be like a duck—on the surface calm and serene and underneath paddle like hell.
Managing the feelings of others doesn’t mean you must simply put up with others’ feelings. What’s required is more than that: you must actively recognize their emotions and take them seriously, even if you disagree or consider them misplaced, and even when they’re directed at you and feel personal.
A healthy sense of self—a strong but not big ego—is the foundation for virtually all other elements of character: for valuing others and treating them with respect; for empathy; for the ability to hear criticism, learn, and change; and for emotional maturity.
Management begins with who you are and how people perceive you. Don’t focus your relationships around either authority or friendship. Build them on trust in your competence and character.
Manage Your Network
No group can succeed by itself. As a result, instead of the freedom and independence you probably expected as a boss, you found dependence—or, more accurately, interdependence.
The most effective way to build organizational influence: by proactively creating and nurturing a broad network of relationships with those you need, and who need you, but over whom you have no formal authority.
UNDERSTAND THE REALITY OF YOUR ORGANIZATION
You Need Influence to Make Your Team Effective
In short, it’s your job as manager to integrate your group in the organization and keep all parties working together. You stand with one foot inside your group and the other outside.
What’s clear from the list of roles above is that you cannot avoid the political side of your organization and still do your job. If you don’t engage the organization and exercise influence effectively, if you hold yourself above the political push-and-pull, you will limit your effectiveness as a manager.
Yes, power can corrupt, as Lord Acton said, but powerlessness corrupts too. Witness all those throughout history who have explained the harm they did by claiming, “I had no choice. I had to do what I was told.” If you want to be a force for ethical judgment and fairness when important decisions are made, you need influence.
Conflict arises unavoidably from three fundamental features of all organizations: Diversity. Interdependence. Scarce resources. There’s never enough time, money, or other resources for every group to do everything it wants to do.
Diversity and conflict are essential drivers of creativity and innovation.
Keep your efforts clearly focused on the good of the enterprise, and don’t be surprised when well-meaning people disagree about how to achieve that good.
WEAVE YOUR OWN WEB OF INFLUENCE
Exercise Influence by Building a Network of Key Relationships
What’s needed is not merely contacts but a network: a set of ongoing, enduring relationships with those you depend on and who depend on you, based on a real understanding of each other’s needs and mutual dependencies. Actually creating a network—will be a significant milestone on your journey.
It’s composed of ongoing partnerships with network members rather than one-off contacts made only when needed. It is both present- and future-oriented since it includes those you need to accomplish the daily work and those whose support will be critical in the future. It’s essential to create such relationships before you need them.
Do You Use Your Network to Form Coalitions of Those Who Seek the Same Goals?
A coalition is a collection of people who align themselves in pursuit of a common goal—a new strategy, a new product, a different way of doing business. It’s a case of strength in numbers, a way of mobilizing support and negotiating from a position of greater influence.
Ultimately, you need to create three related but different networks:
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- Your operational network comprises those involved in your group’s daily work.
- Your strategic network will consist of those who help you prepare for the future.
- Your developmental network includes those who help you grow and provide personal, emotional support when you need it.
Networking doesn’t require a particularly outgoing personality. It’s a skill, something anyone can learn through practice.
What is the informal organization chart? The opinions of people and groups with influence carry greater weight when important decisions are made. These are the folks you want on your side.
Periodically step back and assess your relationships with your network partners, as you did in the beginning. Too often, we fall into an “us versus them” attitude. Instead, find ways everyone can achieve their goals, at least in the long run.
Studies of senior managers who recently took over major business units clearly revealed that establishing a strong network was one of their most urgent priorities.
Have You Found a Networking Style That Works for You?
Develop a networking style that you’re comfortable using. If you’re more introverted, then take advantage of work-related activities like conferences that expose you to a broad range of people in a setting with built-in opportunities to talk about business matters of mutual interest.
Your intentions—your values and standards—are as important as your capabilities. People assess you not just by what you do and say but by who you are and what you intend. You need to demonstrate a dependable internal compass that leads you consistently to deal with people honestly and respectfully.
How you interact matters. Research shows that if people have a choice, they will elect not to work with a difficult person, even when the person is competent. Guess how much influence difficult people have on others?
Building a network will help you exercise more influence, improve your chances of success, and make progress on your journey.
DON’T FORGET YOUR BOSS
Make the Most of this Critical Relationship
Managing up is important because your boss plays a pivotal role in your success—or your failure.
