You
already know it, you hope it's not true, but the reality is that
today's managers can't
hide.
The scope of responsibility that managers find themselves
accountable for today,
including the quality of their decisions, products, and outcome, are
enormous. Managers
today
are expected to hire, motivate, and retain highly talented
employees, budget and
forecast in volatile and uncertain times, produce extraordinary
results with fewer
resources, and to be the bridge between employees and senior
management to communicate
what
frequently seem to be unwelcome strategies for change. And it's not
simply that today's
manager needs to be successful as we have traditionally understood
that quality--by
producing objectively successful results; today's manager must also
be positively
perceived by more groups than ever before their team, their peers,
their customers and
their
management.
In a
recent Gallup poll reported by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, a
million
employees were surveyed regarding workplace satisfaction.
Surprisingly, the overwhelming
factors involved in these peoples' decisions about whether to stay
at their current jobs,
and
how productive to be while in them, had to do with the quality of
the relationship with
their
immediate supervisor. When the economy was better, bad managers were
easily overlooked
by
management, or dissatisfied employees found new jobs. The economy
today requires squeezing
out
more revenue and reducing already steeply reduced expenses, which
then moves the
spotlight directly onto managers where traditionally the results are
produced and
measured.
Over
the years, I've been fortunate to be able to coach many managers in
many different types
and
sizes of organizations. The list below is a generalized set of
observations about
characteristics of managers who are surviving and finding success
today. It continues to
interest and amaze me how consistently these similar characteristics
show up!
1.
Awareness of Strengths and Weaknesses
Good
managers know their own strengths and weaknesses or are open to
knowing them. They
are
able to acknowledge that they may need help in building a particular
skill, and are able to
request help from their manager or team in building that skill.
Publicly stating that
they
are aware of an area that needs bolstering creates an environment of
ongoing improvement
and
feedback. In coaching managers, we establish a public skill-building
goal as well
as
some private goals. The initial public goal should be one that
others can also see the
benefit of, and from which they might also experience a positive
effect. In this way, as
the
goal is achieved, it becomes more visible, and can also have a
positive impact, for more
people
than just the manager. Asking for and receiving useful
feedback from
others
is both a skill and a benefit for managers who have this strength or
choose to
develop it.
2.
Basic Leadership and Management Skills
This
is management 101. Most managers know and have book knowledge about
these basic skills.
The
tricky part is implementing and adapting them to the hundreds of
unique situations and
environments where they crop up every day. These are the top basic
skills that I see not
only
being needed everyday, but needed at an enhanced level:
A.
Performance management - Employees are changing jobs less frequently
these days, and
instead are simply staying where they are. That, along with the
hiring frenzy of two years
ago,
has the unfortunate effect of an organization being filled with warm
bodies who
aren't
necessarily capable of doing their jobs. Managers currently need to
focus on managing
the
performance of the employees they have now. The bottom line in the
organizational
environment today is that a manager now needs to know how, and when,
to coach, mentor and
train
employees in order for them to be as efficient as possible for the
tasks at hand.
Performance management involves setting clear expectations up front,
hiring to meet those
needs,
and disciplining and firing employees if those standards are not
met.
B.
Negotiation - The scarcity of resources
(people, services, equipment and money) means multiple managers and
projects are vying for
the
same finite resources. The art and science of fair negotiation is a
difficult skill to
learn
and it requires practice. Negotiation that balances the needs of all
stakeholders --
the
business, its teams, projects and relationships -- without
negatively impacting
any of
them is essential.
C.
Conflict resolution - Conflicts, large and small, are just part of
the territory any time
people
have to work together. Successful managers have learned how to
detect conflicts
and
make a deliberate choice about which to work actively with, which to
observe, and which
to
simply acknowledge. Conflicts left unresolved can derail otherwise
successful
outcomes.
D.
