09May/14

Who is your best supporter?

May 9, 2014BlogAdvocate, Boss, Critical Thinking, Direct Report, Knowledge, Mentor, Peer, SupportVictoria

By Amotoki (Own work) via Wikimedia Commons

As a manager you may often find yourself in the middle of a minefield without a clue how to proceed. Where do you start looking for help? There are many people around who want you to succeed that they will willingly give you the benefit of their knowledge and experience. Your job is figure out where to go and when. If you get it wrong, it can make your issue that much more difficult. Here are some things to think about when seeking support:

Spouse/Partner

This person will be your biggest cheerleader so don’t expect to get that butt-kicking you may occasionally need. Go here to build confidence and alleviate self-doubt. Your partner may be perfectly capable of telling you when you’re messing up but give that job to someone else. Am I saying don’t discuss work with your spouse? No, but unless you are in the same profession and can solve the problem– don’t get into anything deep. Home is for recharging your batteries so that you can start fresh the next day. Better to have them rub your feet.

Staff

Technical or knowledge based questions go to your staff. They’re the experts and will be happy to fill in the gaps. After all, unless you came from their ranks, they don’t expect you to know it all. Getting their input humanizes you without undermining your authority. Be honest with what you know and what you do not know because if they believe you are pretending; you will break the very trust you are trying to establish.

Boss

This is a must go-to person but proceed with caution lest you seem incompetent. Before you enter the office, think about the problem you are trying to solve and the words you want to use. Write it down and ask intelligent questions that demonstrate critical thinking skills. Your goal is to learn and grow – not whine and complain. By the same token, don’t make the mistake of not going to your boss for answers. If you’re not sure which situations warrant advice – ask.

Peers

Peers are powerful allies. They are not your boss and they are not your staff. They know your industry and the players in it. This puts them in a position to best counsel you because they have all of the pieces. Expect observations to be genuine because they can show you what others see. A time will come when things don’t go as they should. Who do want to give you feedback to help you correct it? If your boss addresses it, you’ll probably be concerned about a reprimand. Conversely, if a direct report addresses it, s/he may fear retaliation from you whether warranted or not. A peer can give you that unvarnished truth you need to make the necessary corrections without fear.

How to choose a peer advocate:

Choose only one person. You are asking this person to be your workplace advisor. More than one gets confusing.
Make an official request. Explain that you want them to be part of your support team. Their role is to give you honest feedback about your actions and decisions that will help you learn and grow.
Use “Vegas” rules. Work on building the trust by agreeing that your discussions remain private.
And finally – This is not your “vent” buddy. This is someone who will help you solve problems before frustration sets in. Find someone else to help you let out those frustrations when things are bad. If you need a vent buddy – use someone outside of work.

Find a mentor

This is someone who only has your interest at heart. They want you to be better simply for the sake of being better. This is where you seek advice, vent frustrations, show vulnerability and do all of those things that a manager must do to maintain sanity. A good mentor will listen, advise, teach and admonish as necessary. S/he will tell you when you’ve got it right and when you need to get your act together.

So who’s your best supporter? Simple, it is whoever gives you whatever you need to keep growing.

02May/14

Increasing Job Quality and Productivity

May 2, 2014BlogEmployee, Management, Problem Solving, TrainingVictoria

Krispy Kreme Donuts by Neil T ©

Part of a manager’s job is to get excellent quality and high productivity from the team. What’s important to understand is that this is a universal truth whether you are making widgets or analyzing data. The end goal doesn’t change. So how does that happen? If you keep these three concepts in the forefront, things will be much smoother in the long run.

Training is paramount

We all know that training is important but there’s a problem. The training budget is usually the first thing that goes when things are tough because the suits don’t (or won’t) understand that everything that happens in an organization is based on the quality of the training. Why? Because training is the tie into increased quality and production. Think about what training is. It is “the effort to increase the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) of employees and managers so that they can better do their present jobs”. By investing time and resources to train staff in the correct way to run the business, organizations can save themselves a lot of headache cleaning up behind them. Additionally, the ability to cross-train employees not only enhances employee worth but makes routine jobs more interesting.

Don’t let the word “training” scare you. Think about the definition and look for opportunities all around you. Your opportunities don’t have to be expensive; they just have to be relevant. You don’t have to hire someone to develop an in-depth program that results in a certificate and a photo op. In fact, that type of training can often be looked at as a box to check off for the sake of getting it done. Look around and see how you can use whatever is happening in your workplace as a true training experience. Here’s an example: I once supervised the dispatchers for an Animal Control Shelter. To help them understand how their performance directly affected the field officer’s ability to do the job, I started sending them out with an officer for a day. This did a few things: (1) the dispatcher was able to actually see how the officers used the information they gave out; (2) They could hear how their peers sounded on the air and give constructive feedback while taking note of their own on-air performance; (3) It was a great morale booster because it gave each of them an entire day off of the phones and out of the office. I then used staff meetings to discuss the rides-along and in time, the group began to “train itself” in terms of best practices and problem solving.