Do You See Your Boss as Coach and Developer or as Evaluator and Judge?
Don’t presume your boss is always one or the other, judge or coach. Instead, think of his dual roles as extremes between which he moves back and forth depending on the situation.
Do you realize that your relationship is actually one of mutual dependence? Your boss depends on you and needs your commitment and support to succeed.
You cannot succeed in this relationship at the expense of your boss; you will rise or fall together. Your task is to make both of you effective. Help your boss build on her strengths, and overcome or bypass her limitations.
Can You Identify Your Boss’s Strengths?
Your boss’s strengths are what you must leverage, and you cannot leverage what you don’t recognize or appreciate.
From your boss you can get advice and guidance; feedback about your performance, strengths, and weaknesses; insight into what others think of you; developmental assignments; and access to training programs and other learning opportunities.
Manage Your Team
If team is more than just another word for a group, what is it? A team is a group of people who do collective work and are mutually committed to a common team purpose and challenging goals related to that purpose. Collective work and mutual commitment are the key characteristics.
Mutual commitment springs from the two pillars noted in the definition: first, a common, worthwhile purpose, a sense of doing something important together; and second, specific and challenging team goals based on that purpose. A team says both, “We do something important,” and, “We’re going someplace important.
Teams are so important now that inability to build and lead an effective team is becoming a key de-railer of high-potential managers.
DEFINE THE FUTURE
Manage for a World of Change
All managers at all levels must concern themselves with both the short term and the long term, the tactical and the strategic, within the context of the groups they run. That’s why your plan needs to be much more than a schedule of near-term activities. Done well, a plan defines the meaning and context of the work you and your team do, identifies the forces shaping your world, and describes both the future you want and your strategies for creating it. In short, it’s the foundation for virtually everything you do as a manager.
When workers were asked how important it was that their lives be meaningful, 83 percent said “very important” and another 15 percent said “fairly important.” That’s an astounding 98 percent to whom it was at least fairly important.
The same survey revealed that less than half of all employees in every industry studied felt strongly connected to their company’s purpose.
No job is meaningless. Identifying purpose and making it explicit can transform a job into a calling instead of a career stepping-stone or just a way to pay the rent.
Being “managerial” or “strategic” doesn’t mean staying above everything. It means staying in close touch with the right things, the strategies and initiatives that truly matter, without doing the work yourself or micromanaging those who do.
Dwight Eisenhower, allied commander and later U.S. president, led the landings in Normandy on D-day in 1944 that turned the course of World War II in Europe. After all the planning required by that immensely complicated operation, he concluded:
For virtual teams, that sense of shared purpose and goals can form bonds among members, even when they lack the daily interaction that creates ties among members of colocated teams.
If you’re a producing manager, a plan will help you balance your dual responsibilities for both personal accomplishment and management.
Your written plan will cover the near future—say, one year—and may even look out a few years. Your unwritten plan, however, anticipates what is coming over the distant horizon, where things are still out of focus.
It’s important to encourage others to reveal the ideas and hunches forming inside their minds. The best plans emerge through a rich exchange of ideas and input from a diversity of sources.
Here are the key elements of a written plan:
- Be clear about where you are now.
- Define where you want to be in the future.
- Identify how you will get from the present to that future.
Think about what your group could do, the opportunities available, if it were operating at the highest level it’s capable of attaining. When you imagine the future, focus on two different time periods: one year and the distant horizon. Three years makes sense for most businesses, though the nature of some businesses requires longer leaps.
“How to get there” will become your actual plan—the strategies, milestones, and activities that will take you there.
Once you’ve taken these steps, you should be able to ask any member of your team the following question and receive the same answer: what are the key targets we’re trying to achieve, and what are the few key strategies or areas of focus that will get us there?
Do You Focus on Opportunities and Strengths More Than Problems and Weaknesses?
To repeat a critical point: success almost invariably comes from finding the few opportunities that are truly important and then using strengths to take advantage of them.
Guiding your people through change of all kinds is a key part of creating the future you want,
People fear loss, and they resist change because of the losses they fear it will bring—in the influence they wield; in the value of the knowledge, skills, and competencies they’ve worked so hard to develop; in key relationships; in rewards; and even in the loyalties they feel to people (colleagues, friends, family, a valued mentor) and groups (ethnic, religious, corporate) with which they identify. Fostering change that threatens to create such losses will test your management skills. That is the kind of change we focus on now.
