Basic skill for a manager: Reinforce what was trained in training
In my previous post, I make the case that the manager is the most high impact trainer in any organization. The manager has the ability to subvert anything that was trained merely through one comment or gesture.
But what about the opposite? What if the manager reinforces what was covered in training? What happens then?
The answer: The employee performs according to the training.
Let’s assume, for now, that the training actually has something valuable in it. That the people who created the training did the research, know what the proper performance ought to be, and trained a great class designed to help employees on the job.
The employee leaves the training and now has to apply it to the work environment.
Here are the things that the manager can do to reinforce the training:
1. Ask the employee what he learned in training
How often has this happened? Not enough! If an employee goes to a training class, industry conference, safety briefing, or any other “learning”, this should be the first course of action. It is unlikely that the manager attends all of the training that the employees attend, so now the employee has to share the content with the manager. It’s the manager’s job to listen.
Managers are the most high impact trainers in an organization
In recent articles, I’ve explored how a manager’s subtle or not-so-subtle behaviors can influence how a team operates. Think about this – the manager, through the subtle power of suggestion or through overt directive action, can shape how a team performs, make a difference as to whether the team succeed or fails, establish whether it is a good working environment or not, and contribute to whether the organization is successful or not.
This is because the manager is the most high impact trainer in the organization, and should be treated as such.
Many organizations have robust training departments. These departments might offer a series of training classes on technical skills, soft skills, legal compliance, team building, job safety, and the like. These classes might last as long as week or be as short as one-hour. Increasingly, “eLearning” offerings offer a tutorial on how to do something or stay in compliance. In many cases, these training organizations track whether or not the employees have taken a series of classes, and it is tracked with great robustness on the employee’s record in what is called a Learning Management System (LMS).
But note that these classes last for a finite period of time. The class, no matter how interactive or high impact learning the design may be, ends. The employee always leaves the training arena, whether it was eLearning or classroom, and then goes back to the job.
Then what happens? It’s now entirely dependent on what the manager reinforces or punishes.
Whatever cues the manager makes, no matter how subtle, will determine whether the employee will apply what was discussed, trained, practiced and reinforced in the training class.
Let’s look at one example.
Managers should provide focus on what’s going right and reward those behaviors
In the last few articles, I’ve been discussing managers’ too-frequent negative reactions to problems. The “red” stuff on a scorecard, for example. They will act surprised and/or angry. As I pointed out, this is not the manager’s job to act surprised and angry when problems arise.
But let’s say that the problems aren’t the most important thing – maybe the more important thing has a status of “green” on a report or scorecard. If you ignore the stuff that is going well, you are missing opportunities to be a great manager.
The green stuff – things that are not problems – these should be reinforced positively. Rather than focus on the stuff needing improvement, talk about what is going well. Discuss specifically what it was that the employees did to earn that green status. Identify the actions taken, and call out why this is a good thing.
1. You’ll discover who is doing well and why
You may discover in this conversation that people on your team did many things that prevented problems in the first place. You may learn methods that could be used elsewhere on your team.
You may identify high performers who create “green status” without any drama. Many managers descend into a dynamic where they are close to only those who are reacting to problems – the firefighters – at the detriment of those who prevented the fires from starting in the first place.
Focusing on the green items on the status report is a chance surface the people on your team who get the work done right the first time. They are the ones who try to prevent drama rather than create drama.
What to do when you see a status or metric as “Red”
In my previous article, I identified how a manager’s subtle actions can turn into not-so-subtle disasters. The subtle action is reacting negatively to “red” on a status report. The reaction is that employee will hide the “bad news” from you. Bad management and bad results ensue.
So let’s talk about how a manager can think through why seeing “red” on a status report (or receiving any other bad news) should not be responded to with anger, yelling or “just solve it.” We know that this creates a vicious cycle, so let’s identify some things that a manager should consider and say before sending marching orders to solve the problem.
1. It is entirely appropriate that there be items that are “red.”
Consider the following reasons:
The “red” item may be the de-prioritized item.
The “red” item is a new item and is being worked on to get to the point of “green.”
The “red” item, if it is on a scorecard, may be something with very low numbers, significance or sample size, and the “red” status isn’t as significant as others.
The “red” item may be the item that is calibrated to be in the worst shape of all the items, thus earning the status of red. That is, as the lowest scoring metric, it is by definition the worst, and is therefore red.
In other words, it is inevitable and desirable that there be “red” items.
Instead of getting mad, the appropriate response to these scenarios is to determine the significance and priority of the “red” items. Ask whether these “red” items are the high priority items.
Managers behaving badly: Training the team not to report bad news
In my previous article, I discussed how it is important that a manager not act surprised – even when the manager is surprised. In many ways, this is the essence of a good manager – someone who manages the situation, even when the situation presents surprising results.
So here’s another place where you don’t want act surprised: When you see the status of something (whatever it is) reported as “Red” or “down” or “Needs improvement.”
Perhaps you are familiar with what I’m talking about: Many organizations have a structure where they are required to present status or metrics to the management team. On the report there is an indicator as to whether something is “Green”, “Yellow” or “Red”, or whatever the scale is (On track/off track, perhaps).
It has been observed that many managers seem to bristle, panic, obsess, get angry at, or demand action when they see the dreaded “red” on the status report. Or you may have observed a manager saying, “I don’t like to see that red on the status report.” Have you ever experienced this?
