How do you keep your employees informed about changes within your organisation? Do you send them an email every time something new comes up? Do you call them into a meeting? Do you simply pass along information as you see individuals, one by one?

The problem with these methods of communication is that someone always seems to miss out on an important point. Someone is sick the day of the meeting or one employee asks a prying question and ends up with more information than the others.

Producing a regular newsletter is a great way to share valuable information with both your employees and your clients but if you’re having trouble communicating with your employees you can keep it at an internal level. Use the newsletter to make formal announcements about changes to procedure, about upcoming events, or to praise employees for a job well done. Give your employees ample space to make their own contributions, if need be, and find ways to get everyone involved. You may even want to add a “letters to the editor” section where you can answer questions that were raised after you published previous editions.

Newsletters can be fun and are really easy ways of communicating. You will never have to worry about whether or not everyone is on the same page – they’ll all get the publication and you’ll know they all got the same information at the same time.

Start by keeping things simple. Publish a one-page newsletter with important information. If it works, try to grow your newsletter. If not, scrap it for another idea!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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

As a manager you should certainly be able to deal with conflict, even if it means negotiating. The truth, however, is that every member of your team should be able to do the same thing because doing so will mean they’re better able to work together as a team.

One way to teach conflict management is to play a game known as “Divide the Loot.” While we often suggest playing this game with real money, you can take some sort of play money to use instead. Here’s how to play:

• Divide your team into two groups so that one can be the “management” and the other can represent “employees.”
• Each group will start it’s own “pot” of money. Each person will pay a different amount into the pot but no one will know how much anyone else put into the pot.
• After a set amount of time, the activity leader will take both pots, combine them into one, and then add his own contribution.
• He’ll then total the pot and tell everyone how much is in the pot.
• Everyone will know how much he contributed individually but no one will know how much anyone else, from their own team or the other, contributed. No one knows how much the project manager contributed either.
• The teams will each have 10 minutes to decide how to fairly split the total of the pot amongst everyone in the room. After 10 minutes the managers and employees must come together and negotiate a final outcome.

The goal here is to encourage everyone to come to a final decision, working together to make a fair negotiation. Try to keep the atmosphere in the room friendly. It is, after all, fake money and no one is going to lose anything at the end of the day!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Courses

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

At some point in your career either you or one of your employees is going to feel depressed at work. The trick here is to deal with the situation before it gets out of control and begins to affect work performance – but how?

The first and most important thing to remember is that depression shouldn’t always be viewed as an illness that must absolutely be treated with medications. In many cases, a person who is depressed is responding physically to something in his environment. So the real key is to find out what is causing your (or your employee’s) depression and find out exactly what those triggers are trying to tell you.

Last week I talked about Matthew Campling and his Age/Work Arc Theory. Campling also spent some time studying the affects of depression in the workplace and concluded that all of us have a space in which our emotions or emotional reactions occur. Those who are overworked may not have time to allow their natural human reactions, such as feeling anger or worry, to occur.

Because they never work through their natural responses they begin to feel as though a dark cloud is filling the space around them. In short, a feeling of depression is usually a cover for some sort of issue or emotion that has not been addressed. Uncovering those emotions and working through them may help to solve the problem.

As a manager, it is your job to make sure that your employee’s tasks aren’t the cause of his dark cloud. If so, try to find out what you can do to make things a bit easier or to help your employee work through whatever issue he is experiencing within the workplace. Just remember that no matter how genuine your desire to help, not all cases of depression are simple to solve. If you can’t help your employee, refer him to someone with more professional psychological experience.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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

While no one really enjoys the appraisal process, I’m going to take a chance here and suggest something a bit different – why not have monthly or semi-regular appraisal meetings with each of your employees?

Before you start throwing your hands up and calling me crazy, let me explain. There are quite a few benefits that, as a manager, you can achieve by having more frequent appraisals and, in the end, your major annual appraisal will go much smoother. Here are a few reasons to consider.

• The more frequently you sit down with each member of your team the more you’ll understand exactly where is is in the grand scheme of things. You’ll have a better understanding of his goals, strengths, weaknesses, and limitations and will be able to adjust his tasks to focus on this strengths.
• Having frequent meetings will give you the opportunity to identify potential problem areas, giving you the ability to make changes before those problems have a negative impact on the team’s overall work and progress.
• Your team members will be more likely to ask for needed help if you open the door and give them an opportunity during which they feel comfortable.
• You will have the opportunity to work together to set realistic training and development goals.
• Your employees won’t be as nervous or scared about their appraisal meetings because they won’t be as formal and the frequency will make them more comfortable with the entire process.
• Frequent reviews will give your team members a better opportunity to prepare for their large annual appraisal, saving time in preparation.
• The more frequently you work with your team members the more accurate your notes about individual performance will be.

Why not consider a more frequent appraisal process? I think that by implementing regular meetings you’ll find that your employees are not only happier and more receptive to the process but will feel as though you care a bit more about their successes and development paths.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Development

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

David McClelland was an American professor at Wesleyan University and Harvard in the United States before he died in 1998. While at Harvard, he spent more than 20 years studying the way people are motivated and how they address their achievements and needs.

After years of research he published a book called The Achieving Society in which he discussed the three types of motivational need he discovered: affiliation motivation, authority or power motivation, and achievement motivation. He found that everyone, regardless of their level in the workplace, experiences all three of these needs on some level – whether they need to motivate others or be motivated themselves.

The need for affiliation covers the idea that everyone needs to have positive relationships and, as a result, everyone is motivated towards developing some sort of interaction with others. Those who fall into this category, also labeled n-affil, want to be liked and work well in teams.

A person with a need for authority and power, also referred to as an n-pow person, wants to make a huge impact on the world. They want their ideas to be heard and also focus on making sure others see them as prestigious or with high status.

Those who feel a need to achieve, or the n-ach people, are highly motivated. They set a lot of challenging goals but remain realistic at the same time. Those who need to feel as though they’ve achieved their goals constantly seek to hear feedback from others.

Most people possess all three of these characteristics but spend most of the time leaning more towards one than the others. The one a person leans towards most will determine what type of worker or manager he will become – objective, determined, flexible, etc. Achievement motivated individuals, however, always seem to get the best results in the end!

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Development

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