This can take the form of praise; encouragement; delegation and even that simplest of activities, just saying ‘thank you’.

Sometimes even just keeping it personal is very effective indeed.

I recently came across a team where the manager wasn’t the best at saying ‘thank you’ or showing appreciation in much of any way at all.

One of his team was leaving after a few months only, to go back to college - she was 19 years old and had settled in very well, becoming a big contributor to the team very quickly.

The team had 7 people in it and it was clear that they would all miss this employee - and indeed she gave a strong impression that she would miss them too (even marking ’so sad’ on the calendar for her leaving day!).

This was made very clear on the day after she left, when she returned to the office and left everyone a small card.

Inside the card were a few sentences which thanked each one personally for their friendship and how much she would miss them. There were also a few words of what was so special about each of them, including the manager himself.

Now, I don’t know if the hint was taken by the manager, but every individual was not only hugely touched by the gesture, but each was surprised and enlarged with the rosy-glow of the value they each contributed to the person leaving.

Small, personalized, honest and very appreciative were the comments. But what a difference they made to each of her friends and colleagues. A difference that would be long-lasting and specific to each of them.

As managers, we can always learn a lot from our people, when we take the time to notice - and then apply - what we observe.

It takes a little effort to get down off that high horse we sit on when we are the boss - and when we are humble enough to do so, we can make great steps forward, making our own difference as we go.

Related posts:

1. Summarizing As a Communication Tool As managers, we need to create the best interactions with...
2. Employee Relationships - What is Responsibility? Responsibility is fast becoming a lost art in the business...
3. Workplace Relationships - What Does Responsibility Mean? Managers and employees have shared responsibilities for ensuring that they...

How do we keep them all happy?

We strive to create refined, capable people to inhabit our teams. The results we seek cannot be delivered by us alone, because simply we cannot do it by ourselves.

Like the soccer coach - the results come from those who cross that white line for us. All the plays the team practice during the week, are for nothing if they don’t deliver ‘when Saturday comes’ - as they say!

As managers we have to hone their skills, tactics and flair for then.

Yet what happens to our people when we’re done developing them. When they can grow no more in the circumstances that we are in a position to offer them?

Indeed is it possible that they can grow no more with us at their helm? Could that be possible?

The simple answer is - of course they can reach a peak in the team we have them in; with the support and challenge we help them with.

And sometimes, when they achieve that zenith, we have to make the more courageous decision to let them fly off and seek a new level of opportunity, to make the next leap.

Successful management is not simply about building a team that serves us well. It’s much bigger than that.

When we help create fulfilled employees, the bigger picture is where we have to be brave and let them go.

We have to celebrate the success they achieve with us and - where this is what they want - prepare them for a bigger stage to explore and reach for the next level, with our support and enthusiasm.

In soccer, managers of smaller teams strive to create better and better players for the good of the team and then, whilst it may be a sad time, encourage them on to bigger teams; new arenas and bigger opportunities.

That’s where the bigger managers stand out - loving the growth they see and then accepting - no, encouraging - their people to be the most they can - even when that means moving on.

Related posts:

1. Management Development Secrets - Easy Coaching For Your People There are many ways to develop those employees that you...
2. The Recipe for Management Success Sometimes it’s good to find out other perspectives. So often...
3. Using Team Operating Charters To Create Effective Teams Effective teams are the most effective and even the only...

For a manager though, it’s always going to be a fine line between the fun the team are having and the need to be entirely focused and professional within seconds of the laughter subsiding.

And there will be occasions where the manager of the team needs to quietly and firmly change hats to make sure that having a fun experience doesn’t get in the way of delivering solutions that meet and even exceed expectations of customers and clients.

That’s where real managerial skill comes in.

Being able to join in with the fun as well as having the capacity to ensure that the team are quickly as professional as they need to be, requires a delicate touch - and one where the most effective managers show their difference.

Everyone loves to have fun together, it’s one of the most important tactics to build effective relationships with the individuals in the team.

Great managers go along for the ride and then take over the steering before matters lose focus - and with that, the true value of the team.

Related posts:

1. Management Skills - Quick Steps to Workplace Relationship Building There are many ways to build relationships with those working...
2. Employee Relationships - What is Responsibility? Responsibility is fast becoming a lost art in the business...
3. Effective Business Relationships - Just How Valuable Are They? In the modern employment world, anyone would be hard pressed...

Wafting your own magic wand around yourself and the way you do things is one thing, but how can you use it effectively to ‘magic’ better ways of doing things from your people?

BTW, if you have one of these - let me know and I’ll patent it.

Because here’s the secret. You can only change yourself and you cannot change others directly, however hard you try.

