As a manager you will have an important and unique role – one you may not have expected to adopt. You’ll be not only a manager but a mentor as well. Being a mentor means being able to communicate with your team members, or those you are mentoring, on a more personal level in order to help them develop the skills essential to growth and improvement.

Good mentors are able to embrace and develope four main skills. Without these skills you will not be able to communicate with or aid in the enhancement of anyone’s performance. These skills are as follows:

• Observation skills are important because you must be able to see and understand what the person you are mentoring is currently doing and/or is capable of.
• Analytical skills will give you the tools you need in order to determine where the person you are working with is falling short and what changes may need to be made.
• Questioning and active listening skills are essential. When mentoring, you don’t feed the person you are working with a set of detailed instructions. You have to probe and ask questions about what he does and does not understand. You’re not a teacher, you’re a guide. If you don’t ask questions and listen to the answers you won’t know what needs to be done next.
• Feedback skills are incredibly important as well. You must be able to give honest feedback in the form of constructive criticism. Negative feedback isn’t appropriate in most mentoring situations. You must be able to correct the actions and behaviours of your trainee without making him feel as though he failed at a task. Embrace the learning curve.

Have you taken the time to develop these mentoring skills? If not, get started. 2010 will be a long year full of confusion – for you and your teammates – if you don’t.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Development

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

Yesterday we started talking a bit about bias and today I want to touch just briefly one one of the four main types of bias – the conflict of interest. You may be wondering how conflict of interest can be categorized as a bias and I’m going to explain just that.

Simply put, if you are favoring people who you believe will be able to provide you some sort of perk or benefit later on down the line you have a conflict of interest. You are biased towards those people because of what you hope to get from them and instead pass over people who may be better qualified to do the work but less able to throw a perk your way.

How unfair is that?

Here’s an example. Let’s say you’re the office manager in a physician’s office. A pharmaceutical representative comes into your office to try to give you information and samples about a new cholesterol medicine. When he visits he brings you free samples, a huge tray of bagels and fruit for the entire office to share, and a really nice padfolio to thank you for your time. He also tells you that for every new rX for this medication you write your office will receive a bonus or referral fee.

A pharmaceutical representative from another company comes in with a different cholesterol medicine. She brings you some free samples but doesn’t shower you with gifts. Instead she gives you a lot of great information about the drug and the research and studies behind it. The cost for consumers is a bit less than the other drug, too. The pharmaceutical company doesn’t have a referral program so you won’t get any kickbacks for selling what looks like a decent drug.

Which will you choose?

You might, right now, say that you’d pick the second but the truth is that if you were in that situation you might unconsciously choose the first. Why pass up the opportunity for a referral fee, even if the drug isn’t as great as the second, right?

Wrong. That’s comletely unethical.

But do you even realize you’re making decisions like these?

Probably not.

I urge you to take a close look at the decisions you’re making this year. Are they best for your team or are you looking for what’s best for you personally?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Development

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

Has your team been having a difficult time lately? Were you extra busy, short staffed, or otherwise strained? As a manager, it’s your job to make sure your team feels motivated and has a positive attitude towards their daily tasks. It’s your job to boost employee morale.

Unfortunately, boosting employee morale isn’t always easy. There’s always someone complaining about something but, in the end, the majority of your team member will appreciate your efforts to be involved in their lives and keep them happy. Here are a few tips for boosting employee morale.

Be Human

You are, first and foremost, a human being. Act like one. Have a little fun, crack a joke, laugh, smile, and let your team members know you are one of them. They’ll like you better for it.

Encourage Input

Do you have a suggestion box where your employees can share creative ideas? If so, do you actually use it or acknowledge submissions? If not, give it a whirl. Let your employees know that you appreciate their ideas, whether you incorporate them into your daily routines or not.  You might even offer a small monthly prize for participating and offering suggestions.

Treat Each Employee as an Individual

Your employees will have better morale, individually, if they feel as though they have a personal career path to follow when they come to work each day. Why not use your next coaching session to help each employee set his or her own long and short term goals and then help them find a way to take the first steps towards meeting them. They’ll feel as though they have a purpose aside from trudging through their 9-5 jobs every day.

Encouragement with Incentives

Offer incentives or goals to your employees each week or month. They don’t have to be elaborate. Have bagels for breakfast on Friday mornings or encourage a group luncheon once a month. Offer a prize for the employee with the highest level or production. Something, anything, they can look forward to will boost morale.

Remember – happy employees are productive employees. What will you do to make their days a little brighter?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Development

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

What’s one of the best ways to keep your team motivated? Help them avoid negativity in the workplace, of course.

Here’s what I mean. The other morning I was sorting through some emails that had piled up in my inbox. Amongst them were a bunch of newsletters from sales experts. I decided to glance at a few of the articles and by the time I was done I was feeling glum about the state of the economy and sales market. If I had kept reading I might’ve been convinced that my team and I would be out of the job by the end of the year.

What did I do about it? First, I recognized that it was the newsletter itself that was causing me to have so many negative thoughts – so I unsubscribed. Then I thought about the sales newsletters, customer service newsletters, and emails that get sent to my team members (from myself and from others within the organisation). I wondered – if I feel so bad about reading these things, how must my team members feel?

Pretty horrible, I imagine.

I urge you to take a few moments out of your day to reassess the types of communication you send to your team members or employees. Are they mostly positive or negative? It’s often difficult to completely avoid adding a piece of negative information (the loss of a friend, retirement, illness, etc.) but does every newsletter need to be made up of mostly negative articles? No way.

Keep this in mind as you write your next employee newsletter, update email, or communication. Remember that the more positive the information you present, the better the mindset of the receiver. The better they feel, the better they’ll work.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Leadership Development

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”