Difficulties show up in a number of guises for managers, including:

• The employee who is not delivering what is expected in terms of performance
• The dissatisfied customer or client
• Employees who are in conflict with each other
• The team who are resisting change
• The loss of customers or clients
• The feeling of overload

While some might say that managers are rewarded well enough and so should be willing to deal with the difficult stuff, the reality is often very different.

So why do managers avoid dealing with the difficult stuff?

1. They don’t want to be seen as the bad guy or gal
2. They question whether they have the right
3. They worry about the reaction they will have and whether they will be able to handle it
4. They hope that the issue will somehow disappear if they ignore it
5. They want an easy life

While on some level these reactions might seem reasonable they have a direct impact on:

• The performance of individuals
• The personal reputation of the manager
• The reputation of the team
• The reputation of the organisation
• The ability to recruit people
• Staff turnover and retention
• Customer satisfaction
• Personal and team productivity
• Bottom line results

While it might not always be easy to deal with the difficult stuff as a manager, the reality is that simply ignoring these issues is rarely a good long term strategy.

Duncan Brodie helps highly effective professionals become highly effective managers.  He invites you to check out his management mastery e-course

So how can you make time for managing people?

Decide it matters
• The first person who needs convincing that time spent managing is valuable is you. If you don’t see it as a priority, it will never get the time it deserves.

Allocate time to it

• We all probably use some sort of time planning process. We put things into the plans that we need to do. The question is, do we put ‘managing people’ on our list? If not, it does not become a habit.

Focus on the benefits

• I don’t know about you but I have more often than not found that people start to respond to you differently when you take an interest in them. The benefits of making time to manage people include:
  • Motivation.
  • Giving a clear signal that others matter to you.
  • Being seen as a facilitator, rather than a director of their results.

We all know that making time to manage has many upsides. So what do you need to do to make it more of a priority?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

1. Find out about their career aspirations

   What I noticed when I worked in big organisations was that finding out the career aspirations of others was either avoided or stuck on to the end of an appraisal discussion. Taking the time to understand their career aspirations can make you stand out from the crowd.

2. Support their personal development

   Those achieving success will always need to develop themselves. Make a point of supporting their development, even if that means making a case on their behalf for investment.

3. Let them cover for people more senior than them

   This might just be for a couple of weeks while people go on holiday but it gives them some insight into what the role is like.

4. Send them on secondment

   To help them to build skills, get new experience or take on new challenges.

5. Get them involved in projects

   Projects are a greatly underused way of developing people.

6. Get them a coach or mentor

   Someone independent who can act as their professional sounding board.

The truth is some simple things can make a big difference. I wonder what you have found works well?

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

1. Prepare the praise

It’s interesting that many of the managers I know will spend literally hours preparing to give criticism, but only a matter of minutes (if at all) preparing to give praise. The result? A passing comment (literally) on the lines of ‘nice job Doug, keep it up’ Say what? Which job? The whole job? Keep what up? Not only is this type of praise confusing but, by and large, it’s not wildly motivating. Top tip – spend as much time preparing to give praise as you would to give criticism      

2. Be Specific

Describe exactly what you are praising and why. Try the following method:

• When you….
• What happened was…
• And the result is….

E.g. When I showed the client the research you had done on their business she said she was really impressed by the insights you had provided. The result is she wants us to make a proposal for a further piece of business. That’s a really good outcome for us so thank you and well done

3. Show genuine interest

Ask questions to better understand what the staff member did, for example, what preparation they did for a successful presentation, how they managed to design such effective visual aids. Describe how you feel about what they’ve done e.g. pleased, impressed, excited (the hug and kiss might be slightly over doing it)

4. Let the praise stand alone

Don’t be tempted to mix the praise with criticism e.g. That was a great presentation. If only your written work was as good. Deal with the written work issue at a different time –unless, of course, you’re a fan of the ‘tall poppy syndrome’.         

5. Do it quickly and time it well

Give your praise as soon after the event as possible – it has far more impact. Be careful not to give the praise at a time when it will appear conditional or a ‘softening up’ process e.g. just before you delegate a task or ask for the person to work late

Public or Private?

There’s an old saying ‘praise in public, criticise in private’. Though I wholeheartedly agree with the latter I’m not totally convinced by the former. Of course the principle is sound. We want other staff to hear the praise and understand what we are praising because we hope that they will want to emulate those behaviours or achievements. But not everyone is comfortable being singled out in this way and some people find accepting praise in front of their colleagues embarrassing. My advice would be to deliver the praise in private. You can then ask the staff member if they are happy for you to share the praise with their colleagues – say in the next team meeting – and take it from there

 And a few final tips

If the performance you are praising is exceptional, you will probably want to bring this to the attention of your boss and possibly higher. If you have a reward system which is credible you may want to utilise this. In any event, it’s a good idea to follow up your conversation with the staff member in writing (a note will do) and to copy that note to your performance files

Joan Henshaw is the author and presenter of the video management training series ‘The 10 Minute Management Toolkit’ – the flexible, cost effective and time effective way to help managers, team leaders and supervisors learn how to motivate their staff to high performance. You can watch free videos at http://www.10mmt.com/watch-videos/

The overarching finding from the research that had been undertaken was that the line manager relationship was criticised.

Other points that came up were that:

• Engaging managers tended to be happy in their current posts and still on the development curve.
• The majority regarded themselves as good internal networkers.
• It was valuable to learn from others (the good and not so good) in order to develop a style that worked for them.
• Goals and expectations needed to be clearly stated.
• Feedback was seen as an important element as was encouraging.
• They were willing to tackle poor performance even if they did not like doing this.
• They created a strong team spirit.
• They were willing to roll up their sleeves when it was necessary.
• They supported the development of team members.
• They were very open.
• They were able to balance autonomy and monitoring progress.

So I wonder how you stack up as a manager when it comes to engaging others?

For a summary of the report go to The Institute for Employment Studies website.

Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps accountants and health professionals to achieve success and realize their professional potential through being highly effective leaders and managers. For more information and to sign up for his free audio e-course click here

Cost

It is not uncommon for 60% of the total expenditure of a company to be on staff.  If there were any other investments of this scale on anything else in the business, don’t you think it would be getting a high level of attention?

Talent shortage

Much has been written about talent management over the last few years about the war for talent.  For example, in response to The Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) eighth learning and development survey, 47% of respondents identified that there was a shortage of high quality talent in UK organisations.  In some professions these numbers are even higher.  Against this backdrop of talent shortage, people management takes on increased importance.

Without People There Is No Business

While there are some business (such as internet based businesses) that may be less people dependent, the vast majority still are highly dependent on people to:

• Attract clients or customers
• Make sales
• Provide the product or service
• Physically ship the product
• Manage customer relationships
• Keep on top of the finances
• Look after legal aspects
• Set policies
• Innovation
• Sourcing supplies and services

Without people in the above and many other areas of the business, the organisation would simply not function.

Retention

As well as the challenge to attract staff, retention is also a huge issue for many businesses.  The employment landscape continues to change.  Industries are consolidating which means that even big employers cannot give long term guarantees.  There is much greater mobility in the workforce.  Many more people are able to go and work overseas and keep in regular touch with people back home through the use of technology.  All of the above add to the retention challenges that businesses face.

Expectations

Our parents might have been happy just to have a job but those entering the workforce have much greater expectations.  They are looking for and expecting:

• Opportunities for progression
• Challenging and enjoyable work
• Work that has some meaning for them
• A good work environment
• A balance between their work and their life

At the end of the day, if you are an employer who wants to get results and is dependent on people to deliver them, people management needs to be given a high priority.