We had an interesting question this week on our management course that opened up a good discussion on leadership.

The question came from a new manager who had been promoted from among his peers and was now managing people who were much more knowledgeable and experienced than he was. His question was how should he manage such people.

My reply was…”Don’t!”

By that, I meant don’t try to manage them. Managing someone who has more ability, experience or knowledge than you do has its pitfalls and its benefits. By managing them, you stifle their creativity and innovation. I asked the manager why he felt it necessary to actually manage the knowledgeable ex-peer. That opened up a new topic as to how much autonomy and responsibility the person should have, and if he should be managed at all.

The group suggested that he should lead the other person, allowing him to show leadership qualities himself. Trying to ‘manage’ wouldn’t work.

Instead, the leader should:

* Discuss what roles and responsibilities the person should have, and agree on how those should be carried out

* Agree any targets that should be set for the subordinate

* Give them the freedom and authority to achieve those targets themselves, with the manager holding the resource purse strings and the accountability

* Set parameters for the ex-peer to work to, but allow them to control it

* Concentrate on results rather than methods

* Use the experience of the ex-peer to drive things forward, supporting their decisions and allowing them to create further opportunities

* Encourage them to share their experiences and learn from them

* Ensure you, as manager, take full responsibility for their results, and help them achieve higher goals if possible

What you’re trying to do is create the environment for the ex-peer to still contribute to the success of the department without feeling that he has been overlooked or that his experience is of no value. On the contrary, it is of great value and should be seen to be that way by all team members.

So, don’t try and manage this kind of employee…keep their motivation and creativity going by showing excellence in leadership.

Thanks again

Mark

Mark Williams

Head of Training

MTD Management Training Course

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 (Images by Renjith Krishnan)

One of your main activities as a manager is to get your people performing to their best abilities. Unless you’re a one-man-band, you need people to contribute to the overall effectiveness of the business. After all, that’s what you pay them for.

But how can you drive that quality performance? How can you create the conditions so their performance is as good as it possibly can be?

Firstly, build a compelling, shared vision and direction. Challenging and clear objectives build energy into people, and engage them into sharing their abilities and energies on the team. Talk to them about why and what you are trying to achieve, but let them consider the how.

Then, put an enabling structure together. This means allowing people’s strengths to shine through. Build those strengths around each other, so you have complimentary ideas running parallel to each other.

Then, set up a reward system that will drive motivation. Give information that will encourage participation and help them accept responsibility. Only when they feel they know what’s going on will they accept the responsibility to achieve the goals you are aiming for.

Finally, show empowering leadership. Encourage synergy in the team. None of us is as smart as all of us, so identify how the performance strategies can be changed so that the invention of new processes can drive innovation between team members. Determine which members can be encourages to take on more responsibility, allowing them to feel empowered and keen to share forward-thinking ideas.

All this will encourage people to accept their role in driving performance forward, with your encouragement and support.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

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Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

Listening to managers at the recent Sales Conference in Coventry, I was struck by how many suffer from poor performance by their team members. This can be demotivating and frustrating for all concerned, so I’ve listed 10 ways that you can get better performance, not only from your team, but also yourself.

1) Set Expectations

One of the most significant blocks to effective performance is a lack of clarity about ‘what is expected of me’. It is crucial to check understandings and challenge assumptions about roles, objectives, responsibilities and standards.

 2) Understand how you need to approach them

Different members of your team will respond to different approaches. Consequently, in order to get the best out of everyone you will need to take a different approach with different people.

3) Continuous Approval

Let people know that you approve of the direction they take when they make decisions. If you have to correct someone, make sure you help them understand it’s the behaviour you are critical of, not the person. That leads onto…

4) Emphasise the Good Points

To get the best from your team, maximise the use of praise and positive reinforcement – catch them doing something right. Focus on what you want your team members to achieve rather than what you don’t want them to do.

5) Offer Support while Challenging Them

Ensure that you provide an appropriate level of challenge and support for each member of your team. Underperformers often report being too stressed – i.e. too much challenge or not enough support, or they are too bored – i.e. too much support and not enough challenge.

 6) How we keep them Involved

Maximise the involvement of your team members in all aspects of managing their performance. This is particularly important in objective/ target-setting, monitoring their own level of performance, creating their own measures of performance and giving each other feedback.

7) Maintain High Visibility

Wherever and whenever possible, create visible and visual records of targets and progress towards them. This will retain focus on team members’ achievements.

 8 ) Create Quality Feedback

This is the principle tool used every day by successful performance managers. Take advantage of every opportunity informally (and occasionally even formally) to give feedback to your team members as to how they are doing. Remember the first rule of performance management – no surprises!

9) Celebrate the Successes

Find ways to celebrate individual and team successes. Milestones towards a longer-term goal could provide a means of doing this (e.g. monthly/quarterly targets as well as for individual events). Ensure that the reward is proportionate to the achievement.

10) Maintain Simplicity

Use simple processes that everyone will understand, simple measures that are clear to all, simple language when giving feedback, simple pictures to illustrate performance against targets. Simplicity breeds clarity.

Pretty simple, eh? Yea, up to a point. But if you don’t continually and consistently keep these principles to the fore, you run the risk of demotivating the team and decreasing their performance.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Course

Click below for a:
Free email course “Improve your Management Skills”

I’m just coming to the end of an excellent book on Middle Management, so I thought I’d share the details with you. It’s seldom that we get a book that covers so much detail in such an interesting and effective way, but ‘The High-Impact Middle Manager’ by Lisa Haneberg does just that.

The subtitle is ‘Powerful strategies to Thrive in the Middle’ so it gives you a clear picture of who it is aimed at and what it covers. Subjects include Results-Oriented Management, Planning for Execution, Performance Leadership, Coaching, Navigating the Corporate Obstacle course, and Honing the Craft of the Manager.

I gained a lot from it, because it covers specific actions you can take to improve your skill-set and identifies myths of management that, quite frankly, have been around too long and don’t add any magic to the tasks we have to accomplish every day.

There are ideas that can be implemented immediately, checklists that can be downloaded and adapted and principles that are cutting edge in their thought and application.

If you’re thinking of adding to your management library, I would recommend this one as definitely one to try.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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

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One of the best-known management models to come out of Japan is the technique called the Five Whys, and it should be part of your management armoury.

It’s a solid way of getting to the root of any problem you may have. When you have a problem, you ask the question ‘why?’ up to five times, by which time you should have reached the root of any problem you are dealing with.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say Fred is not performing to the standard you know he is capable of. You sit down with him and ask, why?

You find out that Fred has got too much work to do. Why has he got into this position? Because he is seen as someone who has capability in many areas and too many people ask him for help. Why has this occurred? Because the rest of the team haven’t been coached to deal with problems themselves.

And why might that be the case? Because the department is under-resourced and can’t spare anyone to coach team members. And why is that? Because we didn’t replace a key team member when she left.

Sometimes the reason is uncovered after two or three questions; sometimes it takes further examination to find the underlying cause. But the average it takes is around five levels of questioning.

Now that you have dug deep to ascertain the real root cause of why Fred is under-performing, you can identify what is within your control and what is outside of it. Is it possible for you to share out Fred’s workload somewhat? Does Fred need help from senior management to distribute his workload more efficiently? Could he do with some coaching himself to make him more aware of when he should say no to delegated work?

By finding out the real reasons, you can then identify how it can be approached and offer solutions that might have been missed if you simply apply normal processes to manage someone’s performance.

Try the five why’s next time you face a challenge and see if it opens up more possibilities for you.

Thanks again

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Course

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