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.  

Santa, can you help employee engagement?

Dear Santa,

My kids have been crafting their Christmas lists for weeks so I thought I’d send you mine too. It’s just a handful of things I’d love to change about the profession I’m part of. Can you help us achieve the following?

1.     Stop trying to define what we do – unless your elves can create a universally-accepted explanation, in which case please feel free to drop it down the chimney. Currently, the time we spend discussing what we do hinders us from getting on and doing it.

2.     Focus increasingly on business need – we’re getting better at this, but we must ensure everything we plan and do is rooted in – not just related to – business goals. We’ve got to articulate a clear, strong and measurable link at all times.

3.     We end talk of ‘adding value’ – I hate the phrase. It may be a personal thing, but I can’t believe people will be clamouring to keep it. Let’s just show how we plan to make a difference and get on with doing it.

4.     We accept surveys for what they are – they have a role: they’re not perfect, but let’s recognise that, take what we need from them and move on. 

5.      We give managers more attention – we know managers need more support to build communication skills and confidence. We’ve talked about it a lot, but not done enough about it. Let’s work with colleagues in areas like HR to make this a priority in 2015.

6.     We tame technology – new tools and platforms offer us major opportunities to improve the way we engage with employees, but we’re in danger of being dazzled by them. Let’s be clear on the engagement needs in our different organisations and find the right tool(s) to meet them (rather than approaching things the other way round).

7.     We get better at measurement – yes, I know I asked for this last year, but we need to go even further in the next twelve months. We need to be clearer, more consistent and more sophisticated in the way we evaluate progress, identify issues and demonstrate the difference we deliver.  

I could go on, but you’re a busy man (and having seen what my kids have written, I doubt you’ll have time to consider the rest of us). Any help with these areas would really benefit me, my colleagues and the organisations we work in or with. And I won’t have to hassle the Easter Bunny in a few months’ time.

Thanks in advance

Paul

Avoiding ‘accidental disengagement’

There’s a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth about employee disengagement, isn’t there? If I’ve seen that stat from Gallup once I have seen it a thousand times (you know, the one saying c.70% of the workforce is disengaged). But I take issue with some of the commentary around it. Yes, sometimes there will be major structural and/or cultural issues to address. But there are also smaller things that leaders and managers do, without even realising it, that can have a major impact on the people around them. Here are some tips for avoiding ‘accidental disengagement’.

·       Consider communication style – sharing information is a starting point. Sharing relevant and timely information is even better. But is the style you are using working for your people? Have you explored whether it is connecting with them and helping them process and respond to the information? If not, you might have the best of intentions, but your execution may be letting you down.     

·       Ask questions – some people avoid asking questions for fear of the answers, but others may be trying to be considerate. For example, they might want to keep time employees spend in a briefing to a minimum. But asking questions shows a willingness to seek and hear opinions, to check understanding and/or to discuss issues. Failing to do so suggests the relationship is one-way traffic.

·       Balance tools – there is an ever-growing array of new tools and products to aid communication and collaboration. But whilst you may want to give employees the latest tools to help engage and equip them, don’t lose sight of those who might prefer existing methods or mechanisms. What is empowering for some can be disengaging for others, so getting the right balance is key.

·       Check support – assuming someone has what they need to deliver what’s expected of them – even if, on the face of it, everything seems all OK – can cause frustration and disengagement, meaning that neither you nor the people you are managing get what they need. You might be giving people space when what they want is more support.

·       Discuss training – there are still many occasions on which leaders appoint managers based purely on their technical competence. This can have an unintended consequence if the new manager lacks grounding in communication skills, and his or her behaviour then undermines rather than strengthens team engagement. Both organisations and individuals should recognise the risk and discuss any support that’s needed.

·       Say thank you – research shows just how powerful a simple “thank you” can be. Recognising the time and effort people put into their work can be motivating. Failing to do so has the opposite effect.  

This is just a handful of steps. I am sure there are many more…

The flexibility challenge

The increasing popularity of flexible working across Great Britain has been highlighted this week in a report from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC).  The study – Flex appeal: Why freelancers, contractors and agency workers choose to work this way – says that more than one in three people has worked as a contractor, freelancer or agency worker at some point, and 41% of people are considering working that way in the future.

Increasing flexibility can offer benefits to people on both sides of the working equation. It can help employers introduce more fluidity to their staffing plans as they seek to get the right people, in the right places, at the right time – and can increase their ability to change plans rapidly where needed. It can also give workers, many of whom are now meshing rather than balancing work and home lives, the chance to exercise more control over their short- and long-term assignments.  There is a potential ‘win win’ for everyone involved.

From an employer’s point of view, however, this does bring its challenges.  After all, workers might want flexibility – but customers want cohesion. They neither know nor care whether the people they deal with are temps or ‘lifers’. They just want consistent, top-quality service and will judge the company – and decide the future of their custom – on their experience. So it’s essential that all the workers concerned are engaged and equipped to deliver brand values day in, day out.

The growing array of employment arrangements, patterns and/or locations makes this more difficult. Organisations must connect and communicate with an ever-broader range of people to ensure they understand and can deliver the behaviour needed from them. And this means a more sophisticated approach to engagement may be required: from greater understanding of each group to tailored programmes of activity that inspire spark and sustain the response desired from them. 