Now, what you can do (and successful managers do this very effectively), is to amend your own behaviors and attitudes to influence your people to be different. When they are different, they will see better ways to be and then the delivery of their work will improve.

The ball is back in your court.

So, here’s an action you might want to think about. What are the issues that you come up with that are your ‘I wish…’ moments with your people.

Then, what are ways that you could start to amend the way YOU are, that might be more likely to get the performances that would help them grow and develop into what you want?

Don’t know? Then ask them what they need to be different from you - and how that will help them.

This tactic makes the difference in so many ways.

You partner with them in solutions; you show that you are willing to change; you show you are not the smart-arse who thinks they know everything; you show you value them for their input too (there are more benefits, by the way…).

In the ‘Circles of Influence’ in your life, you are at the very center.

Make it worthwhile the only way you can, by looking inside first, before you seek to blame others.

Related posts:

1. Waving The Management Magic Wand - Part 1 OK, so we’re all managers, right? And although we might...
2. Management Win-Wins - Challenging Personal Perceptions One of the biggest challenges for managers, is how they...
3. Management Development Secrets - Easy Problem Solving Managers all have problems - this is, of course, a...

Never fear, we all in this together, so you can tell me it’s so…

Little things that our workplace does to us that really, it would be so cool to, well, be different.

Whilst I am not able to give you the magic of Master Potter’s magic wand, I can help you a little here.

It’s about being focused and taking action.

Part one this week is about issues that are all about you. Next week we’ll attack those ‘I wish…’ issues about your people.

For this week, we’ve enough to work on with you alone.

When you want things to be different, there is only one answer to that wishfulness thinking. It’s about grasping the issue ahead of you and being strong (sometimes brave) enough to handle it.

You see, many time we want things to be different, yet we want magic to happen. Here’s a heads-up. The magic will only happen when you have the wand in your hand and you make it happen.

If they are issues about the way you do things, be resolute and decide it’s going to be different from now on - or, decide that you are going to live with it and find work-arounds that will make the difference.

So you can park the challenges someplace else apart from right in your face causing you worry, stress and frustration.

The wand, as they say, is in your hands (and, in case the message didn’t quite get there - no-one else’s, so, if it’s your way, stop blaming everyone else).

Related posts:

1. Waving The Management Magic Wand - Part 2 Last week, we looked at how to make more of...
2. Positive Talk - By Dan Rockwell See the bad say the good There is a...
3. Management Win-Wins - Challenging Personal Perceptions One of the biggest challenges for managers, is how they...

Take the experience of buns. Once in a while, even the most senior - or junior - of managers, can do something that to them seems so ordinary, yet to their people it signifies in a small, yet profound way, an extraordinary respect that it is hugely important in how they lead their team.

The unexpectedness of something can show how much a manager cares for their people.

In was a quiet afternoon in the business when he brought the buns. They weren’t expensive, but they were unexpected. Not that he’d never done it before, he had. Yet it was almost as if today was a great ‘nothing much happening’ sort of day that he recognized the opportunity to do a little more.

Now whilst some managers might have had their people screaming down the phones for more business; or wanted to chivvy their people along on a flat day catching up with the boring stuff that so often got left, this guy was different.

Reflecting on the successes of a good couple of weeks (bun reward has to have a context; be for a reason), he took a time-out to share a few minutes to thank the team with the buns. Buns that cost a couple of pounds.

He also took time to accept the offered cup of tea and to chew the fat about well, anything. It was being what he was good at. Taking the time to listen to his people be passionate and share their lives a little bit, for a few minutes on a flat day.

A small thing? Sure. And it’s the sum of small actions that create a relationship that employees value.

Just a few buns and a few minutes.

Related posts:

1. Management Skills - When It’s Best Not To Know Sometimes, it’s easy to show that we are the boss,...
2. Asking The Right Sort of Questions To create great conversations, we need to engage fully with...
3. The Art of Managing Exceptions It’s vital for any manager to create a disciplined approach...

After all, even the best online MBA can’t always prepare a manager for working out problems with difficult employees.

Managing individuals in a team is one of the most vital activities for a manager. As you move from a role where you are actively hands-on involved in dealing with ‘things’ to organizing people, it can be a big step to handle.

Dealing with difficult people can be a test for even the most experienced of managers and those who have made it, have survived tricky situations and lived to tell the tale. Managing difficult people can be tough, but it’s much tougher not to.

Here are three simple tips to help you when you are dealing with difficult people which, in the long run, will make it much easier for you to lead a great team to success.

