Good managers know how to define the desired result.
Management. Surely something to aspire to? Most of us do aim to get into leadership roles and when you look at the advantages in terms of pay, conditions and job security, why not?
Managing a company's human resources effectively gives you extra hands and legs. Your ability to do more things and in your own way is enhanced with staff under your wing.
When seen from below, management looks simple. Unfortunately, many see poor management practices and feel that anyone can do it. The reality is that management, is a skill that is improved with practice, experience and training.
Gabrielle Young, of Stratus Consulting, an expert in organisational development, says "aligning perceptions is the one of the key roles of a manager.
"You have to understand firstly what you want your staff to do and how you want them to do it. This needs to be communicated to the staff member and, more importantly, understood by them. Their perception of what needs to be done needs to be aligned with your own."
Combined with this, a manager needs to have a way of knowing whether their staff are actually doing what is asked of them. This usually means that the outcome of the task is well defined so everyone knows when it is completed. But many aspiring managers get stumped at the first hurdle and never truly recover. Remember the adage, "start where you intend to finish". It is not uncommon for managers to start without contemplating the finish line at all.
Setting objectives and tasks effectively is a skill. It takes time, effort and expertise on the part of the manager. To be able to describe what you want is not as easy as it seems. It is visionary but also specific. The best example would be an architect, who provides the detail to allow a builder to create their "vision".
Too often, managers give vague verbal instructions without any parameters and then wonder why the job is not done on time as they had envisaged. Their reaction is that the staff member was at fault and didn't follow their instructions.
Imagine the problems if an architect gave vague verbal details to a builder. It is akin to asking someone to cook a dish they do not know without giving them a recipe. Furthermore, it is hard for you to judge the final dish if you do not know what it tastes like yourself.
The best way to overcome this is to write down, usually with the person you are managing, what you want them to do, in what time frame and how you will both know that it is completed. This way there can be no question as to what is required. The staff member should be given the opportunity to agree or disagree with the plan and should be encouraged to come back if the agreed plan is in danger of not being completed as documented.
Just getting agreement from the staff member to complete the task as defined will be a large contributor to achieving successful outcomes.
Some restaurants in New York were dismayed that many diners did not turn up after having booked a table over the phone. In response, they changed their booking process. When diners rang to book at table, instead of just asking for their phone numbers as confirmation they specifically asked them if they would call to tell them if they could not make it. The restaurant staff waited for them to say "yes". This simple act of getting people to commit to ring was responsible for no-shows dropping by 25 per cent in one case.
Another successful method is to get the staff member to develop the outcome themselves but within specified guidelines. A manager could ask a staff member to find a venue for a function that is within 5km of the office, within the budget and allowing for all of the requirements of the function to be met. This allows the staff to have some autonomy to achieve a result and to show some creativity.
Using this approach, managers often find that the outcomes are better than if they specified the outcome in great detail. Young has a number of suggestions for how performance monitoring in an organisation can be improved.
"There is no use waiting till the end of a project to find out that it is late, wrong, inappropriate or not even happening," she says. "A manager should have a 'heartbeat' to the staff member to ensure that all tasks are going on as planned. Regular meetings and specific reporting should be in place."
When performance is inadequate, managers need to be able to discuss this with the staff member. Modern managers are becoming more reticent about confronting staff over non-performance - potentially because of their complicity in the situation and the potential for questions to be asked about their competency.
This part of a manager's role - of looking a person in the eye and saying that their work was not good enough - cannot be abdicated. It is the essence of management. You can read management books until you are blue in the face but none of them will tell you how to deal with interacting with a fellow employee.
Management of others, especially in a work environment, should transcend friendship and your desire to be liked by others. It is the cost that you pay for all those benefits of the job.
If it does get to this stage, you are going to be in much better shape if you have a written outline of what instructions you gave and what outcome you were expecting.
Experienced managers may think that this basic advice does not apply to them. Maybe it is time for an audit of your own management practices.
Are your instructions to others clear and are outcomes defined? Did you get the staff member to agree to the requirements of the task? When you sit down to have reporting sessions, do you have a list of tasks and where they should be up to? How often do tasks get completed late or not as you envisaged? Do you fear confronting some staff members about performance?
Management has its perks but it also has its responsibilities. Getting it right from the start will assist you, your staff and the company. So make it a habit to "start where you intend to finish".
managementadvice.org
Craig McIvor is the managing director of Corporate Management Advice