Performance measurement

Another way to affect quality and productivity is to develop performance standards that clearly define expectations. Employees can be held accountable when they are given goals that align with quality and productivity expectations. Yes, your company may have a set standard for performance appraisals but the truth is that they are mostly designed to ensure the company is adhering to policy. If you must use the company standard appraisal, fine. That doesn’t mean you can’t elaborate and use it to spell out your expectations. In fact, if done correctly, your process should make it that much easier to fill out the “official” form. Use the appraisal as a tool to influence performance. Notice I said influence – not dictate. Meet with your employee regularly to “check in” with each other and make mid-course corrections. A weekly one-on-one can be done in five minutes. A well designed appraisal system can “serve to identify performance weaknesses for which training or counseling would be beneficial”. As long as the supervisor employs a system designed to nurture the employee, the appraisal can be a powerful tool to help achieve organizational goals.

Effective Job Analysis

In order for employees to be able to perform well, the job has to be properly defined. Are your employees doing what they were hired to do? If not, maybe it’s time to rewrite the job description. Make sure the description spells out what the employee is supposed to be doing in terms of duties and responsibilities. If not done correctly, the possibility exists that you could wind up with redundant duties across classifications and/or lack of clarity about who is supposed to do what. Additionally, a poor job description could mean missed training opportunities to improve procedures and processes, both of which could affect the productivity and quality of an organization’s output.

Bottom Line

Make sure your people know what is expected of them (job description), seek out training opportunities using all available resources (think outside of the box), and hold employees accountable (properly designed performance appraisals). Do these things consistently and I guarantee that you will see improvement in quality and productivity.

References:

Berman, E. M., Bowman, J. S., West, J. P., & Van Wart, M. (2001). Human resource management in public service: Paradoxes, processes and problems. Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Foster, M. R. (2005). Effective job analysis methods. In S.E. Condrey (Ed.), Handbook of human resource management in government (2nd ed., pp. 528-555). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

08Apr/14

Purses and Managers

April 8, 2014BlogLeadership, Management, Policy, QuestionVictoria

My wife loves purses. In fact she loves them so much that she has them displayed on a wall in our home. Personally, I don’t get it but it makes her happy. So image our surprise when we went to our local outlet mall and we’re stopped at the door of a designer purse shop because we had to wait in line to get in. There was no sale, no specials, just a routine day at the mall. As far as I could tell, there were about a dozen people actually in the store and four people queuing up waiting for four of those lucky insiders to leave. Curious, I asked the young lady at the door why. Her answer? They didn’t want the store to be too crowded. We went to another store.

The practice of having people stand in line just to get into a store angers me on several levels. It reeks of poor management and lousy leadership from the view of the patron, the employee and the manager.

I looked at the patron’s view. As a potential customer I felt unwelcome. The young lady standing outside of the store at the door became a physical and psychological barrier that let me know that the store did not welcome my presence or my business ‐whether they needed it or not.

I thought about it from the employee’s view. “Great another day of standing outside doing traffic control and getting snarky remarks from people when I could be selling that cute little blue number in the window. Tomorrow, I’ll see if the store across the street has any openings where I can actually sell something.

I thought about the manager who follows this policy in June when there are not masses pushing and shoving to get to the cute little blue number in the window. The whole thing is absolutely ridiculous. It may make sense the day after Thanksgiving but not on a Saturday in April even if some people do consider baseball opening day to be a national holiday.

So why do it in the first place? My first thought was loss prevention. If shoplifting is that big of a problem hire a security guard. Is it too expensive? If that’s the case, the employee standing outside the door is nothing more than cheap, unskilled labor. Is she trained to stop a shoplifter? Is she even trained to spot one and if so, how can she if she’s outside watching people stand in line? Unless her job is to keep potential thieves from entering the store in the first place, the loss prevention angle isn’t looking good.

Next, I considered the possibility that the store wanted to create an atmosphere of wealth and exclusivity. You know, like those clubs where you stand in line all night to pay a huge cover charge you don’t have to be in the same room (albeit miles away) with some celebrity you don’t – and will probably never – know. None of that matters because you can say that you were there. Well, if that’s the reason for the line I’m thinking an outlet mall is the wrong place. People are there looking for deep discounts on perfume and shoes, not celebrities and expensive drinks. The concept is pretentious and hopefully, people are smart enough to see through it.

So if it’s not loss prevention or posturing, what is it? It’s a memo from corporate and this is where managers need to stand up and manage. This is when they must be brave enough to tell corporate that what works on 5th Avenue won’t necessarily work in anytown USA. Listen up managers ‐ this is your call to action. Your job is to make your company successful. It is not part of your job; it is your only job. How do you do that? Simple – don’t be afraid to ask questions. If you are afraid that you will be fired for asking questions, turn in your resignation – you are not ready to manage anyone let alone lead them . Question any policy that lowers team morale and drives away customers. Question any policy that not only allows but instructs you to give your patrons and your staff less than the very best you have to offer. Yes, the head office will dictate policy from above because it seems best for the entire company but they will never know that a blanket approach won’t always work ‐ unless someone tells them. If you don’t tell them, the person replacing you will.