Delegation - It's a fact of workplace life that employees, even at
the same job level, do
not
necessarily have similar knowledge, skill, or capability levels. A
good manager figures
out
how to be fair in assigning tasks, and creates balanced learning
opportunities for all
employees, while still maintaining on-target and on-time delivery
and quality. The
temptation, of course, is for managers to just "do it themselves" or
perhaps give complex or
high-priority tasks to a skilled employee who already knows how to
do them because it's
quicker and certainly easier. The downside to doing this, though, is
that the manager works
longer
and harder (hard to imagine!), and employees don't get a chance to
become more
skilled and proficient in new tasks.
E.
Planning - Reactive management is easy, it's doing whatever is
screaming the loudest.
However achieving sustainable improvements and a higher-quality
project requires being
proactive. Being proactive requires some amount of time focusing on
the future, whether it's a
plan
for delivering a project, assessing the need to skill-build,
creating a vision, or
engineering a culture change. Improving time management is
frequently the first step to
becoming more proactive.
The
management "basics" have never been more important, and have never
held such challenging
opportunities for growth! In going back to the general workplace
observations, here are the remaining items I have found to be
"high-priority" for successful managers.
3
Relationship Building - "The Fine Art of Toe Stepping"
A
mentor I had from a company and organization that no longer exists
once told me that
"organizations and companies will disappear, yet you, your
reputation and the relationships
you
build, will remain." How right he was company and organization are
both long gone
(and
maintaining the high quality of my reputation and my relationships
is still ever-
present in my life!). It is rare that in a work situation a manager
will like and respect
everyone that they are dependent on to produce results, whether it's
peers, senior managers,
employees or clients. Having good working relationships is the
universal lubricant for
many
things such as negotiation, creating an environment where constant
improvement can
happen, and maintaining an open door for any future opportunities.
Strong relationships
create
a positive perception in others of the manager and the organization.
Maintaining good relationships can also require subtle skills of
perception, modification, and
self-management. Some people may function best knowing much less of
you, while others may
thrive
in a relationship where you can express yourself with candor. A good
manager steps
lightly and "tests ground" to monitor new and old relationships to
keep them in good working
order.
4
Public Relations - "Above the Radar or Below"
The
manager is always engaged in finding the right balance of being
public with their
skills, experiences, willingness and expertise. When layoffs, raises
and bonuses are the issue,
being
known positively can help. Conversely, being known for skills or
expertise (in
yourself or your group) can have the unfortunate outcome of having
these important
"resources" redeployed to other projects and departments within an
organization if the need
arises. The successful manager maintains a good sense of when to
step out and be known and
visible, and when to keep heads down and blend in to better
accomplish more immediate goals.
5
Simplify and Move Forward
The
complexity of technology, the massive amounts of information
available, and the
changing landscape of business have never been so extreme. Yet a
good manager can find
clarity and a path through the chaos and emotional stress.
Good managers have the skills to ask good questions that get at the
core of the matter. They know which details are important and which
are
not. They can effectively communicate the bottom-line idea, thought,
action or reasoning.
Then
they are comfortable picking a path forward. Their decisions may not
necessarily be
100%
correct, but they are able to keep moving, learning as they
go.
6
Change Identification and Management
Successful managers today know change is inevitable. They can sense
change coming and
can
frequently identify and articulate it before others can. They also
have a sense of
how to
manage change as it appears. And as we all know, change can come
from any
quarter--inside or outside the group, the company, the organization,
the industry,
the
country. These successful managers almost intuitively have
figured out how to be flexible and
adaptable, while still maintaining the structure and focus of the
existing agreed-upon
goals
--until it's time to change (again!).
Summary
Managers are under enormous stress and pressure to deliver, and few
have much control over the
environments they are in. Good managers are doing the best they can,
trying new things,
learning as they go. They are discovering new ways to look at
situations and creative ways to
deliver. Managers are not able to succeed when the compromises are
too great, when their
values
are violated too greatly or too often, or when the environment
simply becomes far too
uncomfortable. Coaching is one useful vehicle to help bridge the
gaps of understanding and
action
that may exist in order to find ways to accept, change, become
comfortable, or perhaps
to
successfully move on during bad economic times.
