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”

Managing and rewarding performance isn’t something you can wake up one morning and decide to do. The system used to manage the performance of your employees must be carefully constructed and include several important checkpoints.

First, it’s important for your employees to have a clear understanding of what their job expectations are. This means giving them a set of specific job duties, preferably in writing, and clearly outlining what is expected.

You should then, at regular intervals, give your employee feedback about his or her performance. You should never wait until it’s time to conduct an annual review to give this type of feedback. Give your employees feedback as they work so that they can easily make adjustments to enhance their job performance.

There should be points within the review process in which you are able to give your employees advice or guidelines for improving their job performances. This may mean recommending additional training or encouraging someone to take continuing education classes. Don’t forget to document your recommendations.

Finally, it’s important to reward great performances. You should have an incentive plan in place, whether you are merely giving out raises at the time of the annual review or adding additional bonuses or prizes along the way.

Make sure you include each of these steps as you develop your own performance management system. The methods you use to implement each of these steps is up to you and can be tailored to the needs of your department, but make sure you don’t skip any of them completely. Managing performance is critical to the success of your department, but everyone needs to be on the same page. You can only accomplish these goals with a solid plan.

Do you have a formal performance management system? Does it include each of the four steps outlined above? What do you think might need to be changed to make your system more effective?

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training Courses

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

Uh oh! You thought you hired someone who would turn out to be a superstar, but it turns out he’s nothing more than a deadbeat. He frequently calls out and doesn’t schedule time off in advance and does just enough work to stay on the company’s good side – but not enough to make a valid contribution to the team.

He thinks only of himself and, while he does enough to keep his job he really doesn’t help the team or care about growing individually. He’s obviously there to get paid and go home. Sometimes deadbeats vocally criticize the company in front of others as well. Eventually, their attitudes may begin to bring down the entire workgroup.

Here’s the problem. When you hired Mr. Deadbeat he was excited about his job and did everything you asked for the first few months. So what went wrong that changed his attitude? It’s your job to find out – especially if you’d like to see him return to his previous state rather than continue the way he is.

The kicker is this – no matter what you think, you or your organisation are the cause of his unrest. This may or may not actually be true, but in his mind either you (personally, as his manager) or the company did something that made him unhappy. You popped his “happy employee” balloon and things started to spiral from there. Can you identify exactly when his attitude changed? Do you remember what the cause was?

Once you’ve identified the reason for the attitude (if there is one) you should work with your employee to improve his performance. Try to:

• Give your employee a reason to improve his performance; whether he’s working towards eventual promotion, a raise, or some other objective;
• Make sure you are supportive. Some people are bitter because they simply feel as though no one cares about them;
• Set some short-term goals. Feeling as though he’s reached some positive goals will make your employee feel accomplished and may help to shift his attitude.

Coaching your employees may be difficult, but it’s only made more difficult by employees with bad attitudes. Do you have potential new managers working their way through the system? If so, make sure their management training courses include information on how to deal with difficult employees as well. Not having the tools to address these situations can mean the difference between a great day at work and a miserable experience.

Thanks again,
Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Management Training

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

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”