"What the World's Best Managers Do Differently"
By Mike Matalone, Vistage speaker and Founder and President of Excelsior Leadership
To be an effective leader you have to have a manipulative streak -- you have to figure out the people working for you and give each tasks that will take advantage of their strengths.
-- Retired U.S. Army General Norman Schwarzkopf
If you've ever wondered why good employees sometimes don't make good managers, or why your employees don't have the same sense of urgency you do, or why they aren't as motivated as you, you're not alone.
Employees typically underperform at their jobs for three main reasons:
- They lack a clear idea of what their manager expects.
- Their strengths are not aligned with the manager's expectations.
- Their motivational needs are not being met.
It's a manager's job to generate maximum performance with their team. The act of management is best defined as the ability to consistently achieve results through others to accomplish an organization's objectives.
Marcus Buckingham, best selling author of First Break All the Rules and Now Discover Your Strengths, writes "A revolutionary organization must build its entire enterprise around the strengths of each person. And as it does, it will be positioned to dramatically outperform its competition." Buckingham's books were based on a 20-year research project conducted by the Gallup Organization (where Buckingham was a SVP) and led the project for 17 years. They found that the greatest managers in the world seem to have very little in common. They differed in sex, age and race. They employed vastly different styles and focused on different goals and objectives. Yet despite their differences, great managers shared four common traits.
Those four skills, the most important responsibilities of a managers job, were termed "The Four Keys of Management." Over the last five years, I have dedicated my life's work to studying these principles, and with over 50 years of behavioral science applications in the workplace, I have enhanced and modified the four keys as follows.
Set clear outcome-based expectations and manage to them
Define what success looks like. If you don't know what a person will be doing, you can't identify the right person to do it! To do this, develop a "performance profile" that spells out:
- 1. Essential, frequent and critical tasks a person must accomplish
- 2. Results or success measures he/she must deliver
- 3. Knowledge, skills and behaviors necessary to be consistently successful
As a management tool, the "performance profile" helps keep both the manager and employee focused on the most critical factors that lead to success. During regular one-to-one meetings, the manager should discuss each of the current 30-day objectives and asks:
- 1. What have you done this week/month to accomplish this objective?
- 2. What is your plan to accomplish this objective next week/month?
- 3. What can I do to support you in achieving this objective?
Select the right person for the job
Using the "performance profile" as an interview tool. Walk the candidate through each of the listed tasks to determine if they can do the job, if they want to do the job, and how they will do the job.
Roughly 80-percent of managers I speak to have never had any formal interview training and yet, selecting the "right" person is one of the most important elements of their job. The following is a strategic interview process called the "Rule of Three" that helps managers select the right person:
1. Conduct a minimum of three interviews. The person who shows up for the first two interviews may only be attempting to say what they think you want to hear (and to some degree, may be acting). On the third interview, they are more relaxed and you will start to see the real person.
2. Schedule the candidate to interview with a minimum of three different people from your organization. Multiple people allow for a more logical and team-based decision, and lets the candidate meet people they may be working with.
3. Obtain at least three examples of success. Ask the candidate for examples of work they have done that matches the frequent and critical tasks in the "performance profile." How did they do this work? What was their role? What did others do to support them? What challenges did they encounter? How did they overcome them? What were the final results?
Motivate and communicate based on individual needs
As a manager, you are responsible for the work and productivity of others. Therefore you need to know the answers to these questions. What are the unique motivational needs for each of my subordinates and what can I do to meet those needs? The satisfaction of an individual's motivational needs is paramount to and directly correlates to their achievement potential. Psychometric analysis tools can help you understand how your employees respond to their environment and the people in it. Ineffective communication is one of the biggest problems in most organizations and plays a big role in a person's motivation. The proper use of these tools will also help you to identify how to communicate more effectively with your team.
Developing the person to be the best they can be
Even the best people need to learn all the ins-and-outs of your company before they can accelerate their productivity and your profitability. Don't leave this to osmosis! Lack of training is a setup for future failure. The development and implementation of an accelerated orientation training program is critical in expediting the learning and productivity of a new employee. As a member of Vistage, you have identified best practices for yourself as well as a coach to help guide and hold you accountable. As a leader you should ensure that your people are continually learning and staying on the cutting edge so they can be the best they can be.
These four keys will help you better align people's strengths to the job and provide greater clarity and synergy so they can focus on the most important agreed upon outcomes. The result should be happy and productive employees who increase your bottom line profitability.
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