I have faith that the company can adapt to market changes.
If I'm offered a comparable job at comparable pay, I'd choose to stay here.
I'd recommend this company to all my friends.
I happily go above and beyond the call of duty in my work.
I know my boss cares about me, the work I do, and my professional future.
If your company performs an annual survey to measure employee engagement, those statements probably look at least somewhat familiar to you. But as an engaged manager of engaged employees, you have an additional set of needs and variables. Even though you may not see these statements on the survey, how would you answer them?
My senior leadership stands by me, even when I have to make a tough people decision.
My boss wholeheartedly believes in the mission of the company and how our department serves it.
I have all the resources I need to attract and retain top talent.
I respect and trust my boss.
My boss respects and trusts me.
My supervisor gives me the training I need to be a better people leader.
My leadership knows that I'm trying hard and recognizes my efforts to improve as a manager.
I believe in the initiatives I have to implement that directly affect my staff.
You need the confidence and respect of all your coworkers to do your job brilliantly.
As a people manager, you deserve to experience all the same engagement characteristics that your employees do—and then some. You need the confidence and respect of all your coworkers—above you and below you on the org chart—to do your job brilliantly.
So if you're not feeling that you're getting the engagement support from your boss that you're expected to provide to your direct reports, speak up! And preferably before survey season begins. Your initiative now will show up later in improved scores above you and below you.
But most importantly, performance and results will improve all around. And that, as a manager, is one of your chief responsibilities.
Truth 7
"Best" doesn't mean the same thing to everyone
It's easy—indeed trendy—to throw around words and expressions like best!, breakthrough!, knockout!, and great! in business conversations. And, of course, we all know what those words mean generally. But what do they mean specifically to you? And, just as importantly, what do they mean to the person you're talking to? If you, your boss, and your employee have even slightly different interpretations of these words, those subtle shifts of meaning can confuse the way you assess the quality of performance and production.
You can't possibly know if you have what you want until you know what you want in the first place. On an organizational level, companies find this out very quickly when they take on an engagement initiative and start asking themselves (and, hopefully, their employees) what "best" looks like in their company. And then they start spitting out engagement surveys. Many find that the famous—and ferociously copyrighted—Gallup Q12 set of questions is a good place to start. But then, as each department starts getting excited about the endeavor, it throws in more specific questions. And soon the survey is an out-of-control behemoth that measures nothing other than how many questions can get shoved into one questionnaire. (One company ended up with more than 400 questions!) The result? Even after 400 questions, the company might still not know what "best" actually means in terms of behaviors and return on effort.
On an individual managerial level, you don't need 400 questions—or even 12—to help you refine your ideas of what a best employee is or to know when an employee is giving you her best. But you do need to know what best means to you, the boss. Assuming that all the legal and moral issues are buttoned up, the definition of best is not a matter of right or wrong. It's a matter of fitting your employees' behaviors and characteristics with your expectations.
It's a matter of fitting your employees' behaviors and characteristics with your expectations.
Start making a list of what constitutes best performance from all your employees. Don't automatically overlook the behaviors that you determine to be meaningless. Just as the white space in a painting is as important to the composition as the vase of pretty flowers is, you can learn as much about your values by what you don't care so much about as you can about what you do care about.
Are these best characteristics and behaviors in your book?
"My best employee..."
Is dedicated to perfect attendance, no matter what
Is single-mindedly focused on the job at hand
Is passionate about understanding how each job in the department serves the company's larger mission
Is always optimistic
Is always skeptical
Freely offers advice, opinions, and ideas at all meetings
Is reliably devoted to process and rules
Is always looking for a new and better way of solving old problems
Bends over backward to serve the customer
Values process efficiencies and scalability
These are just a few characteristics that have been identified as best behaviors of high-quality employees, and you'll see that some contradict each other. Each one has benefits but also disadvantages. You may agree with some; you might find others absurd. Remember, there is no right and wrong. It's only about fit.
Your own list will grow as you learn more about yourself and what works within your department and company. Discern which are your preferred behaviors, and you'll know when you're getting what you want in your department. Then you can lead your staff with reassuring clarity and consistency.
There is no right and wrong. It's only about fit.
But you're not done yet. You have a boss as well, with his own ideas of what constitutes best. After you've had the chance to develop your list to the point where you decide it is comprehensive enough to cover most expected behaviors and characteristics in your department, review it with your boss to see if you two agree.
The point here isn't to give your boss the opportunity to tell you how wonderful you are. Your purpose is to make sure you share the same values and expectations from your team. That would be the best thing.
Truth 8
Think you're a great leader? Think again.