Be Interested

As you create relationships with those you manage and lead, the issues of difficult people are often minimized because they see that you are interested in everyone, including them.

When you ask questions and listen attentively, it’s important that you show that you are interested in what they have to say, because it reduces the possibilities that they feel you are against them.

This changes their leverage because when they don’t think you are another of those bosses that are ‘against them’, much of the sting is taken from their response. Being interested shows them that you value them and takes the sting out of them.

Be Clear in Your Own Mind

You need to work from a position of inner confidence and strength. This will give you the peace of mind to ensure that you are fully able to handle these individuals.

Dealing with difficult people can be very challenging and it’s important to be clear what you want from them as their input into the relationships that you have with them and, very importantly, those they have with others (which includes customers and other members of the team too).

Show You Want to Help

Many times, difficult people have a chip on their shoulder because of past experiences where they we treated badly. In this respect, they are the result of other people’s behaviors and are in defense mode.

Their behaviors are a lot less likely to be generous when they’ve had poor experiences from managers in the past.

So it’s important to actually let them know you want to help them, by paying full attention to their needs and, where possible and without compromising your own management position (or giving them treatment different from anyone else), you start to make a difference to them.

Dealing with difficult people is a stretch for many managers.

By showing that you are disciplined, fair and consistent in your approach to all of your people, you will find that difficult people are much easier to manage and may well become some of your best employees.

Related posts:

1. Dealing With Difficult People - General Principles Difficult people can be found anywhere. As managers or supervisors,...
2. Management Win-Wins - Challenging Personal Perceptions One of the biggest challenges for managers, is how they...
3. Workplace Relationships - What Does Responsibility Mean? Managers and employees have shared responsibilities for ensuring that they...

Those who set out with a glimmer of a dream, worked and cajoled it until it became a sort of reality that made some sort of sense.

In history, these ranged from geeks who worked in their garage on a kitchen table to the merely curious who wondered just why things fell downwards rather than up.

The workplace is different, because we have made it so. If you look at the wonder in a child’s eyes as they investigate new objects or activities, time takes it’s toll and we, well, grow up.

That wonder disappears.

As we manage, it is invaluable to create the freedom for our people to step back and recapture that inquisitiveness in an environment that acknowledges that to let them be free to explore is a good thing.

Being clear on the corporate, team and individual ‘rules of engagement’ that they need to fulfill as a minimum within the organization might seem restricting.

Yet intriguingly, once people know what’s in and what’s out before they start, they feel freed up to use their curiosity to ensure new and radical opportunities can be explored.

And it’s OK to.

Creativity comes from knowing that the blank sheet you have in front of you, is OK to splash your paint on. Then you can explore to your fullest dreams.

Everyone benefits.

Related posts:

1. Sharing Responsibilities in Building Workplace Relationships Over time, relationships between managers and employees have not always...
2. Slowing Down Does the Trick Sometimes as managers, we need help. And that help can...
3. Workplace Relationships - What Does Responsibility Mean? Managers and employees have shared responsibilities for ensuring that they...

There are no excuses. Perhaps many would say that overpaid superstars ought to have fared better and that there was no appetite for the game in our players.

The Spanish players, after their victory last night, might have something to say about that.

Ask every one of our players and they would tell you that they went all out for success - that their focus was entirely on bringing that 5Kg 18 carat gold cup back home.

As for the manager, there seemed to be times when he was completely perplexed in the outcome and then every opportunity to find some excuse for the failing - the ones that weren’t down to him, of course - were rolled out.

Sometimes it’s about bad luck.

Ever the optimist, I’m of the opinion that bad luck had it’s part to play at a particularly critical moment in the game we lost to Germany.

Frank Lampard’s ‘goal that never was’ came just a time where we could easily have clawed our way back into the game and with Germany’s precocious young team hauled back from a 2-0 lead, who knows what might have happened then.

Indeed many worthy winners of the World Cup have had extraordinarily poor starts.

Yet as manager, the buck stops with us.

There is no place for excuses that we try to hide behind. We get paid to be successful and when we aren’t, we have to stand up and say that we, ourselves weren’t good enough and we must do better. Then our people trust us, bond better with us and we get up another day to learn and grow and achieve more next time.
Even if the linesman and the referee are the only two people in the ground who didn’t go to Specsavers.

Related posts:

1. Thought About ‘Plan B’? I almost missed the opportunity to mention the current England...
2. Management Development Secrets - Easy Problem Solving Managers all have problems - this is, of course, a...
3. Management Development Secrets - Time To Reflect If you decide to be pro-active in your quest to...

Carlos Ruiz Zafon in ‘The Angel’s Game’ Share This!

No related posts.