A manager’s magic dust

If you’ve ever been in any doubt as to the importance of a manager’s words and motivation, take a look at the England football team’s performance on Monday night.

In the first half, I’d say performance was good but not spectacular. In the second, the team fell apart. What happened in between? A team talk from the manager and his coaches. What should have been a chance to regroup, ensure clarity over roles and build confidence for the second half seems to have had exactly the opposite effect. Team members looked unsure, made individual errors and began to lose collective composure. The result…well, you’ll have seen it (watching through your fingers, if you’re anything like me).

The events just show how pivotal a manager can be to performance. Giving team members clear objectives. Helping them understand what is expected of them in their roles. Building their self-belief and inspiring increasing collaboration. Helping individuals gel to become more than the sum of their parts: in other words, an effective team.  

And yet we still fail to prepare managers for this aspect of their roles. We continue to promote people on technical merit rather than their ability to inspire, challenge and support team members. We don’t put enough focus on training, guidance or support (in whatever form this takes) and we seem to hope managers pick it up as they go along. Individuals, teams and organisations suffer as a result.

I’ve never seen any team shrink in quite the same way as we witnessed on Monday night, but I’ve seen many smaller-scale meltdowns triggered by ill-equipped managers, who have simply not been prepared for possibly the most important aspect of their role. I fervently hope we can address this issue within our organisations and industries in the months ahead. If we don’t, we’ll keep undermining our own performance and the prospects for achieving our goals.  

Who holds the power of purpose?

In a recent piece for HR magazine, Cary Cooper says “a sense of purpose has to be ingrained within each member of staff” by “smart leaders” who interact with staff. He concludes by proclaiming that HR directors “need to remember that connecting with employees is the soul of effective engagement”.

There is obvious truth in all of this, but there are also several dangers. Not least in assuming that this type of connection can be forged from the top.

Ultimately, whether we connect with our company’s vision, and develop a sense of shared purpose, is up to us. No leader has the power to create that connection for us. Even the most charismatic individual cannot “ingrain” common purpose within a group of people, and it’s dangerous (and overstating things) to claim that he or she can. It’s up to each of us to make our own connection with it and to imbibe that purpose as our own.

“Smart leaders” (to use Professor Cooper’s phrase) recognise this and create the right conditions for us each to take the final step ourselves. Sure, they set out their stall for the ‘direction of travel’. They ensure there is regular sharing of information about the business and its progress.  And they act as role models for the dialogue that allows individuals to check understanding, ask questions and raise concerns.

However, they go beyond these steps by inviting and supporting us to really get involved in our organisations. They give us opportunities to shape the working world around us, through our ideas, feedback and energy. They nurture a culture that enables us to help create, interpret and propagate the purpose that has evolved has a result.   

Now, more than ever, common purpose evolves from participation in our organisations. Leaders who recognise this will be rewarded with employees who really share common goals and radiate them to colleagues, customers and the communities around them. 

What does Sir Bob Geldof know about employee engagement?

One of the highlights of Microsoft’s ‘Future Decoded’ event this week was a presentation from Sir Bob Geldof.

He was discussing the education of future generations. And he suggested that we are, as a society, way behind where we need to be: the world has changed around us, but we are still living and teaching in the 20^th century. The reason, he believes, is that we are still grappling with the implications of a tidal wave of technological change. We have not been able to answer a fundamental question:

What does it mean when we are all connected to each other, all of the time?

It was a regular refrain during his talk. What does this ability to connect, the advent of ‘always on’ systems and devices, mean for the way we live and interact with each other? How is it re-shaping the nature of our conversations and relationships? And how should we change the way we prepare young people for society in response?

This fundamental question has resonance in the workplace too.

What does it mean when we are all connected to each other, all of the time?

Within our organisations, we’re introducing an increasing array of tools and mechanisms that ensure we are connected to our companies and to each other, any time, any place. In this digital workplace, we’re always seeking more methods for unlocking greater connectivity, more information sharing and increasing collaboration.

There are opportunities. But there are also implications. Do we always think these through?

Do we have a clear sight of how such tools are going to fit within – or help to reshape – the way we work? Are we effectively preparing our current employees (as well as new recruits) to make use of them? Are we engaging people on cultural usage as well as technical requirements? Are we regularly sharing and celebrating success stories as we see them? Are we doing enough to identify and address emerging issues?

If we can’t answer in the affirmative, I’d suggest we haven’t really grasped what these tools mean (or may mean) for the way we work and for the people we work with. We’re in danger of ushering in a new technological framework that is divorced from, rather than resonant with, corporate culture (even if the plan is to catalyse change in that culture).  

I sound this only as a note of caution. Technology is giving us many, many opportunities to enhance the way we work and engage with each other. But there are risks we need to manage, and we should think about Sir Bob’s fundamental question as we plan the road ahead.

Helping the ‘squeezed middle’ support social

In a post last week, I highlighted the lack of focus on managers in discussions around enterprise social networks (ESNs). I’d like to follow that post by offering some thoughts on how organisations can address the issue.

Managers form the ‘squeezed middle’ in any organisation. They need to deal with twin – and potentially conflicting – pressures: expectations from leaders that they will deliver business plans in practice and expectations from employees that, whatever the corporate demands, their manager will look after their particular needs and interests. It is, to put it mildly, a tough gig.

