How do you engage your people to be more involved in their work? The old cliché about the carrot and the stick comes to mind. Some managers feel that they need to be tough, demanding, or unrelenting in their approach.
Well, barking at your employees or dictating to them or condescending to them is usually more detrimental than effective. And if you randomly schmooze with them, people may feel good, but this doesn’t portend more engagement.
This topic has come up with clients several times in the past few weeks. For example, one executive who is preparing for retirement wants to hire someone to manage operational issues in the company. He hadn’t thought of this as succession, but that’s exactly what it is.
When you hire for succession, you’re not just thinking about hiring a competent person to fill a position. You’re considering a longer-term leader for key positions in your company or department.
My executive clients bemoan the fact that they “can’t get anything done” during the business day, and in fact, “the real work begins after 5:30.” Their schedules are filled with meetings, calls, email and putting out fires.
One study revealed that CEOs average only 6 hours a week working alone. Think about this: the day-to-day “stuff” dwarfs the strategic elements of the job.
A recurring management theme is leaders who assume that their people know what’s on their minds. I call this “managing by telepathy”, as these leaders often neglect to articulate what they want.
This is rarely intentional. After all, you don’t sit in your office and think about how you can avoid good communication with your people. But you can get swept up in the busy-ness of your day and simply think that you said something when actually it never left your mind.
I was introduced as a resource to Sarah, a leader who is working on an initiative that is very important to her professional advancement. Our interaction was limited in that it was over text.
I tried to engage Sarah during these exchanges, to no avail. I understood her communication style, which was direct and to the point. Although I tried to be open minded, her directness and aloofness influenced my perceptions.
I was next in line at a store and the person ahead of me was becoming increasingly frustrated by the answers she was getting from the salesclerk. The person helping her was rude and had a big attitude.
Regrettably, this isn’t so unusual.
How do your employees represent your business when you aren’t looking? Obviously, you can’t be omnipresent but are you comfortable that your employees are good brand ambassadors?
If you haven’t done so recently, you’d be well served to see how your people are doing in this regard.
I attended a meeting of an organization whose board I serve on. I was in the back of the room, and seated behind me were two disgruntled people who were loudly dissing everything that was reported during the meeting.
During the Q&A portion of the meeting, these people went a few rounds with the moderator of the meeting, until one of them stood up and shrieked an acerbic comment. After this drama, she declared, “I’m a communications professional and I know I’m right.”
How would you rate yourself on asking for help?
I’m not talking about being a slacker and asking others to do your job. Instead, this is about chipping away at your “I can do it all” mentality and gaining benefits from someone who is willing or even eager to help you.
We deal with losses in the workplace all the time. We lose new opportunities and established business. We lose employees. We lose momentum. We lose market share.
When leaders deal with these losses, they often view them tactically. They evaluate the immediate impact, come to conclusions, and move on. They don’t necessarily think deeply about how the immediate impact affects the long term.