This is an example of a manager managing from a deficit – and creating a deficit that is much deeper every day. It is an indicator that your manager is trying to take short cuts, and identify ways to solve problems without solving problems. This starts a vicious cycle.
Here are some consequences of this behavior of reacting surprised or negatively whenever there is something that is listed as “red”:
1. You train your employees not to show “red”, and they will cease to provide you any bad news
If a manager reacts negatively or acts surprised when there is any hint of “bad” news, the manager immediately and swiftly trains the employees never to share bad news. They may resist this training and continue to give the manager bad news. But should the manager repeat this training, the employees will successfully hide from you anything that could be bad. Problem solved! Everything will be green now.
If you’re the manager, it’s your job not to act surprised
A lot of things go wrong in business and at work. One thing that shouldn’t go wrong is the manager being the one who is surprised when things go bad. In fact, it is the specific job of the manager NOT to be the one who is surprised when things go wrong.
Have you ever had a manager who yells, “What happened?” “How could that have happened!” Then the manager gets mad at whoever could be responsible, or perhaps mad at the messenger, “I can’t believe you did this!” “What kind of incompetent crap is going on here?” “Go fix it and don’t come back until it is!” “How come this project line item has status of red?!!”
Ah, these are symptoms of a manager who acts surprised when something goes bad. So much to say on this topic! I’ll start with this: It’s the manager’s job NOT to be surprised.
The manager is supposedly the one with the greatest visibility of the work environment and output, who understands the best who is on the team, and what the team ought to be working on. The manager is the one who should know the approximate quality of the team output and what aspects of it can be better.
It is the manager’s role to know the risks of the work activity and where it could go bad. When a bad event from one of these risks manifests — whether it was a known risk or an unknown risk — it is still the manager’s job to know that this kind of stuff does happen.
When the manager is surprised by events, this is a clear indicator that the manager is managing from a deficit. In my discussion of managing from a deficit in previous articles, the manager attempts to take short cuts to managing, thereby announcing to the team that he is no manager. He is, instead, someone who was given the role of the manager, but is not performing the role of the manager.
Examples of using expectations to improve your performance feedback
The Manager by Designsm blog writes about the art of providing performance feedback. That’s because performance feedback is a fundamental skill needed for managers to perform their jobs as managers.
One important aspect of providing feedback is that it is based on some sort of standard, a bar that has been set, or a series of expectations of performance. So let’s talk about it!
In my prior article, I offer providing expectations as an alternative to giving public feedback. But there are more advantages to setting expectations than being perceived as a forward, clear thinking manager who knows what she wants and how to get there.
I suppose that’s reason enough, but there are more reasons to hone your skills at providing expectations!
Providing expectations also give you the ability to give performance feedback more effectively.
The formula is simple: If you’ve set a performance bar in advance, when you give feedback to your employee you can now measure against that expected performance.
What’s amazing is how infrequently this is performed by managers. So I hereby set the performance expectations to managers: Have you set performance expectations to your employees? If so, great! You are now ahead of the game.
Let’s look at examples of identifying expectations for performance prior to having to give feedback:
Check your usage of the word “just.” It could mean you’re managing from a deficit
Many managers want things to just get done. Or they want their employees to just resolve the issue. Or they want their employees to just answer the question. Or they want their employees to just stop doing something they don’t like.
However, this could be more of a symptom of the manager’s poor behaviors and less a symptom of the employees’ inability to perform. In all of these examples, the usage of the word “just” implies a need to take a short-cut to better performance. It’s also an indicator that the manager is “managing from a deficit.”
It’s a great marker – the word “just.” Check yourself each time you use it. Let’s look at some sample situations:
–The manager receives a report and says, “Just give me the high level summary.”
–The manager sees people unable to come to a recommendation and says, “Just figure it out and get back to me.”
–The manager sees in the metrics that errors are up and says, “Just do what it takes to stop making these errors.”
In these examples, the manager is making a request to get something resolved – without making any effort to resolve it. What great management! Wouldn’t it be great to have this skill?
Specific phrases and examples for how to ask for feedback from your employees
My previous articles outlined the steps a manager can take to request feedback from employees.
In today’s article, I provide some specific phrases and examples for what a manager can say to employees to request feedback on how the team is managed.
1. Introduce your expectation that you will receive feedback
“I want to be a great manager to this team, and in order to get to that point, I need your help and guidance in providing me your feedback and ideas for how this team is managed.”
How to ask for feedback from your employees on your management skills (part 3)
This is the final part of a three part series on how managers can ask for feedback on how they manage. Managers get spotty feedback on how they manage, and employees are perhaps the best source of feedback, but it can be tricky. In my previous articles, I outlined how the manager can set up the conversation, and how to handle the actual conversation. In today’s article I discuss how to take this feedback conversation to the next level.
Here are the tips!
1. Help the employee provide better feedback
It’s a little “meta” to give feedback on giving feedback, but since employees are not necessarily skilled at it (nor are managers), coaching in this area in private and in a structured conversation isn’t necessarily a bad thing. First, if the feedback is artfully given (behavior-based, not generalizing, no value judgments), then reinforce that this feedback was given well. If the feedback is not artfully given, you need to clarify what you are looking for, and provide examples. For example, if an employee gives you the un-artful feedback that “You are a terrible manager,” ask, “Can you give me examples from your experience that led you to this conclusion?” Then if the employee provides examples, then say, “That’s what I need, specific examples so I can take action.” If you give un-artful feedback on un-artful feedback, i.e., “Your feedback sucks,” then the conversation will not go well.
