There is No Secret Sauce to Being a Great Manager – Take Action

On February 8, 2015 By Cathy NoiceIn Workplace NavigatorLeave a comment

I remember the first time I had to manage others. At the ripe old age of nineteen, I had just been promoted to Supervisor at a campus restaurant at Cornell University. So magically, I went from being a worker bee to being in charge of a shift. From soldier to sergeant. Just like parenthood, they don’t hand you an instruction manual on “how to supervise others”. It’s a trial and error process. I did everything from being a micro manager (“Did you greet that table yet? “or “How many French Fries are on that plate”) to being everybody’s friend (“Sure you can come in 30 minutes late for your Sunday morning shift” or “Go ahead and have another cigarette break, that line of folks can wait”). Trial by fire. But somehow I survived and managed to keep my job and most of my friends.

As a Human Resource professional for many years, I have seen newly promoted, and dyed in the wool managers make the same mistakes I did and some that were much more egregious. I’ve seen the power go to manager’s heads as they exploit their position by flirting with their underlings or bullying those from a different ethnicity. But what prompted this post is an infographic from the TD magazine, Key Drivers of Effectiveness for Managers and Leaders. Using a Towers Watson 2014 study of more than 32,000 employees from around the world, they found 5 drivers for effective managers and here is my take on them:

1. Respect. 70% of employees favored Manager treats employees with respect .Jackie Robinson said, “I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… all I ask is that you respect me as a human being.” I think it’s important that respect is not about liking someone. I may not like the Vice President of Logistics or the new mail clerk but I should respect them. I’ve seen leaders get all tangled up in titles so that a Dishwasher can’t ask a Prep Cook for help. Respect is unilateral with no boundaries defined by title, income, age, gender or culture. Manage with respect.

2. Follow through. 57% of employees favored Manager does what she says she will. A manager has to deliver. If you promised a raise or resources or a decision, do it. This is especially true in making decisions. If you need to cut the cord on a project that is bleeding red ink, make the decision. Your department is waiting for you to be decisive. They want to stop working on that project that is a dead end, which no one else is supporting. Make the call and cut the cord. And if you promised to approve the promotion by Friday, do it. Don’t wait until Monday (see item #1). Follow through builds respect and trust.

3. Communicate. 57% of employees favored Manager clearly communicates goals/assignments. I have seen managers who expect to be communicated to but fall flat on communicating themselves. There is nothing worse than a boss who does not respond. The project or promotion will come to a standstill as the department doesn’t know if they should continue on or stop or focus on something else. We all need to know what direction the ship is going in. We don’t know that unless the end point or the metric is clearly and frequently communicated.

4. Remove. 54% of employees favored Manager helps remove obstacles. Whether it’s having the right equipment, software or enough folks on the project, it’s critical for managers to know what obstacles are botching up progress. Of course, with this integrated with #1, #2 and #3; you need to respect your direct reports opinions, follow through on what you promised and make sure you communicate the progress on removing the obstacle. They are all intertwined. You can’t have one without the other. So if your assistant needs a software upgrade, call IT and make it happen and let your assistant know when they can expect the upgrade. Remove obstacles quickly and efficiently.

5. Differentiate. 54% of employees favored Manager differentiates between high and low performers. Your highly engaged, empowered assistant needs to be given stretch projects to help them grow and develop. Your slacker business specialist who is constantly calling in sick and has work that constantly needs to be reworked needs to be put on an improvement plan or an exit plan. This will involve a difficult conversation. It’s much easier to praise your rising star than try and turn around your faltering dead weight. But you have to deal with them. Everyone on the team knows when you are letting folks skate and become sacred cows. Deal with it. Don’t let it fester. People can’t turn around their performance unless they are told they aren’t performing. For hints on how to do this read my post on 7 Steps to Turning Around Your Slacker Employee. The stars need to know that they are rising and the slackers need to know they aren’t measuring up. Differentiate so your folks know where they stand.

In that job at Cornell, supervisors had to rate each employee for their performance on every shift. That seems crazy now in retrospect but when you have some 200 part time student employees and 10 student supervisors, there needed to be a system that gave each employee feedback. When, at the end of my first semester as a dishwasher (yes, a dishwasher), I was give some low marks for not having any initiative, my performance did a 180. I was helping prep cooks in my free time, bussing tables and looking for ways to be a team player. I was promoted to supervisor and, eventually, the manager of student employees for my Senior year. Without that feedback, I might still be washing dishes or, worse yet, terminated. I don’t remember who gave me the feedback but I was relieved that someone did. Make a difference.

Just say No.

On July 28, 2013August 3, 2013 By Cathy NoiceIn Workplace NavigatorLeave a comment

I’m not sure why, but I have been the trigger person for most of my career. The gunslinger brought in to say, No. Human Resource professionals are frequently referred to as The Fashion Police (that skirt is too short), The Personal Hygiene Moderator (deodorant is a necessity), Policy Patrol (insubordination IS grounds for termination) and, worst of all, the b-word. So why can’t everyone else draw a line in the sand? I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve asked myself that. They are in avoidance.

It’s so much easier to bring someone else in to say No. You can stay at arm’s length, point the finger and, in essence, say, “This wasn’t my decision”. Let someone else be the trigger person and stay clear of the wake.

