The Rules Of Management (Pioneer Panel's Library) (6 page)

I have several children. I expect them to operate as a team. But I am also shrewd enough to realize they are all completely different, and if I try to treat them all the same, apply the same rules—apart from the discipline ones—I’ll get a mutiny, or chaos. Now one of them—and I’m not mentioning any names here but they will know which one I’m talking about—can’t be hurried. Not ever, not anyhow. If you shove, he digs his heels in and can’t be shifted. He has to be lured, enticed, and seduced into being quicker. But I have another son who constantly has to be slowed down. I have to respect—and work with—their individual differences. I simply have to.

Now your team is just the same. Some members can be hurried and others can’t. Some will need to be slowed down and others you need to speed up. Some will come to work with a cheery smile, others are best not approached first thing in the morning. Some will be terribly good with technology and others won’t. Go back to what Belbin says in
Rule 2
and see how everybody in a team has something different to offer—and that difference is what makes your team superb.

With my children if I need something done fast, I know who to call on. If I need a slower, more methodical approach, I select another child.

You don’t have to let anyone get away with anything just because they are different—keep the discipline rules in place—it’s more in the way you treat individual differences, the way you select tasks, and the way you expect those tasks to be carried out. We are all different, thank goodness—a world populated by people like me, even I realize, would be
ghastly—and those differences are what make a great team pull together effectively.

So if you’re managing a sales team, say, and most of the members are sharp-suited and have slick patter (like you), but one prefers casual garb and is more chatty with his customers, don’t mark his cards as “not a company man”—judge him on the results he gets. If he makes his targets and his customers love him, then
vive la différence
.

If you think you know it all, chances are you will be too busy listening to yourself and how great you are to have time to listen to anyone else. But I know that’s not you. Everyone, no matter their position or rank, has something to offer you. Try talking to the lift operator, the car park attendant, the cleaning staff, whoever and whatever. And, most important, listen to people on your team. They are the ones in the know who have to work with the resources and the products. They are the ones at the cutting edge, and they may well have ideas, good ideas. You don’t need to consult them over every little thing but the big things...well, yes. Talk to them. Get their feedback, their ideas, their creativity.

You obviously have to be careful to make sure that although you are listening to them it is you who still is in charge. You might listen but that doesn’t mean you are going to act on every one of their ideas. Nip in the bud the feeling that if they suggest, you have to carry out. Therein lies terrible trouble. Listen, assimilate, and then decide based on what you’ve heard, your own experience and ideas, and what is practical. It’s no good you listening and then not using their information and they becoming terribly despondent—“What’s the use of telling the boss my ideas, they’re never used.”

You have to listen without giving the idea that you will necessarily use their ideas, so then they won’t be disappointed when you do something completely different. But you can make
them think their ideas were incorporated into your overall strategy.

Virtually every team member I have ever known could tell their manager something useful about what they as a team or a company are getting wrong, or how something could be done better. If you’re open to this, ask good questions and listen without prejudice (or talking over them), you’re immediately in a different class than most managers.

Adapting your style does not mean you have to be a chameleon. It means you have to be sensitive to your team’s individuality and work with it. You may have outgoing members who like to be praised in public, and then you might have quieter, more introspective members who would shrivel up and die if praised in public and prefer to be told they are doing a good job privately. There, you’ve changed your style without changing your skin, spots, or personality.

I have one team member, a very good one, who does her job superbly but who absolutely hates appraisals and would do anything to get out of them. She loathes having to talk about herself in any way—and this borders almost on a real phobia. I have to change my style with her considerably when carrying out a six-monthly appraisal because if she gets wind of the fact that I’m even thinking about doing one she’ll hyperventilate and have a panic attack. And then I have another team member who greets me each morning with a very cheery, “How am I doing, Boss?” Now he really likes talking about himself and would happily be given a daily appraisal—if I were to let it happen. Both team members do their job extremely well—they wouldn’t be there if they didn’t—but they do need handling in a completely different way. I want them both to continue doing good work, and I have to handle them differently to get the best from them.

Similarly, some people like to be left alone, to create opportunities and make things happen, and they will come and tell you if they need help (the bright self-motivators) and others will need you to direct their actions more and give them specific projects to do. Don’t overmanage the former—they’ll resist and they’ll
get irritated (and quite possibly leave). Equally, don’t undermanage the latter or they will feel stressed by a lack of structure to their job and won’t work hard. Think about the individual. Think about what they need and what motivates them, and adapt your management style accordingly.

This one is so simple, and yet I bet very few managers use it. And why not? It makes people feel really special and important. All you have to do is say to your staff, “You know about this, what do you think?” The key principles to this rule are

• Ask their opinion.

• Get their ideas and views.

• Give them more responsibility than they ever had before—you’ll be surprised how people always rise to a challenge.

• Discuss important issues and news with them.

• Encourage feedback.

• Never dismiss them as being “mere workers.”

Even if you
know
you know more about a subject than they do—still do it. They feel good. They perform better. They learn from your conversations. Maybe you learn, too.