The scene is so famous that all we have to do is mention the title of the movie to know exactly what we're talking about: When Harry Met Sally. In case you're not a moviegoer, there's the setup. Harry and Sally are sitting in a New York diner comparing his perceived track record of excellent, uhm, performance against general demographic statistics that reflect an overall dissatisfaction among women. His point: Yes, but I'm different. Her point: Every man thinks he's an exception to the statistics. And then she says, "You do the math."
Workplace math is showing a similar disconnect between perception and reality.
Workplace math is showing a similar disconnect between perception and reality. A study reported in late 2006 showed that 92 percent of managers say that they're doing an "excellent" or "good" job managing employees. But only 67 percent of the employees agree. An additional 10 percent say that their bosses are doing a "poor" job. As Sally said, you do the math.
In a separate survey that has been tracking employees' overall esteem for their executive teams, there has been a noticeable decline in the employees' respect and trust that their management is making decisions that will ultimately result in a healthy and competitive company. Only 49 percent of employees say that they have "trust and confidence" in their managers' performance—down from 51 percent a few years earlier. Employees are also reporting less confidence that their managers are behaving and making choices that reflect the company's core values.
Could you be a Harry, blissfully moving through your workdays assuming that all your employees are fulfilled and satisfied with their jobs? If you're assuming that you can just tell that your employees are satisfied by the way they behave in front of you, you could be putting valuable relationships at risk.
> There are ways you can close the perception/reality gap. If you're fortunate, your company already administers 360-degree performance reviews, in which your own performance is being rated not only by your boss but also by your direct reports. As hard as it may be to stand under such bright scrutiny, swallow your pride, submit, and then pay very close attention to the feedback you get from everyone who works with you.
But even if your company doesn't invest in such formal surveys, you can always do a little investigation of your own. You can go the direct route and ask your employees the excruciatingly humiliating question, "Am I as good for you as I am for me?" But don't expect a straight answer. (It wouldn't work for Harry, so it probably won't work for you.)
Or you can keep a self-diagnostic test running consistently in the back of your mind as you move through the day.
Do I make sure my employees know how their jobs are tied to the organization's overall strategy?
Do I make a point of keeping them informed on all news and changes affecting the company and their jobs as soon as possible?
Do I get back to them immediately when they're waiting for a decision from me that affects their own lives—such as vacation leave requests and promotions?
Do all my actions reflect and support the company's values?
Do my behaviors set the example for the kind of healthy, collaborative culture I want to establish in my group?
Do I keep their personal issues confidential?
Do I speak positively about them to their coworkers?
Do I pay attention to each of my employees individually, demonstrating to them that I care about their personal and professional development?
Do my behaviors set the example for the kind of healthy, collaborative culture I want to establish in my group?
Do I take all the necessary actions to show my employees—both as a group and as individuals—that I appreciate all that they are doing for our department and the company as a whole?
Do I keep my promises to my employees?
Statistics show that when employees quit their jobs, it's most often because they are dissatisfied with their direct supervisors. While you can't force an employee to stay with you, you can certainly give your employees every reason to want to stay.
Close the perception/reality gap about the quality of your own performance, and your employees won't be tempted to look to other employers and say to themselves, "I'll work where she's working."
Truth 9
You could be your own worst employee
By the time most of us reach the place in our careers where we have the privilege of managing other people, we have already been subjected to a variety of management styles. Few of us are lucky enough to have worked only for inspired, inspiring, wise, mentally healthy supervisors. Maybe your first "supervisor" was an overly strict parent who made you feel defensive and judged at every turn. Or maybe an early boss felt that his duty was to put you through the school of hard knocks—you know, toughen you up a little bit. Or maybe there's a boss in your past who followed every new management fad, only to drop it abruptly when the strain of upholding the fad's principles became too hard.
None of us can expect to go through an entire career completely unscarred by bosses' misguided behaviors and assumptions. If you've been supremely observant, you've probably developed a long list of "don't do's" as you've witnessed (or experienced directly) how disengaging some boss behaviors can be. But still, you're only human, and you probably absorbed some wrong lessons along the way. As a result, you have likely picked up some limiting beliefs about people.
You don't have to be a psychoanalyst to know when your beliefs are getting in your way. Watch the way your employees behave around you. There's high turnover. Your meetings are stone silent rather than wildly collaborative free-for-alls. You keep facing the same types of problems, even though the employees are different. Your department is infused with worry, distrust, politics, and turf battles. You find that you have to do an inordinate amount of micromanagement and coaching.
The worst performer on your team could be you. If any of the following beliefs sound familiar, you may be unconsciously letting them drive the way you treat your people.
