Congratulations, You’ve Got People! Part 2

OR, The Road to Heck is Paved with Good Intentions

Jump to Part 2 here

Part 1 – From January 25: You’ve worked hard. You’ve been looking forward to actually leading your own team. You’ve had supervisors you look up to, who inspired you.  Or maybe you had supervisors who made  you think, “Surely I can do better than that…”

You may been given training, coaching and advice. Or you may have been sent on your way with the unspoken message, “Go forth and lead.” But how do we really learn what we need to know about getting work done through people, as their supervisor.  I have my theories, but I wanted to hear what other managers had to say.

Part 2 – February 1: Even though the survey is closed. I invite you to add your comments to this blogpost (further below poll results – note: the poll may take about 10 seconds to load.)

You Might Be Asking What This Has to Do With Anything, Anyway

What I know is that, as managers of people, we craft assumptions based on what we believe, what we value, what we observe and the expectations that have been communicated to us, intentionally or unintentionally.  And, the result of making decisions based on an unexamined foundation can range from inconvenient to dire.

The Road to Heck is Paved with Good Intentions

For instance, it might seem like the right thing to do to fight for a high performance rating for all of your employees until your team pushes back on you that Sally isn’t pulling her weight.  How do you tell her she has performance improvement needs without her asking why this is the first she is hearing of it?  And after all, just a few months ago, via her performance rating, you told her she was meeting expectations.  You communicated some version of, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”  Now you’re in a fix.  Do you endure the prospect of losing the respect of your team members or the discomfort of telling Sally the truth, or both?  Not to mention the difficult position that you’ve put the organization in if Sally’s performance doesn’t improve, and she needs to be held accountable to that.  Your employer may have to support your decisions in litigation, if worst comes to worst.  Good intentions can sometimes backfire, in great and small ways.

How Do You Sort Through The Seemingly Conflicting Expectations of You, as a Manager of People?

As a manager, you have your own natural inclination in response to a situation.  When I say “natural inclination,” what I mean is, what occurs to you first – your 1st reaction – something you often don’t think is reasonable or actionable.  What I know is that your natural inclination should not just be tossed away, and often holds a clue to a wise, powerful and authentic response. When I coach managers, I like to start there, and then dial in other areas that do not come as naturally. I use this model which focuses on these 3 domains:

• ORGANIZATION – This domain includes the foundational expectations that your boss, the organization and your employees have of you, that are often taken-for-granted, and sometimes even unspoken. And then, when you see these expectations, you can compare them to what seems right and true to you, and begin to work through any conflict this causes you.
• SELF – Leading and managing people is not a cookie-cutter thing. The way you approach it is unique to you. It’s important to get clear on your own process. Once you are clear on this, and also the unspoken expectations of the organization, you can more confidently think through and adjust your decisions and interactions as necessary based on the needs for the unique situation.
• EMPLOYEES – The importance of addressing the Human needs of people at work is often disregarded, if not outright dismissed.  I find there are four basic Human needs that we can’t help but bring to work, and which are appropriate to have met at work: appreciation, belonging, contribution and meaning.  These components of Human nature can easily be leveraged to grow employee initiative and satisfaction.

When you begin to examine your decision-making process, and the foundation on which it is built, your management of people will stop feeling like so much effort, or a guessing game.  You will be coming from a place of power (the good kind), from the inside, which no one can take away from you.

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