Try these five tactics, today!

• Become more aware of others who share their important work with you – watch how well they do it – note the benefits; to them; to you! See – it works!
• Note those things you do in your work, that someone else could and create a plan to give them all away within one week. Take time to plan it and show people what you want. Then plan to delegate more next week & on.
• Can’t decide? What would you do if you only had half the time (note:- do not think tactical or fire-fighting here – someone else has (or should have) that job).
• Ask your people what they would like to take on that you do now – where do you get in their way? Let them have it!
• Encourage this down the line – who can your people share key tasks with? Be the model – help them do this too.
• Figure out what you can do with all that lovely time. Scared? Don’t be – look for growth opportunities – people; marketing; future things (See ‘Q2 time’ – Begin with the End in Mind Chapter – Covey’s Seven habits).

Delegation is a valuable tactic to free up your valuable time, as well as enlightening your people with an understanding of the capacity they have to do more, learn and develop.

With the negative press they get, who would have thought there was much value to glean from meetings. Yet, when you look at the possibilities, there are many positives to gain, when you know how.

Let’s be clear, there are different sorts of meetings. We’ve all been to the ones that drive us crazy. Nothing valuable happens or they overrun – and even those really fun ones where there was no real purpose for us to be there at all.

The joys of meetings can be somewhat hard to find.

Yet, when the focus is right, there really are meetings that can add value, especially when they are structured the right way and managed well to give the outcomes that you need.

Let’s take a look at three key types of meetings and where you  can create useful, value-cranking outcomes from them!

Information Giving Meetings

To start with, there are meetings where information is given.

These one-way meetings are simply to ensure that a consistent message is given to all attendees. There is little, if any, two-way exchange, because debate is not the purpose. Typical of this would be presentations, announcements and often mass communications of some sort.

Sometimes the time and effort to hold these can be avoided, particularly when the information can be given in writing or electronically. Remember though, that there are some people who ‘get’ the message best when they hear and see it.

And it’s good to follow up with something written down for reference, however it’s done, because people don’t always hear well and need something to go through again, when they have time to focus more precisely.

The value here is consistency of message and actually seeing you give it, to show that you are together with the rest of your team.

Personal Meetings

These are one-to-one meetings that you as a manager take the time to provide for someone in your team probably – though not exclusively of course, as they could be with a customer or supplier, as two other examples.

Here discussion takes place openly and the interaction quality will vary, depending on the openness and rapport that is built between the two parties involved.

A typical scenario here would be an objective setting meeting, a disciplinary interview or a coaching session when it comes down to you and a member of your team. There is a huge opportunity here to create rapport and develop the relationship as an investment for the future, so it’s a really valuable thing to do.

With customers or suppliers, as the other two sample examples, it could be to negotiate a deal, review existing contracts or even simply to deal with a complaint. This meeting is again another opportunity to create the rapport than can prove so useful in the future, as long as you handle it professionally, as well as openly and honestly too.

Collaborative Meetings

These are meetings where there are more than two participants and usually not more than perhaps 20 – probably the typical meeting experience for many.

This is an open – well controlled through facilitation – discussion about the relevant ingredients of the agenda.

In this sort of meeting, all relevant stakeholders who can contribute into the debate to create valuable outcomes, will be present.

The value here – and where most frustration over meetings can happen – is in the shared responsibility for an outcome, which is generated by the contributions – the ‘collaboration’ – of those present. Participants are there to create an outcome which one or two alone simply could not.

When the meeting activities do not match up to this, those who attend are likely to wonder what they are there for and switch off, citing the whole exercise as a waste of time.

The collaboration is the catalyst for solutions to be found that the debate synthesizes to create a ‘better than the sum of the parts’ outcome. Everyone present is good for this contributory effort and all who share the work are there because they add value and for no other reason.

Where meetings add value they are worthwhile. Getting a meeting structured such that added value is the main criteria, is the key to resources being used effectively, efficiently and very, very usefully.

Communication is the essence of great management. Taking the time to spend time talking and most importantly listening to your people will always be the basis of the relationships we build. Yet how we interpret what we hear can be less than correct.

We cannot always assume that the words we hear mean what we think they do. We give trust to our experiences that have kept us safe, but in the world of work, this can let us down sometimes and we fail to make the best of people because of it.

Often what people say means something very different to them than it might to you. As a manager, you have the luxury of being able to detach from worrying too much about this, as your people will generally follow what you tell them to do – up to a point.

But this isn’t your whole answer. You need your people to be onside when it comes to the information you give out to them, so that they are aligned with the expectations you have of them.

More, when they don’t clearly understand what you mean, they will become frustrated when they do what they hear you want, only to find out subsequently, that this wasn’t really the case. This can seriously damage any relationship you have with them, especially when it happens more than once.

