Management on the other hand works on a one to one basis. To succeed in management you have to know each of your staff members individually, know their strengths and weaknesses, know what they are really good at, and know what aspect of the work that they really enjoy. See if you can discover the talents in them that they may not even know they have themselves. Here is where it gets a bit tricky, we have spoken already about praise and recognition, so if you have a staff member who is performing at a level of excellence you know you should take time out to tell them “well done” the more you tell them how great they are, the better they will become. The more you praise them for a job well done in one particular aspect of the role, the more attention they will give to it and the better they will become at it and then as if by magic – the more they will enjoy it.
The simple fact is that people who enjoy what they are doing tend to perform better and produce better results. They know the importance of the role they are performing and they know where it fits in to the overall department and into the business as a whole. If you really care about your people you have to spend your time with them clarifying the importance of their role, explaining why it is so important to you and to everyone else. It is important that they get a sense of worth from the job they are performing and they get a chance to do something they love doing every single day.
There are the managers who seem to thrive on the power of it all. They love to “boss” people around and they seem to find a way to annoy and upset their staff every time they come into contact with them. There are some managers that the staff really hate to see around the place and they know they are much better off, and will perform better simply by being left alone to do their own job. Ask yourself are you that manager? Are your staff glad to see you each day? Would they prefer if you didn’t come to work today? Answer those questions honestly and if you think they would prefer if you weren’t there, if they think they are more productive when you are not there...then is it time you looked at how you manage and how you need to change your own priorities.
The job of management is all about people; it is about getting the very best out of every single person on your team. There are always three things to take into consideration: the people in the team, the team itself and the tasks to be performed. In my estimation if you concentrate most of your effort as manager on the people, as long as you have a clear vision of what has to be achieved and you communicate that to them on a regular basis the priorities of task and team will take care of themselves.
Take time to talk to each person on your team individually, concentrate your time and effort on the high performers, most managers spend most of their time concentrating on the poor performers and this can send out the wrong signal to the others. Some want to have the attention of the manager and as a result they will perform in a way to get the most attention. Even bad attention is better than no attention at all so you might find capable people making mistakes and if that gets your attention it is having the desired result, so make sure your attention is not the cause of bad behaviour among your team.
In order to care for your people and have sufficient time to spend with them it is vital that you successfully delegate all tasks that have to be completed and that will be the topic of the next instalment.