And while you’re doing all this, take them through the entire process of your industry so that they don’t get stuck in a rut of one department. You have to let them see their important role in the overall scheme of things, how their contribution is valuable and helpful, and how the whole thing would flounder without them.

Treat them as you would a valuable client you were showing round. Let them in on your industry’s secrets: “Well, we use the new XP8 coatings on our silicon chips, unlike Mathers and Crowley who still use the old XP5, but I expect you know that anyway, but do keep it under your hat as it’s how we stole an
idea from them and got that huge contract with the DVLA last year.”

Keep them informed about developments in your industry—perhaps you could subscribe to your industry’s newsletters and magazines, technical journals, and papers, that sort of thing—so that they think you are assuming they are interested, informed, and know more than perhaps they do. This will encourage them to keep learning and wanting to know more.

Yes, yes, I know you are the boss, the manager—and a damn good one, may I say—but you don’t always have to have the last word. This isn’t like being kids on the playground.

If people in your team disagree with you openly, then there are two possible reasons why: Either they feel confident enough to engage in debate (in which case you ought to appreciate that) or they are out of line, and you aren’t imposing discipline enough to stop them. It may well be a warning sign that things are wrong or a sign that things are very right—only you can judge.

If they are out of line and there’s a discipline issue, obviously you need to deal with that in private. Otherwise, remember that your staff is composed of grown-ups. You have to give them room to be real people, and that means they will sometimes disagree, argue, and get mad. That’s fine on a good team where people can sound off and nobody takes umbrage. It obviously doesn’t work in a poor team.

It doesn’t pay always to have the last word or always to be right or always to correct staff on every little thing. Sometimes, whether they are right or wrong, it’s best to let it go. Know the difference between things important enough that you need to have the last word, and things where it really doesn’t matter.

I used to believe that to be a good manager I had to be able to do not only my own job—managing—but also everyone else’s job as well. And probably, I thought in my heart of hearts, I should be able to do it as well as them if not better. Thus, I figured, if there was an emergency I could step in and do their job and everything would carry on functioning. Yep, I bet you’re there before me. If I were to step into their job, who would be doing mine?

Answer, of course: nobody.

The key is to have a practical understanding of what all the jobs entail but realize that you don’t need to be able actually to do them. Yes, you do need back-up in the event of a crisis, but it ain’t you. You’re better off right where you are—managing.

To understand the role, the best way is to know what problems it solves and how it works. But you don’t need to be able to do it as well as your team member does—that’s what you pay them for. Something about keeping dogs and barking yourself—you need to know what job the guard dog does, but you don’t need to go round biting burglars to appreciate it fully.

And often you’ll employ someone for such a specialized job you wouldn’t know where to begin. You might be the manager of a power plant, but you don’t need to know how to calculate the shelf life of plutonium. But you do need to know that you employ someone who can do that job for you.

It’s also important for all your team to have an understanding of what everyone else does. This certainly helps create a team spirit and a sense of loyalty.

It’s easy to give someone a job description and a contract and then sit back and expect them to get on with it. Trouble is, it leads to a lot of confused people and wasted time. Better to let them know right from the start what is expected of them.

And what is expected of them? Well, it’s a whole lot more than just the job itself. You have to think through every individual role and what exactly is expected of that person.

It’s vital that people know what part they play in any strategic plan and what is expected of them as a result. It’s essential that team members know the values and standards of the team and the company, and what’s expected of them in attitude and behavior (open? honest? imaginative? caring? can do?). It’s also about them being clear on emotional requirements, punctuality, working overtime, behavior toward colleagues, crisis management—everything.

For new employees this is helped if you have a “buddy” program where each new person is linked to someone more experienced who can show them the ropes.

Oh, and some guidelines on relationships at work. It’s only fair that everyone knows what is expected of them in any given situation—you can’t discipline someone for having sex in the broom closet if it hasn’t been spelled out to them that they don’t do that sort of thing—“But we always did it at my previous place of work and no one complained.”

One manager I worked with was very moody. When she was relaxed, everyone was productive but had fun. Occasional pranks kept their spirits up, and she didn’t have a problem with it, in moderation. When she was stressed, however, you could get your head bitten off for as little as laughing too loud.

As I say, there were times she was very relaxed. But no one else on her team was. They had no idea what mood she’d be in, so they were always on edge. Would she be happy with a report that was poorly presented but contained all the facts, or would she rather wait until tomorrow and have it looking perfect? Could you get away with the briefest of paperwork for a particular procedure, or did you need to fill it in in triplicate, dotting every i and crossing every t? Hard to say really—it depended which side of bed she got out of that morning.

And how did her team respond? Well, if you’ve ever worked for a manager like that, you’ll know the answer. They were pretty demoralized, and their standards were hugely inconsistent. Obviously, because their manager’s standards were similarly wide-ranging.

Look, if your team doesn’t know what your standards are, how can they aspire to them? They’re looking to you to set the lead, and if you don’t, they can’t tell where they’re going or how they’re supposed to get there. You have to be consistent in the standards you set and the performance you expect. If something is unacceptable on Monday at 10 a.m., it should be unacceptable on Friday at 4 p.m. If paperwork is supposed to be filled out a particular way, that’s the way it should be done every day of the week.