Hey,
I have recently became a manager of 12 people-All with their own challenging personality which is annoying but off course a good thing for my own personal development.
However i'd love to have some feedback on how some fastlaners have dealt with things in work
Essentially I am 'the nice guy'. I know some of the team dont work as hard as they could and likely to be some lack of respect from them
Naturally this pisses me off-I hate confrontation-How have you guys went from nice guy to prick?
Are you someone different when you go into the work environment? How does this work?
Look forward to hearing from you
The most useful things I have learned in 15 years of management, for developing people and getting more productivity happening sustainably are these:
- Your team has to have a clear purpose summed up in a single sentence that is either done, or not done. You need ways of measuring success too, but most of all you need a clear purpose. For example, in Marketing, "Sales team has a steady supply of leads to act on". In Improvement, "Company knows how it measures up and takes clearly defined action each month to improve"
- You need to be available to help your team, but mostly you need to repeat the team's purpose ad nauseum, use it to settle decisions, and stay out of their way on the "How" part (google "Level 5 leadership" for more);
- Weekly 1-on-1 meetings. 30 minutes is enough. Have the employee fill this in beforehand:
- What can you stand for having accomplished that has moved our team towards [our clear purpose]?
- What's mostly on your mind right now?
- What's working?
- What's not working?
- What might be missing?
- What's next?
And then stick to a predictable meeting format of
Then of course, every leader needs to understand this classic.
How great leaders inspire action
- thanking your employee graciously for their time (after all, time spent with you is time where they're not producing whatever they're measured on);
- Reading out their answers and prompting for more, for example:
- Accomplished: "good, how might we build on that?"
- What's on your mind: "okay, what else is there about that?", "Okay, and what else?"
- What's working: "good, do we have everything we need there?"
- What's not working: "okay, if I understand you, XYZ is happening?" -> get confirmation -> "Ok, what's the real challenge here for you?" (google Michael Bungay Stanier for more)
- What might be missing: read the employees input and ask for details about their idea. Whether you will use their idea or not, thank them for it and tell them that a decision will be made (and then make sure a decision does get made - nothing stifles employees like someone saying "I'll think about it" and then failing to do so)
- What's next: read out their response and then ask, "let's make sure we can say how that moves us towards [our clear purpose]"
Then of course, every leader needs to understand this classic.
How great leaders inspire action