On the other hand, as a manager, it’s easy to place your interpretation on what you hear said and create assumptions based on this. Your beliefs about people can be spoiled by your interpretation of what was said, rather than making the effort to get under the skin of the detail and work really hard to understand what they really meant.

On both sides then, dissemination of information, attitudes and even simple comment is wide open to misinformation, because our ears are not theirs. The words that are said do not neccesarily have the same meaning as what we hear.

Whilst a solution to this is to double-check both that what you say is clearly understood by them and that what they say you have clearly understood, there is a further consideration to make.

Sometimes, you need to stand in a different place than you have always done. Your appreciation of what is said is subject to your own filters through which you hear the world.

It’s vital sometimes to appreciate that the words you hear and interpret for yourself don’t have the edge that you imagine.

That your ‘spin’ is yours and not theirs.

This requires a step-change in your ability to shift your own thinking and by doing this, you are much more likely to get the real value of the thinking and ideas that are being shared.

And you are better equipped for maximizing the relationships you build, rather than wasting time and energy frustrated by the words that others use and hearing them only through your own, filtered and consequently tainted ears.

Author: Mary Jo Asmus

You’re leading a monthly meeting. You’ve asked your team members to provide their input on a topic. Unlike your teenager who at least shrugs his shoulders (or says “I don’t know”) when you ask for his opinion, you get silent stares from your team. What could be going on?

Are your team members incompetent? Do they even know enough about the subject to speak up? Don’t they know that their input is important? Actually, you may need to look to yourself and your behavior as the cause.

The behaviors you exhibit may be shutting your team down. Luckily, these behaviors can be fixed over time, increasing the likelihood that you will get the input you seek. Let’s explore the behaviors that may be preventing your team from speaking up:

You are not listening
Are you doing all the talking? Are you shutting people down or cutting them off?

You have ignored your team’s input
Do you have a history of asking for input and then doing whatever you think is right anyway?

You are asking the wrong kind of questions
Are your questions the kind that don’t foster discussion (yes/no questions for example)?  Are the questions you are asking ones that you already know the answers to?

You supply the answers to the questions
Do you ask the question and then supply your own answers? Are you allowing the silence necessary for your team to consider their answer (yes, silence can be a good thing in this case)?

You shoot the messenger
Do you respond with your opinion (often negative) to the responses you’ve received? Do you feel the need to judge every answer?

Are you showing impatience or temper?
Does your body language indicate that you are not getting the kind of answers you want? Are you rolling your eyes or sighing when a team member responds to a question? Worse yet, are you showing signs of anger or exhibiting outbursts?

Is it possible that any of these behaviors apply to you? Ask someone you trust to observe you and provide some feedback. If you find that you are exhibiting any of the behaviors above, you need to change your behavior.

You’ve lost respect – for yourself and for others – and are on a downward spiral. It’s recoverable. More about how to recover in the next post.

© Mary Jo Asmus is a a former executive in a Fortune 100 company, who now owns and operates a leadership solutions firm called Aspire Collaborative Services at http://www.aspire-cs.com

Whilst management is all about getting the best from the people in your team, they aren’t your only focus. You see, the extent of either success or failure all depends on your personal drive and ambition as well.

The key to effective management comes from your personal abilities to make the most of your team members. Whilst this might sound like it’s a done deal if you work hard enough and are focused on maxing those people out, there are a number of challenges to get past inside yourself first.

Most managers can drive their people’s performance well and, depending on how good their relationship is with their people, this capability will dictate the levels of success they achieve, both in the short- and long-term.

There is a bigger challenge that the very best managers are able to evaluate and then overcome. It’s about what they are prepared to amend, test and even sacrifice in themselves, in order to develop the most effective value-creating relationships, with all of their people.

Whilst it might sound like this is going to be a tough series of consequences for a manager to change in their behaviors, yet it isn’t as hard as it might seem to be at first consideration.

There are five key elements that will be tested for a manager to succeed in developing the relationships they need, to be successful with their team:-

1. Be very interested in others – is most important, because when you show you are really interested in people, it builds rapport, trust and bigger relationships quickly develop

2. Be a lot less interested in themselves – your people love to hear themselves about themselves much more than about  you (though they do like it if you open up a bit from time to time)

3. Giving up control – by letting go of some of their personal controls, the best managers enable their people more, which brings them much closer together (and takes the pressure off the manager too!)

4. Spending some time investing – getting to know their team members (almost inside-out!), will be an investment of their precious time that’s definitely well worth the effort

5. Actually making the effort – by focusing on and creating the opportunities for interactions, the best managers recognize that this is an area of their management that is worth their fullest attention

Most of this work is defining whether a manager has the strength of character to dig in and do the work they need to. It’s both a test of their spirit and energy, as much as helping them find their management path and style.

It’s also a good measure whether they are prepared to challenge, assess and adjust their own behaviors, to get what they truly want from the work they do, by effectively and objectively developing the relationships with their people.