But it’s a pivotal one, particularly when an organisation is seeking to introduce new ways of working. And this is, in many cases, exactly what the advent of an ESN is intended to achieve. The aims usually include breaking down silos and inspiring collaborating outside traditional role descriptions. This carries major implications for managers who, in many structures and cultures, have hitherto focused on a confined team, with defined roles and related objectives/performance management processes. Suddenly, employees are being encouraged to look beyond their traditional team(s), to contribute their time and expertise to questions and challenges faced by people in different parts of the company, whom they may never meet nor directly work with. If such collaboration is to become part of day-to-day life, managers need to understand and encourage it, embracing the opportunities rather than fighting against the implications. Yet we may not be doing all we can to engage and equip them for this change.  

With this in mind, I’d like to suggest some simple steps that any organisation can take to better prepare their managers for an ESN:

1.    Engage them – the first step must be to engage managers as a group in themselves. This isn’t an issue associated solely with an ESN, because greater recognition of the need to communicate directly with managers as a discrete group would enhance engagement in many contexts. But in this case, it’s important to help them understand the aims, benefits and implications of an ESN so they can engage with and process what it would mean for themselves and their team(s). This isn’t just about sharing information, it’s also about  seeking their questions, identifying and addressing their concerns, and identifying what additional support (if any) they may need to play their part. This is vital groundwork if you want new ways of working to take root within day-to-day business.

2.     Involve them – as you develop a tool to help spark new ways of working, involve managers to help you identify and address potential issues (for example, desired functionality, or implications for management systems beyond the new tool). Taking some simple and structured soundings at key points in the process could elicit valuable insights that you can use to develop or tailor the changes you’re intending to introduce.

3.    Train them – the way we train (or don’t train) managers has been an issue for years. We all know it (and it’s worth hearing the words on this topic from Peter Cheese, CEO of CIPD, in his recent interview with Engage for Success). Yet we still promote many people based on their technical prowess without giving them a grounding in the communication or engagement skills they’ll need to succeed.  And the introduction of an ESN only exacerbates that need.  Every organisation should be considering what training and support managers will need to aid the introduction and embedding of the tool and its associated ways of working.

4.     Engage with them (again) – you’ve got to keep connecting and communicating with managers to help them play their part. Continue to share information on progress. Invite and respond to further questions or concerns. Celebrate what the new tool and associated ways of working have helped to achieve. This can help you create an informed and engaged group that forms the bedrock for a stronger and more collaborative community across the organisation as a whole

5.     Help them  – the most enthusiastic managers will struggle if their organisation’s systems don’t align with the aims of an ESN. For example, if you are expecting people to collaborate across traditional team boundaries, you have to recognise that desired company behaviours and performance management processes should reflect this. In essence, such systems must show managers they should encourage rather than hold back such activity, and to participate in it themselves.

 

6.       Show them – last but not least, managers need to see role models, particularly leaders who eagerly embrace and participate in the ESN and associated ways of working. If all the other stars are aligned, but leaders suggest indifference, the changes you are seeking may still simply impact on the surface of corporate culture, rather than taking root within it.

I am sure there are many others, and would love to hear your views or suggestions. But these steps are crucial to helping to engage and equip managers to play their part. Without sufficient focus on them, an organisation only undermines the investment it makes in any new tool and associated ways of working.

Under new management: why enterprise social networks require a different approach

With all the fervour over the power and potential of enterprise social networks (ESNs) to improve the way we work and engage with each other, one important issue has been given less attention. What is the impact on managers?

As we empower people more and more to connect with peers in different parts of the organisation, enabling them to develop ideas and resolve issues together, we’re breaking down all kinds of silos but we’re also unpicking more traditional modes of management. Stowe Boyd talks about ‘leanership’: his vision of a situation in which teams organise and manage themselves, with everyone demonstrating elements of leadership on a day-to-day basis. Whilst that might seem a long way off for many organisations, the direction of travel is clear and we should be considering the implications for the way we prepare and support managers to play a changing role.

The issue is particularly acute because we haven’t caught up with the needs of today, let alone tomorrow. The ever-growing canon of literature and commentary regarding employee engagement highlights just how important a more involving and empowering approach to management is within organisations. We know that people will give more if they feel part of their team and their organisation, that they have a voice in it, that they are not just recipients of instructions. Yet survey after survey bemoans the state of our management skills, suggesting we are not equipping or supporting managers to fulfil this role.  And now we want managers to change even more?

Make no mistake about it, if we’re going to make the most of ESNs, we need managers at all levels to grasp and help catalyse change. We need them to re-think what constitutes day-to-day work for their people. We need them to liberate employees to connect and communicate with others in very different areas. We need them to reshape the way they organise people and to nurture behaviours that bust silos for the greater good.  And we will need them to consider implications for the way they evaluate and recognise individual contribution and performance.

This is a big change for managers – and for the organisation as a whole. Leaders will set the tone, and colleagues in Communications or IT will introduce the tools, but managers will hold the key to whether ESNs really change the way companies work or simply impact on the surface of corporate culture. Yet in my view there has not been nearly enough discussion or emphasis on how we can engage and equip them to play their part.

A theme I shall return to in future posts!