"They'll get over it." Seemingly insignificant, fleeting moments—like coming to work irritable one day and not saying good morning—can have lasting consequences.
The worst performer on your team could be you.
A grumpy mumble from you could be nothing more than just pre-coffee crankiness, but it could signal to your employees that their job is at risk. An overreaction? Probably. But even if it is, they won't just "get over it." Not, that is, until you take a moment to clean it up. Apologize.
"My team is here to make me look good." As true as that principle may be, that belief will make you a terrible leader. Turn that belief around and remind yourself that you're there to make your team look good. Take care of your employees, and you'll inspire trust, innovation, confidence, and above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty dedication among all your employees. And that will, ultimately, make you look very good.
"I'm not a bully; I just believe that tough love works best." When did tough love actually work with you—other than scare you into action and make you think that your boss was an arrogant, cruel, mind-bending jackass? Your job isn't to love your employees, either tough love or real love. Your mission is to lead your employees and inspire them to love their jobs, but not at the cost of their peace of mind.
"If the idea was any good, someone would have already thought of it." In truly engaged teams, members can come forward with new ideas for doing a job better or providing better customer service or engineering a new breakthrough product. Maybe someone already did think of the idea before but was afraid to bring it forward to your predecessor. Or maybe the idea's first iteration was proposed at the wrong time—but now the market has changed and there's more money for research and development. Times change. Even old ideas have the chance to take on a fresh life. Welcome all ideas uncritically. That new Big Idea would actually be an old one whose time has come, coming from your department of creative geniuses.
"I didn't have it perfect coming up. If my employees don't like the way I treat them, they can just quit. They're easy to replace." You're even easier to replace. Companies are getting better at releasing supervisors who won't release their past beliefs to grow into better managers.
Truth 10
Visionary or beat cop? Your choice.
The big business news that hits the headlines these days seems to fall into one of two large categories: "Why didn't I think of that?" and "What were they thinking?" The first leads to accolades and keynote speeches; the second leads to handcuffs and legal fees. One is good; the other is bad. But both reflect a need for two separate kinds of management styles: visionary and beat cop. Visionary managers may get the limelight because of their fascination with the power of possibilities. But if you're more enchanted with the power of rules, there's a huge demand for you, too. (Case in point: a Google search on Sarbanes-Oxley pulls up 7.7 million hits. People are worried about following the rules.) The beat cop's job isn't a glamorous one with high visibility. And you probably don't want all that attention anyway. For a beat cop, a day without having to bravely smile into a phalanx of flashbulbs outside a courthouse is definitely a good day.
Growing up, we tend to know intuitively whether we're primarily visionaries or beat cops. (Although, as second graders, we probably talked more about whether we colored inside or outside the lines than our leadership styles.) As adults, we grow up to be varying combinations of both. So we shouldn't claim to reside fully in one category versus the other, even though we still have dominant strengths and tendencies. When we become managers, we can use that dominant strength to do our best good for the departments and functions we serve. We will know what to expect from ourselves. And so will our people.
Here are some distinctions (generally speaking, of course) to differentiate visionaries from beat cops.
> Visionaries break new ground. Beat cops avoid breaking rules.
We tend to know intuitively whether we're primarily visionaries or beat cops.
Visionaries embrace inspiring scenarios. Beat cops prevent dire scenarios.
Visionaries marshal strengths. Beat cops mitigate weaknesses.
Visionaries prefer loose reins. Beat cops prefer more control.
Visionaries need a sketchpad. Beat cops would rather have the rulebook.
It may be most fashionable these days to be a visionary. But the daily realities of business—in even the most innovative of industries—still require great beat cops who know the rules cold. They see their people as human beings who work hard to pay their mortgages on time and who would be happy to stay out of jail, thank you very much.
And there's still a tremendous amount of room for creativity and innovation as a beat cop. Great beat cops know that they must have the power of relationships, trust, intuition, and inspired hunches to make sure that this day turns out to be a good day. While a visionary's career can be jet-propelled by the power of only one idea, the beat cop's success is measured by a track record of daily, monthly, yearly dependable deliverables in a peaceful "neighborhood" of everyday people who know him well because he's out there walking among them.
That's a mission that takes a tremendous amount of vision. If you're more of a beat cop at heart, take pride in that role. Read up on the rules. And invest in a good pair of walking shoes.
Truth 11
You don't have to be perfect
The old saw goes like this: If you're not learning, you're not growing. The other saw goes like this: If you don't screw up now and then, you're not learning. So, collapse the two, and this is what you get: Screw up, learn, grow. Repeat.
The Truth About Getting the Best From People Page 3