Do You Know How to Foster Dissatisfaction?
Short of a genuine crisis, the key ways to create dissatisfaction are through information and discussion. You can also foster dissatisfaction through instilling a culture of continuous improvement or instituting ongoing practices like benchmarking, where you constantly compare your group’s performance with that of others. Such steps can get people’s attention or create dissatisfaction when business is good.
You will know people are sufficiently dissatisfied when they say, “There is a problem, it’s our problem, and we have to find a solution.
Do You Know How to Identify a Better Way?
The common name for “a better way” is vision. The goal is both to define a new, better world where the challenge you face will be resolved, and to define how you will get there. Obviously, you cannot define a future world in great detail, but you need a collective vision that not only is attractive and provides useful guidance but also leaves room for new ideas and learning
Only through creative and constructive disagreement can good ideas surface and be thoroughly examined. So foster the expression of ideas and full discussion, however difficult.
A vision of the future—the solution to the problem, how it will work, how you’ll implement it, and the expected outcome—is important. But it must emerge from the group and its deliberations. Only then will it be a shared vision that all are committed to implementing, however difficult.
Too often, managers remain silent because “we haven’t decided yet—there’s nothing to report.” Keep people informed of both the process and any progress. Silence is quickly interpreted, right or wrong, as lack of concern, incompetence, and even malevolence.
Nothing you do as a manager will be more important than developing and pursuing a view of the future that you and your group want to create. A clear sense of the future—where you, your group, and your organization are trying to go—is the framework for virtually all you do as a manager.
BE CLEAR ABOUT HOW YOUR TEAM WORKS
Foster the Right Team Culture
Who can do good work in the midst of confusion about who does what, how the work gets done, how members work with each other, and how the team is doing?
Culture is crucial to the trust that links team members because it defines what they expect of each other. Remember, we said trust is counting on someone to do the right thing. Culture defines “the right thing” within a group. The right culture can reduce conflict and keep it productive.
As a management tool that doesn’t depend on personal interaction, culture is a useful way to manage team members who don’t report directly to you. The right culture makes a team more effective at what it does.
As manager, you must ensure:
- Clarity about individual roles—who does what and how each role contributes to the team’s purpose and goals
- Clarity about how the team does its work—work systems, practices, and processes
- Clarity about how team members work together—the values and norms for collaboration that prescribe and guide interaction among group members
- Clarity about progress—feedback for the team as a whole and for individual members about both work results and how well the group is functioning as a team
Clarity is challenging because it embodies another paradox: the need to be clear—“here’s how we do what we do”—while remaining flexible in the midst of rapid change. It’s a never-ending struggle to strike the right balance between order, stability, and predictability on one hand and flexibility and adaptation on the other.
How do you and your team make decisions? If you tend to make autonomous decisions, remember the benefits of inclusion: better diagnosis of the problem or opportunity; early identification of assumptions, perceptions, and misunderstandings that are best addressed in the beginning; more trust in the outcome because those involved feel a greater sense of control; and, not least, greater commitment to the final choice and its implementation.
Team members do want to know where you stand. Because you’re the authority figure, they will look to you for guidance, at least initially.
Participation is important for two reasons. First, research makes clear that the more frequently an idea is stated, the more likely it is to be adopted. Second, members who rarely participate can become angry or frustrated and feel less committed.
Do You Make Sure the Group Allows, Even Encourages, Constructive Disagreement and Conflict?
Watch for constructive conflict. You want it. If there’s none in your group, good ideas are likely to be missed. Allow questioners and dissenters in the team to speak their minds.
To foster useful conflict, press adversaries to inquire rather than advocate. People who disagree often simply repeat their respective positions more and more loudly, ferociously advocating their own points of view. Encourage them instead to make inquiries of each other.
Do You Conduct Frequent Reviews of Team and Individual Performance?
Use metrics whenever you can, but beware of their limitations, two in particular: first, understand what drives them, because they rarely tell the whole story. Second, not everything important can be measured. Don’t ignore, for example, team culture and whether the team is living up to its own standards.
Measure the right things.
Find other measures—leading indicators—that let you look ahead.
Do You, If Possible, Bring the Team Together Physically, at Least in the Beginning for a Launch Meeting?
If you do gather, allow time for socializing. Don’t spend the entire time on work.
