Nobody would ever say that managing people is easy. If you're responsible for a team of employees, you may find it terribly challenging to motivate them and get them to do their best. Take a look at the five management practices outlined below and see if you can apply them to your own leadership challenges.
Make Sure Customer Feedback Gets Through To
All Employees
Many healthcare companies are far less
transparent than they could be. Doctors need to be protected from frivolous
complaints, but sometimes that leaves them completely immune to important
criticism. At the University of Utah, senior managers elected to increase
transparency and make their doctors more accountable by making all patient reviews
visible to the public. While some doctors panicked at the thought, those whose
patients left negative reviews rapidly improved their level of service.
If your team is a little isolated from your
company's end users, take steps to put them in touch with your customers so
that your employees can see the effect their work has on them - both good and
bad. In many cases simply making your employees aware of a problem can be
enough to motivate them to correct it. Corporate training programs can help to resolve issues where the solution isn't
immediately obvious.
Don't Get Bogged Down In The
Meaningless Details
In the classic workplace comedy Office Space,
low-level employee Peter Gibbons spends the first half of the film being
constantly harangued by his manager Bill Lumbergh to file his "TPS
reports". It's clear to the audience and everyone in the office that these
reports are meaningless, but Peter's manager has chosen to make them his
primary concern. The situation breeds (well-deserved!) contempt for the reports
and for Lumbergh, and as far as good employee engagement ideas go, they obviously rank very low.
Your own team might well be facing some ordinary
responsibilities that must be taken care of despite being relatively
unimportant. While you might not have the power to sweep meaningless minutiae
off your employees' desks, you can keep them focused on truly important goals
by making sure you and your team understand the difference between tasks that
truly matter and tasks that are simply routine.
If You Go "Into The Trenches" Go
All The Way
Managers at every level like to paint themselves
as members of the team, suffering through the same reverses as their employees
and being not that different from their subordinates. Some leaders merely talk
the talk, but the ones who get respect are those who back up their words. Jim
Sinegal, the CEO of Costco, is legendary for living up to his claims of
modesty. Jim answers his own phone, works in the bullpen with lower-level
employees, and keeps his salary capped at no more than twelve times what
Costco's entry-level employees make. His workers respect this genuine
commitment to sharing their experiences, and Costco's loyalty (with the lowest
employee turnover in retail) has become famous.
Pitching in right alongside your team members is
a valid motivational tactic. If you tell your employees that you're right
beside them in the trenches, feeling their pain, make sure you back up your
words! If meeting your latest goal requires working long hours, you should work
them with your employees. If your team works works hard and earns a bonus, make
sure everyone's share of the reward is equal -- including yours!
Earn Loyalty By Being An Advocate For Your
Subordinates
As noted above, many teams are plagued by
responsibilities that ultimately contribute little to their primary goals. Good
managers use motivational techniques to keep their teams focused on the really
important things, but great managers actually go the extra mile to protect
their employees from meaningless make-work.
Communication is vital in a healthy relationship between a manager and his or her
employees (see below). You should develop a good understanding of what your
team considers to be its primary obstacles in getting work done efficiently. Do
a little research on your own to find out if there's a good justification for
tasks that are sapping your team's productivity. If there isn't one, clear the
roadblocks away! Your team will be more productive and appreciate working under
a leader who makes their jobs easier.
Never Dictate; Explain If You Must;
Collaborate Whenever You Can
The American car industry faced a host of
challenges at the end of the 20th century. Problems abounded both internally
and externally. At GM, workers were feeling seriously unmotivated due to a
failure in management. They felt like cogs in a machine; a commonly-repeated
complaint was that they had been hired to provide strong backs instead of
talented hands. GM executives solved the problem by realigning management
policy and ordering supervisors to work in collaboration with subordinates.
Instead of dictating company policy or justifying orders, managers listened to
their employees' ideas and used their experience to improve their workflow.
No manager who issues orders and demands
unquestioning obedience is going to last long. Smarter leaders will explain the
reasoning behind their instructions, but the really great ones will let their
team members arrive at the right way of doing things on their own. You have to
make time to listen to your subordinates and guide them gently towards the
methods you consider ideal. It isn't as expedient as barking orders, but it
leads to a much happier and more effective team!
