People management is an inside job
The staggering costs of recruiting and training new employees, and the growing shortage of skilled talent in the labor pool makes effective people management a priority whether you’re in charge of one person or one hundred. But it’s often approached from the managerial perspective of "getting people to do what I want" instead of allowing employees to use their intelligence and creativity.
A key component of managing others is awareness of the degree to which your personal biases and blind spots influence your perception of reality. We all develop preconceptions as a result of life experiences, personality style, behavior preferences, education and other factors. A task-oriented manager, for example, may perceive a vision-oriented employee as unfocused or disorganized.
This natural tendency to find what we’re looking for is why 360-degree assessments are a critical part of business coaching. They help neutralize biases by gathering data from the individual being coached as well as his or her boss, colleagues, and direct reports. The data allows a more accurate picture to emerge. At one organization where a division head wrongly attributed low productivity to "problem employees," the real issue involved conflicting messages from management and inadequate training.
Another crucial area that’s seldom considered is the understanding of how you are perceived by others. One client, the owner of a manufacturing firm, was surprised at 360 interview feedback about his volatile, reactionary style. "The problem," he said, "is that people don’t realize that I don’t stay mad." "That’s right," I replied. "They see your anger as intimidating and think that you’re disinterested in their ideas."
Solving people’s problems instead of guiding them to find answers is another management trap that can double your workload and lower your team’s initiative and productivity. I often run into managers who are doing 50 percent or more of the job they’ve hired someone else to take care of.
Rather than jump in with a fix, encourage employee involvement and accountability by asking open-ended questions that focus on solutions. Notice the difference between saying, "You should categorize your emails and respond to them only at 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.," and asking questions like, "Where do you need help prioritizing?" and "What needs to change so that you can get projects done on time?" While the chance of someone adopting your email schedule is slim, they are more likely to follow through on ideas they come up with in response to open-ended queries.
A final caveat is to be certain that you and each staff member share the same performance expectations. When I work with new hires or the newly promoted, I use a tool called a "position charter" that asks detailed questions about long and short term goals, areas of responsibility, decision-making authority and the like. The individual being coached and his or her manager fill out the form independently of one another, then meet and compare notes. Typically there’s at least one significant discrepancy in what each thought the other expected. You, by the way, can create a similar form and use it with people on your team regardless of how long they have been in their jobs.
The traditional management paradigm focused on ways to make success happen. I’ll argue that a more effective paradigm involves looking for ways that you can allow people to enhance their value and contributions to your organization.
Barbara Bissonnette is a certified executive coach and the principal
of Forward Motion Coaching (www.ForwardMotion.info). She helps executives and business owners manage time, stress and other people more effectively. She is a popular speaker on management topics and the author of The Case for Business Coaching, How It Can Improve Your Performance, Productivity & Profitability, available free of charge through her Web site.
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