If possible, it’s also useful to meet midway through a major initiative—the work has taken shape but it’s not too late to make major changes—and at the end of an initiative for a debriefing.
Are You Aware of Your Own Cultural Predispositions?
You grew up in a particular culture that shaped your thinking and feeling. Understand it and how it compares with the other cultures in your group. Beware the tendency to view your own culture as the standard from which others deviate. Remember that others will measure you against their own cultures.
Is Your Team Insular?
There is a dark side to strong team cultures. They can feed the human tendency to see the world as “us versus them,” where “them” is any other group,
Does Your Team Discourage Dissent and Disagreement?
A team that avoids disagreement will discourage new ideas and innovation, which are often the result of constructive conflict. It’s a paradox of teams that you must foster both mutual support and constructive confrontation among members.
As you hire new team members, seek people who share your group’s values but also bring different perspectives.
Maintaining a team, providing the direction, clarity, protection, and resources it needs, will require from you constant effort and vigilance.
YOUR TEAM MEMBERS ARE INDIVIDUALS TOO
Manage Both Teams and People
Manage your people as a team, but never lose sight of this reality: team members are people who still want to be seen and cared about as individuals.
Most of us want to belong to a group. That’s a powerful urge. But, simultaneously, we each want recognition for our personal contribution.
Clarity and candor not only help people work together but also are signs of respect. Do you let people know when and why you’re displeased?
Those who work for you know how and with whom you spend your time. They watch.
Equitable does not mean equal. Find ways to have contact, including real interaction, with your indirect reports without undermining the authority of their bosses who report to you. You need to know what’s happening on the front lines. It’s too easy to become isolated and hear only what intermediaries want you to know. You need rich sources of timely and critical information about the big picture, priorities, key opportunities, and challenges. You also want to recognize achievements throughout your group.
Use the many tools, such as social media, that encourage people to share their ideas and thoughts. But don’t let them replace real face-to-face contact. Walk around.
People’s strengths are what will take your team where it needs to go. If you cannot immediately identify each team member’s strengths, perhaps you’re too focused on weaknesses.
Do You Know Your People Well Enough to Empathize with Them?
You need empathy, the ability to see the world as others see it without being captured by their point of view.
Develop the mental habit, when dealing with someone, of pausing three seconds and trying to step into their shoes. Understand what real empathy is. It’s not simply understanding how you would feel in someone else’s position but how that person feels, given who they are.
Delegation is not abdication. It’s not a binary choice between close guidance versus no involvement.
All of us are more likely to commit to managers and organizations that help us improve in our work and move ahead in our careers. Most of us like to get better and we even like to be pushed moderately.
Prepare a written individual development plan with each team member. In it, identify his current set of competencies (knowledge, skills, values) and compare them with (a) what his role currently requires and (b) what it will require in the future. A good way to begin an individual development plan is to ask the individual to prepare a first draft that includes the elements just noted, along with any personal hopes and aspirations.
Coaching involves talking someone through an activity, either before or after they do it, in order to improve their performance. It involves explaining, asking questions, demonstrating, role playing, and critiquing what you observed—whatever’s appropriate for helping someone do better. It’s usually best done quietly, person to person. The test of a good coaching session is that the person you’re coaching leaves it both more able and more confident.
Where coaching focuses on one aspect of performance and is often done on the fly, a performance appraisal is a dedicated discussion that touches on all or most aspects of someone’s performance.
You should talk frequently with people about how they’re doing—identifying strengths, praising good performance, pointing out problematic weaknesses, coaching for specific behaviors, and counseling. Remember: the only purpose of an appraisal discussion is to improve future results. Review the past only to the extent such information will lead to better future results.
In giving feedback:
- Cover the positive, not just the negative.
- Give specific, concrete, recent examples of both.
- Describe rather than evaluate, conclude, and judge.
- Focus on the problem, not the person.
- Have a discussion in which you listen as well as talk; avoid declarations and pronouncements.
- Avoid criticism of general personality traits—“You’re not assertive enough!”—because it’s irritating and not helpful.
- Always end the appraisal with next steps—an action plan for building strengths and overcoming serious weaknesses.
Don’t withhold important negative feedback for fear of conflict or upsetting the person. More than one manager has let someone’s performance deteriorate to the point where she must be disciplined or fired. Such outcomes are grossly unfair if they come as a surprise, especially if an earlier discussion might have set the person straight.
