One of the regular weekly blogs I read can be found at https://www.peoplealchemy.co.uk/blog/ and Paul Matthews has kindly allowed me to use his 50 Essential Tips for Managers and put my version on his tips. His booklet is all about getting better results for you and your team and his regular articles make for good reading.
1 Values – “Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same, but you leave ‘em all over everything you do” Elvis Presley (1935-1977). In my experience very few individuals don’t know what their values are when they first visit me as a coach. So many companies have contrived values or values they don’t abide by which impacts both employees and customers alike.
2 Environment – “The true measure of the value of any business leader or manager is performance” Brian Tracy. Good performance is up to each in individual to do their bit but has the platform or culture been put in place to help people perform? Do managers micro manage or delegate properly to give the employee the confidence to get their own results?
3 Leadership – “Leadership is about challenging and motivating people to use their potential” – I have read many books and seen many leaders operate. Too many managers get too involved or don’t walk the talk consistently. To be a leader, people need to understand where they stand and what they are allowed to do.
4 Recognition – “Employee recognition is a communication tool that reinforces the most important outcomes people create for your business” So many managers don’t understand the impact recognition has, particularly for those employees who are not normally in the limelight. The little things shown to unsung heroes can give a massive boost to the whole company. It isn’t all about money!
5 Communicating Change- “What you do speaks so loudly that I cannot hear what you say” Ralph Waldo Emerson. For me, it is even more complicated than this. As a former MD, if you involve your employees too early they want to know the detail; if you don’t involve them early they say ‘why didn’t you tell them before!’ Strong management is normally needed, and you have to go with your gut and make things happen.
6 Catching them doing something right – For better performance in today’s world, you will get far better results by catching somebody doing something right and rewarding them, perhaps with just a word of appreciation – I have said in the past that as a sales manager we focused on sales people’s weaknesses and tried to improve them, how wrong were we!
7 Moving fast on people’s issues – The best managers understand that people issues only get worse if left alone, and address them early – At a previous company I worked at, we always believe we reacted quickly but we regularly had feedback from our committed employees that we were too slow to react, interesting today with all of the HR ramifications.
8 Asking for advice – “When they come and ask for help, you have the opportunity to focus on training your team to think through problems” – Too many managers want to show their knowledge and expertise and just give answers rather than develop their people.
9 Time Management – prioritising work over availability. Your greatest asset to your organisation is not your availability, it’s your ability to solve problems and get things done. It’s doing high value work – For me this is one of the biggest issues particularly when managers are recently promoted. How do they do their day job at the same time as supporting others?
10 Never try to teach a pig to sing – It wastes your time and annoys the pig (probably Mark Twain) – we function better when we are doing things that are aligned with who we are, and when we are being our authentic self. We feel good. – This is similar to item 6 but I love the quotation. If employees are fulfilling roles they enjoy doing, they will naturally be good at their job and gain job satisfaction.
If you have a new manager or an existing manager who needs a bit of support or is on their way to becoming a Director please get in touch with neil@nvwsolutions.co.uk or have a look at https://nvwsolutions.co.uk/coaching-for-directors-and-managers/
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