Try taking a giant step forward and say No. Here are the reasons why you should:

1. Respect. People pay attention to those who pull the trigger once in a while. You earn the reputation for being someone who has a backbone and stands up for their principles. People want you on their team when they know you can be counted on to make the tough decisions even if they are unpopular.

2. Honest. We’ve all known people who are brown-noses. How many corporate projects have you been party to that went in the wrong direction because no one in the crowd wanted to say No. Earning the reputation for being candid takes a few No sayings. I’m not advocating just blurting out No but a well-polished, properly crafted No will increase your authenticity.

3. Less Bunkum. I had to look up that one up in the thesaurus to keep this polite. When you get the promotional phone calls for a vacation getaway; don’t hang up. Say No and take my number off your list. Disingenuous people stay away from No sayers. They move on to fawn over someone else who doesn’t mind swimming in bunkum.

4. Relief. Unresolved conflict can fester. Be the one to step forward and make the decision. Do you really want to be up at 3 AM worrying about how you tell the PTA that you want off the committee? When you have given that well-crafted No; you’ll be sleeping like a baby.

5. Empowerment. Saying No is gratifying. You can look yourself in the mirror and know that you stood up for something; you stood up for your beliefs. It might have been difficult (it almost always is uncomfortable…messy even) but once you get past the No, your self confidence will be rebooted.

6. Culture. No one likes co-workers who get away with clocking in late, not pulling their weight, constantly stepping over the line that no one else would dare to cross. That crowd; the group at large. They are rooting for you. They want you to pull the trigger. Be the gunslinger for the 95% who are pulling their weight. Raise the tide for the culture of your company.

It’s not easy. But you need to do it. Be the go-to gunslinger. Everyone is waiting for you to be a No sayer. Draw a line in the sand.

google-site-verification: google9d56d41a79f92a1d.html

S.P.E.L.L. it out.

On June 26, 2012June 23, 2012 By Cathy NoiceIn Workplace Navigator4 Comments

Clarifying expectations is so critical in all aspects of life; like when you have a new employee, when your child cleans their room and, even when we start on a new project. If you don’t spell out the expectations, it will, at the very least be frustrating and at its worst, an epic fail. I see this step being skipped constantly. Why bother? Shouldn’t your child know what the expectations for a clean room are? Didn’t we hire that employee because they were the most qualified for the job? Haven’t you accomplished other projects? You will be doomed for disappointment without clarifying expectations.

I can imagine that if we did a poll of one hundred parents about their expectations for room cleanliness that we would find at least 80 different sets of expectations (this assumes that some of those poled are married and have already had a few grumbles about room cleanliness and, therefore, have the same expectations). The point is, you cannot assume that we would all agree about what a clean bedroom is. And we certainly cannot assume that your child has the same standards.

Your child gets grounded because they didn’t realize that stuffing all the toys under the bed does not mean “clean”. You’re disappointed in the home improvement project because you didn’t realize that fixtures you really wanted were five times more expensive.

So how do you avoid the tendency to think that everyone knows your expectations through osmosis and get down to the nitty gritty before you send that new employee off into battlefield of ambiguous work standards? Here are a few steps.

1. Reflect. What do you want? What does the perfect outcome look like? You need to be clear with yourself and/or the team before you set your new employee a drift. Why did we have to hire someone new? Did the last customer service rep go down in flames because he didn’t know that the schedule was completely inflexible? As they say, history tends to repeat, so reflect on what went wrong (or right) the last time.

2. Anticipate. When I send my husband to the grocery store for milk, you might think that is a very basic, simple item for him to purchase. Well, it isn’t. I need to anticipate who will be opening that refrigerator door for the next seven days. If it’s my daughter, it better be soy milk. If it’s my son, it better be organic skim milk. If my husband is the intended user, it better be 2% lactose free milk. Simple item. Complex expectations.

3. List. It’s a good idea to have a list; whether it be a written checklist, employee manual or just a short mental checklist. “Benson”, that’s my son, “a clean room means clean clothes hung up or folded and put away, the bed being made and no items on the floor”. In my days as a Sizzler restaurant owner, we had a pre-meal checklist for each meal period. It was important that even the temperature ranges for the food was spelled out. Soup < 145 degrees.

4. Engage. Have a conversation. It might even be a lecture. But explain your list. As in, the soup needs to be over 145 degrees because we don’t want anyone getting sick. The bed needs to be made because we are having visitors this weekend. We need personal phone calls kept to a minimum because we have a limited amount of incoming phone lines. Explain the rationale. It makes for more buy in.

5. Clarify. There may be a deadline. There might be a budget. There may be other resources. If the grandparents are arriving at 6 PM, this might be important information when my husband heads out for milk at 5 PM. The new employee might want to know who else on the team has done this job so they have them as a crutch. S.P.E.L.L. it all out.

6. Rinse and Repeat. Unfortunately, this is not a one shot deal. It can be time consuming and tedious. It was obvious which Sizzler restaurant was not using its pre-meal checklist. And it usually translated into lower sales. The customers had expectations.

Take the time and energy to S.P.E.L.L. out your expectations. It will save you frustration, time and energy. It will also keep your relationships on a higher plane. Those around you will appreciate knowing what to expect.

What would you do?