Do You Start by Trying to Understand the Reasons for Poor Performance? (It’s Not Always the Person)
Consider modifying the job if appropriate—“job sculpting” is becoming more common—or moving the person to a position that makes better use of his skills and interests.
When People Must Go, Do You Help Them Leave with Dignity?
Termination is a serious matter, never to be taken lightly.
Nothing you do will be more important than finding the right people. Do talk to the references provided by a candidate, but it’s critical that you talk to others as well. Talk to former bosses, peers, and even subordinates—anyone who knows the candidate and his work.
Have others interview promising candidates, including members of your team and people in your network who would deal with this person.
Hiring someone new is an opportunity to add different experience and a fresh outlook to your team. We’re naturally attracted to people who are similar to us.
Hire for strength, not to avoid weakness. Just make sure weaknesses won’t be fatal.
Are You Willing to Hire People Who Are Better Than You or Who Compensate for Your Weaknesses?
MANAGE THROUGH YOUR DAILY WORK
Bring the 3 Imperatives into Your Everyday Activities
Perhaps you’ve discovered the reality of management—that it’s inherently fragmented and reactive.
Even general managers of major business units struggle to stay ahead of daily events. They set up a meeting, or recurring meetings, to direct attention to some important topic. Waiting for spare time to appear is a fool’s errand because it never will. And of course, they carefully review their activities and try to eliminate those they cannot use in some way to push their plans forward.
Here’s a simple action model that will guide you to think of every activity not as one step—simply doing something—but as three steps: preparing to act, acting, and then reviewing the outcome.
A good manager’s questions aren’t aimed at catching people in mistakes or belittling them. They serve two purposes simultaneously: to guide people to the right actions or conclusions and to help people see a challenge in new and more productive ways. Good questions teach people how to think by demonstrating what questions to ask themselves.
Many managers think of developing their people as something desirable but separate from the daily work. They think development requires time away at a training course or coaching/teaching sessions that produce no immediate results. Consequently, it’s too often put off or ignored. But to think of work versus development is a misconception of how people actually grow and learn.
Make a post-action review an automatic part of the updates people provide at staff meetings. Make it part of your one-on-one meetings. Model it when you describe something you did. What did we learn? What’s the takeaway? If we were doing it again, what would we do differently?
COMPLETING YOUR JOURNEY
Learn from Your Experiences and Relationships
A people leader should say, “My job in general is to make sure you succeed, to create a place where all of you as a group can do great work. If I’m not doing something that would help you…if I’m doing something that gets in your way…let me know.”
Management will provide endless opportunities to learn about yourself, your values, your goals and aspirations, your talents, your character under pressure.
Above all, ask yourself these fundamental questions: How did people experience you—what was it like to deal with you? How did people experience themselves when interacting with you?
A CEO once said that he began to record his reflections every Friday about the week past. Within six weeks, he said, he developed greater discipline to say no to anything “not on the critical path,” which gave him time to spend with key regulators and jump-start the corporate globalization strategy.
Have You Created a Developmental Network?
The best way to obtain such feedback is through your own network of personal supporters and confidants, your own personal board of directors. They won’t tell you what to do, but they can help you identify options, think through different alternatives, see yourself as others see you, make decisions that balance harm for some against a greater good, and handle the emotions that management arouses.
For all the skills needed to pursue the 3 Imperatives, there exists a vast gap between knowing what to do and knowing how to do it. To learn the how, find other managers you admire, who possess skills and expertise you lack. Learn by watching them actually do what you hope to do. In the end, you will blend example, advice, and insight from many sources into your own way of working.
Do You Have Mentors or Other Advisers?
Much is made of finding a mentor at work—someone more senior who will give you wise counsel, protect you when necessary, open doors to opportunity, and generally act as your advocate.
Develop several relationships with those inside and outside the organization who can help you learn and develop yourself.
Actively seek out learning situations. This may mean you take on stretch assignments in your current work that broaden your experience, help you develop new ways of thinking and acting, and prepare you for advancement.
Few people become effective managers by simply following their gut. Thus, you will need not just self-awareness but self-control, personal discipline, determination, and resilience.
The real purpose of the journey is to close the opportunity gap: the difference between current performance and the best your group is capable of doing, which often is far more than the target.
The journey requires self-awareness, self-control, discipline, and resilience. To that list, add one more quality: personal courage. Everyone is counting on their people leaders to be courageous.