As ever, this is not just about sharing information, but also about building dialogue; whether someone is with you for a week or 20+ years, they need the same opportunities to ask questions or raise concerns. They may even bring fresh ideas that long-standing employees would never have thought of.

Flexibility in, cohesion out. It’s a process of increasing importance to employers of all types and sizes. And a more sophisticated approach to engagement holds the key.

Engaging and equipping line managers

Sir Brendan Barber has written an interesting article on the increasing demands being placed on line managers in the workplace. He focuses on how to help them deal with conflict, but his argument has wider ramifications for the way organisations engage and equip managers to play the difficult role expected of them.

Sir Brendan’s contention is that the field of employment relations now centres on individual as opposed to collective rights, and that this places considerable pressure on line managers to focus more closely on the needs, issues and concerns of each team member. This adds to stress and workloads, and leads some managers to feel over-burdened and under-supported. In the face of falling line manager confidence, Sir Brendan believes it might be time to “call in the cavalry”.

You could raise similar concerns over the role managers play within employee engagement. Put simply, they are expected to be all things to all people. Leaders look to them to translate global strategy into local action, and hold them accountable for results. Front-line employees, meanwhile, expect their managers to be their inspiration, support and confidant, empathising with them rather than the company.  Line managers are therefore in a difficult yet pivotal position: they face contrasting (and sometimes competing) demands from employer and employee yet are expected to keep everyone united and pulling in the same direction.

But they are rarely given enough (if any) information and support to prepare them for this role.

As many commentators have observed, organisations don’t spend enough time training and equipping line managers to fulfil their challenging roles. We still tend to promote people based on technical excellence and expect them to immediately adjust to the different (and increasing) demands that come with a management position. In such circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that we see a fall in confidence and a drop in performance.

At the very least, prospective line managers must be trained in the basics of employee engagement before they take up their new role. After all, the way they inspire, challenge and support their new team(s) to perform will be one of the main differentiators from their previous, non-managerial position. From the principles of effective engagement to the skills needed to achieve its benefits in practice, such training can be focused, intense and very practical. But it is essential to give managers at least some guidance and initial experience as they take on their crucial new role. And if Sir Brendan’s call to action on workplace is heeded, this should form one part of a wider overhaul of management training and support...

It's not just about Generation Y...

I can’t help thinking that the recent LBS/Deloitte study on Gen Y is a case of the emperor’s new clothes.

The study “reveals” that 80% of those being classified under the Gen Y banner don’t intend to stay with any one company for more than five years. The report’s authors go on to suggest that employers must re-orientate their ‘employer value proposition’ (got to love that phrase…) and component practices to appeal more to the priorities of this particular group.

Is any of this really news? There has been plenty of research into Gen Y in recent years, and extensive debate over how to inspire, motivate and challenge these employees to play their part. There has been general acknowledgement that employers need to engage Gen Y in different ways. So it’s a fairly well-worn path that LBS and Deloitte have sought to follow, without having an awful lot new to say about the situation or the opportunities/imperatives involved.

I think the bigger question, on which it really would be interesting to have more in-depth research, is how employers can best balance the requirements of different demographic groups such as Gen Y and ‘baby boomers’ to forge a well-oiled, well-integrated workforce. In my view, there’s not enough analysis or insight on this, but it’s an issue that is only going to increase in importance as the balance between different groups within the workplace (however loosely they are defined) continues to shift. 

Creating a single employment proposition that can turn its face and to, and remain credible for, each group is going to be increasingly difficult, perhaps stretching the whole idea to breaking point. Instead, I can see employers articulating an increasing number of audience-specific employment offers, far more than they do today. We may be moving into an era when the employer ‘proposition’ becomes the employer ‘framework’, with a shift from cohesion (inherent in the current EVP concept) to co-ordination.

That’s the area in which employers of all types could benefit from more guidance and research. Focusing on Gen Y alone only tells part of the story. There’s a bigger issue on the road ahead.

Trust matters

The CIPD’s Employee Outlook report, published this week in association with Halogen, suggests that employee trust in senior managers has fallen to a two-year low. It’s the latest in a long line of such studies, stretching over many years, highlighting an erosion of trust that can undermine performance.  

The key factor in this research is that employees do not feel involved in important decisions. Without an opportunity to give input to the organisation they work for, employee confidence and trust fades away. Suspicion about instructions from ‘on high’ pervades.  

Hardly surprising, is it? We all feel more confident in, and committed to, an organisation if we feel we have some involvement in it, that our views and opinions matter. If we’re expected simply to do what we’re told, with no chance to explore or make suggestions, the whole relationship is very transactional. There’s no warmth, little engagement and no chance for ideas from the front-line. And if employees feel they are simply being ‘done to’, why should they give their best? Or bring energy, enthusiasm and discretionary effort to support an employer that sees them simply as a recipient for instruction?

Given this is hardly rocket science, it’s frustrating to see the same type of findings come up again and again. Senior managers in all industries have to grasp the benefits that a more engaging culture can deliver and start implementing simple systems to nurture stronger relationships with their people. There are many simple, practical ways to spark and sustain dialogue with employees, within teams and beyond, to help the organisation work more effectively. After all, you can hardly forge trust in an environment when communication is wholly one-way.  Unless leaders finally respond, they’ll simply see more trust drain from their organisations and leave vast vats of employee potential left untapped.