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“People placed in management roles must become translators, delegators, motivators, trainers, mediators, planners, listeners, organizers, problem-solvers, example-setters, cheerleaders, budgeters, ambassadors, regulators, counselors, and more, all while remaining diligent workers.”
Dan Bobinski
So it is no wonder that so many new (or not so new) to management roles find the transition hard.
You can read more from Dan here.
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What do yo do when you are managing in an organisation that has a poor culture?
This is the subject of a great post by Miki Saxon.
She makes the point that the starting place has to be a conscious decision that this is a place where you want to be and do great work – in spite of the culture. The alternative is to indulge in a ‘martyr complex’ the kind of ‘poor me’ response that I often hear. This usually appears as a belief that ‘there is nothing I can do to provide a great service and excellence until those above me get their act sorted’.
This is a convenient belief and a powerful one. But it does little to help us make progress. It lets us off the hook, allows us to avoid responsibility and put the blame elsewhere. Once enough of us are doing this – and our beliefs are re-enforcing each other – it can start to feel like a truth. However it is still just a belief and we can choose to drop it!
So if you take a conscious decision to keep working in a poor culture you must try to reject this belief and take all the repsonsibility that you can for making things better.
You can read the full post here.
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When someone pays you a compliment.
Most of us are lousy at taking compliments.
We often respond by down sizing our achievements;
‘Oh really it was nothing’
or
‘I was just doing my job’.
This down sizing achieves nothing worthwhile.
First of all it negates the judgement and the goodwill of the person who offered you the compliments making it less likely they will compliment you in the future.
Secondly it is a kind of powerful ‘self talk’ that is bad for own self image. We really begin to believe that our efforts were ‘nothing’ or it was JUST ‘doing my job’.
So next time someone pays you a compliment just smile and say ‘Thank You’.
NB: Perhaps you should get in the habit of giving more compliments too – but you may find the process discouraging as many of those you pay compliments too will react by downsizing. To avoid this you can tag a question onto your compliment that will prevent them from downsizing. So instead of saying;
‘I love the hair cut.’
try;
‘I love the hair cut. Where did you get it done?’.
This trivial addition prevents downsizing and helps to get through the embarrassing seconds of silence that might otherwise follow.
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Sets Direction (25 percent):
Achieves Results (50 percent):
Cultivates a Culture of Growth (25 percent):
If your employees were given the chance to rate you against these same criteria then how do you think you would do?
For each of the three criteria what can you do in 2009 to so that you are able to rate yourself at least one mark higher than you do at the moment?
Full post – including the list of ‘America’s Best Leaders’ is here.
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This was the title of piece written by Geoff Colvin – and it has always been both important and relevant – even more so at the moment.
Here is the nub of Geoff’s piece:
Let’s be clear about the corrosive effects of avoiding this problem (underperforming employees). A recent survey from McKinsey is fairly chilling: Keeping poor performers means that development opportunities for promising employees get blocked, so those subordinates don’t get developed, productivity and morale fall, good performers leave the company, the company attracts fewer A players, and the whole miserable cycle keeps turning.
It gets worse. Employees know who the underperformers are. They know that the top executives know who they are. So every day the top team fails to address the problem, it’s sending a message: We’re not up to managing this outfit. Refusing to deal with underperformers not only makes your best employees unhappy, but it also makes them think the company is run by bozos.
Why don’t companies act? Some fear it would lower morale, which is nonsense. Mckinsey asked thousands of employees whether they’d be “delighted” if their company got rid of underperformers, and 59% strongly agreed – yet only 7% believed their companies were actually doing it. Executives often say they leave poor performers in place because they want the company to be seen as humane. That’s just more evasion of reality, of course. As Ed Michaels of McKinsey says, “The attitude is, “Let’s be fair to Charlie. He’s been here 21 years.” But we say, “What about the eight people who work for Charlie? You’re not being fair to them”.
A senior executive at Hewlett-Packard, put it like this: “I feel there is no greater disrespect you can do to a person than to let them hang out in a job where they are not respected by their peers, not viewed as successful, and probably losing their self-esteem. To do that under the guise of respect for people is, to me, ridiculous.”
Managing underperformers is a critical management function. Having the courage to use feedback and coaching to improve performance to meet organisational standards (rather than turning a blind eye) and if necessary coaching staff as part of capability procedures is difficult work but it must be done – if mediocrity is to be kept at bay.
So consider this as a possible New Year’s Resolution for 2009. Resolve to fire your greatest under performer.
Making this resolution will force you to address the under performance issues – because I know that you will not want to fire anyone. It will force you to make 121s more powerful and honest, to give more feedback, to coach more, to praise more – to do everything in your power to make them such a great employee that you can’t fire them.
You might have another resolution that you didn’t see through – but you will have achieved something much more valuable – to have developed an underperformer into an over whelmer.
Are you up to it?