Being able to effectively manage the performance of your employees or team members rests largely in part on your ability to communicate effectively. Your team members need to know exactly how they will be judged so that they can set an individual goal based on those requirements while striving to achieve the standards you’ve set forth.

Simply put, you need to design and implement a definable performance standard. In most cases this means setting minimums for both productivity and levels of quality.

Setting minimum productivity levels means telling your employees that they must complete a certain amount of work throughout the course of any given day, week, or month. This may mean researching a set number of reports, making a specific number of sales or phone calls, or producing a set number of widgets. Productivity levels can be easily measured.

Measuring the quality of someone’s work is not quite as simple. You may have to create limits regarding the number of errors a person can make within a set period of time, the number of (justifiable) complaints management can receive about a customer service representative before corrective action is taken, or even the number of times an employee has failed to meet established performance standards.

I usually take the time to outline expected performance standards on an employee’s first day at work or as part of the team. I stress that I recognize it will take time to meet these standards, especially as he or she is learning their new job function, but that he will be expected to be able to meet these standards within a certain period of time.

No one person is perfect and everyone is going to make a mistake at some point. You may even find a need to adjust the standards you have set based on trial and error. However, without setting standards by which we can manage performance we will not be able to monitor our teams in order to encourage growth.

What standards have you set for your team and how often, if ever, have you had to adjust them?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Not long ago a friend of mine relayed a story about some difficult changes that had been going on within her organisation. The company had been talking about downsizing for months and, as time went by, she and her fellow employees become more and more disgruntled. Upper management was keeping information locked tight, and middle management had ceased communicating with their employees and teams because they simply didn’t know what to say.

Eventually, the list of people to be laid off was released and the task of informing each person that he would be losing his job fell on one individual manager. My friend was not on the list, but had seen the writing on the wall and realized that the organisation was no longer a place she wanted to work. She found another job and gave her notice.

On her last day, Manager X from upper management pulled her aside and asked to speak. He asked her about some of the things that she liked and disliked about her job, confirmed her reasons for leaving, and released her to go finish clearing out her desk. It was a relatively standard exit interview.

To her surprise, that same manager reappeared at her desk and asked to speak with her for a few more minutes. They found an empty conference room and she was shocked when he asked, point blank, “What do people think of me?”

Surprised to hear the question, but having always had honest conversations with this manager, she hesitated only slightly before telling him that most of the employees he managed found him to be grumpy and unapproachable. She reiterated that she understood he had been given the unfortunate task of delivering layoff notices to so many people, but that his attitude towards others had been cold and aloof for much longer than the few months before the organisational changes. While anyone would have admitted he was a valuable informational resource and shrewd business person, no one found him personable and many thought he was a poor manager.

Hearing this story caused me to take a step back and think about my relationships with the members of my own team. I would hate to have any of them think I was rude or unapproachable, so I made an extra effort to communicate with each one personally – just to check in, make sure they were happy with their jobs, and to find out what was going on in their lives.

Taking a few minutes out of your day or week to check on your employees isn’t going to make or break your goals or blow your time management plan out of the water. Making the effort will simply let your employees know you care and, in the end, will likely result in a happier and more efficient team.

What does your team think of you?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

Building a strong team is essential to the success of your business. Start by taking a close look at your organisation in order to understand exactly what type of teams you already have or need to form. There are several definitions for the word “team” and one or more may apply to your situation.

First, the entire office may be considered one team. This is especially true if your entire organisation consists of a small group and each person has a specific task to perform. Everyone must work together to achieve an end result.

Your organisation may be broken down into departments; for example, sales, marketing and advertising, accounting, customer service, etc. Each of these departments has a specific function and operates independently as a team without much input from the other departments.

Lastly, each department may be broken into teams to handle individual tasks or projects. Teams may be formed on a permanent basis, or might be formed on a case by case basis for special projects.

Team building can be incredibly difficult, regardless of the type of team you form. It’s important to keep your team structure in mind as you search for and hire new employees. In the end, you’ll find forming a team to be beneficial for a number of reasons:

- Team members will work together in a synergetic, energetic, and creative manner.

- Your team members will bring new skills to the table while picking up skills from other members of the team. Their shared efforts will increase the overall knowledge base.

- Teams are more flexible and are better able to adjust to organizational change.

- Over time, you’ll find that team members will become committed to their teams and fellow team members. No one member feels overwhelmed, but they all get to take credit for a job well done!

The difficult part of team building comes when, as a manager, you attempt to find a group of people that will get along well as far as personalities and work ethic are concerned. While this takes time, you’ll eventually appreciate the efforts you put into your team building exercise. It is much easier to delegate authority and work creatively with a fabulous team!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

One of the most difficult things I had to learn as a young business person was effective management delegation. I was afraid to delegate tasks to those beneath me; partially because I was used to doing so much on my own and partially because I was afraid the job wouldn’t be completed to my own personal standards. Rather than take the risk, I tried to finish projects by myself and rarely asked for help.

What a mistake! I soon had more work than I could handle and the quality of my completed tasks was suffering; not because I didn’t care but because I simply didn’t have enough time. I quickly realized that delegating tasks is not only integral to the successful completion of projects, but it is also an effective method of time management!

When your superiors give you a task, you automatically become responsible for the project and can be held accountable for the outcome. You’ll then delegate the task to an individual or group, thus transferring responsibility to those who are going to do the physical work. In the end, however, your superiors are going to look to you for the end product and you will always be held accountable for the quality of the work.

Your team should be properly trained and prepared for any task you hand them. You have, after all, spent countless hours working with them so there should be no question in your mind as to whether or not they can handle any given situation. Some managers are afraid of giving up power or control, but this is also an unreasonable excuse for avoiding delegation.

Delegation can be a scary concept for both new and seasoned managers, but it is one you have to learn to deal with rather quickly. There is not a single person in the world that can do everything, and you’ve been given the authority to hire a team for a reason. As long as you have taken the time to properly train your new hires, there should be no reason to hold back when it comes to delegating tasks.

Take a close look at the members of your team. Are they properly prepared for anything you may have to throw at them? If not, you haven’t done your job and you need to make a plan to remedy the situation as soon as possible!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”

As a manager, or even as a management trainee, you’re going to spend a significant amount of time focusing on how to deal with conflict as it arises. No two situations are going to be alike, so you’ll find having a grasp upon a handful of different strategies to be more beneficial than not.

Before you can decide upon a conflict management strategy, you must ask yourself three main questions:

1. Who is involved in the conflict at hand? Are they individuals, teams, departments, or a combination of each?

2. Why are these individuals or groups in conflict with each other? Is it personal or professional?

3. How serious is the conflict? Is it brewing just under the surface, is it growing in intensity, or does it need immediate attention?

There are a myriad of ways to deal with conflict, but here are a few of my favourites:

Avoid the conflict. It seems as though this is not a strategy at all, but if you are consciously monitoring a conflict while avoiding it, you’ll be able to intervene if it becomes necessary. Avoidance tends to work very well if two employees are involved in a simple disagreement and are likely to come to their own conclusions without help.

Find a compromise. Meet with both parties, understand their points of view, and figure out what each one can give up in order to make the other happy. Each should find the resolution to be palatable in some way, shape, or form. They will each be forced to stand down on some issues while maintaining their positions on others, but no one person will be forced to completely give up on his or her ideas.

Stage a confrontation. Confrontations can be scary and stressful, but sometimes allowing all parties involved in a conflict to air their views is enough to make the conflict go away. Everyone involved will have to verbalize their positions and reasoning. This gives each participant enough information to come to and agree upon a logical conclusion. Confrontation should be used carefully, however, as some individuals will perceive the situation as a personal attack and walk away feeling hurt.

Being able to identify and resolve conflict will allow you to keep your organisation running as smoothly as possible. You’ll be able to control the situation and practice effective delegation while making sure your projects are completed despite the setbacks conflicts sometimes cause!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

Click below for a:
FREE email course “Improve Your Management Skills”