Change is a fact of life. Managing change brings challenges for even the most experienced of managers, yet it’s how it’s handled that can shape a career.

How we take on board the changes that are expected of us when we manage others, can have a significant impact on the way that our people react to them.

By investing time in getting and keeping close to our employees makes a huge difference in how they view us, so what we do with changing situations can be made much easier if we help them understand that we have our job to do and sometimes, just sometimes, that involves introducing changes that are challenging.

Getting them on board the train you are driving is a very smart tactic to adopt, so that there will be a coherency in approach with everyone pulling together as far as possible.

Often, where the bonds between you are very good, there will be an appreciation of the way you handle difficult change and even a support back for you from those affected, where they understand how difficult the experience is for you as well.

Working on those regular interactions with as many of your people as possible is worth it, to help with managing change – one of the many benefits of the investment in being with your people on a regular basis, day-in, day-out throughout your time working together.

It can be tempting for managers who have difficult changes to bring about, to pass the buck upwards to avoid any personal links to the actions being undertaken.

“I don’t agree with it, but…” is a lame effort to shirk responsibility and get off the hook. Where you do this, it’s likely that you will make matters much worse.

Your people will disrespect you for it. Your bosses will come to appreciate your lack of support and for you personally, there will be a gap in how your own actions have not been authentic within the positions for which you are being paid.

The key to progress is to have the great relationships with your people pre-formed; be open and honest about the changes that are coming about; and then to involve as many of the people for whom change will have an impact, in working on ways to make the change work for the benefit of them too.

Generating their ideas and input with refocus any energy they might have to oppose change and often, so often, they will come up with much better solutions to smooth the change through than you might have on your own.

Effective relationships with team members is vital for managers to deliver the very best results. Yet one of the biggest hurdles to overcome is quite close to home.

As managers need their people to be fully productive, it is vital that they nurture the strongest of working relationships with them. Every individual has particular skills to offer and to make the most of this, their full commitment to the cause is vital.

This can be challenging for some managers to work through, with them believing that as manager, their role is superior to their people and they will lead the way – and deliver it – at all times, even when it’s almost impossible to carry the workload output required.

Good managers overcome the challenge that their own high level of self-importance can present. By being able to see the bigger picture of the needs of the team to create results, the best managers recognize that rather than them being the most important in the team, the contrary is true. Their people are where the vital energy and competence needs to lie.

Appreciation of their role as a facilitator, managers who get the best results simply know that they will only deliver strongly when they get the best from every individual they have as a colleague. So they will focus on working much harder at building motivation and collaboration with their people than by trying to show their higher level of authority.

Managers who cannot get past their own ego, pride and ‘position’, will always find the going tough, because their role is never to be the ‘doers’, whatever their personal drive is.

The best managers see their role purely as leveraging the great skills of their people. Indeed really good managers recruit people who are even more capable than they are, without any concerns about doing so.

They have been able to get over their own self-doubt and moved past that, knowing that the better they are at being a humble partner in their team, the more likelihood there is of success. Employees relate to the manager who is on a par with them and are more productive in that situation.

So many managers struggle to get beyond their own self-importance to take the time to create the valuable working relationships where they are as equal partners as possible, yet this is precisely the requirement of the role.

By investing some time building relationships with individuals in a carefully structured way, the more successful managers set their stall out to be doing everything possible to squeeze the best performance from the capable people they have.

This only comes from intimate working relationships that create trust and a following that is hard to pin down, yet is so very powerful and ultimately fruitful.

And the biggest challenge to overcome is so often the manager themselves.

To create great conversations, we need to engage fully with those we want to talk with. There are tactics that anyone can use to draw out the information that is so valuable, as well as showing an interest in the individual on the other side.

It’s not that difficult…

There are several sorts of questions that you need to be aware of. You may already understand these and naturally have a talent for using them in the right places, as some people do.

Some of the questions are simply no-go areas, as they will serve you little purpose. As a hint, listen to radio interviewers as they are often really good examples of how not to do it!

The key is to create conversations that will engage and enthuse your people, building confidence in their own abilities as well as encouraging a healthy, strong and close relationship with you as their line manager.

This is not as tricky as it might sound and simply requires an understanding of the ways you can leverage the unique opportunities you have, with people around you that you can develop your working style with.

One of the best ways to create a conversation is to as what are described as ‘Open’ questions.

Typically these start with the ‘W’ letter, Who? What? Where? When? Why? How? (well, it has a ‘w’ in it!) and are the keys that unlock a conversation.

These are undoubtedly the questions that encourage discovery of information. That’s why they are sometimes called ‘discovery questions’.

When you are coaching (which, as a manager, is much of your time, right?), these will form up towards 80% of the questions you ask – and more.

Interestingly, other tactics can be described as ‘open’ in this context. For example, other favorites are:-

‘You mentioned the delay on the project, tell me more about that…’

You could vary this a little as you get used to it, by saying something like:-

‘Say more about the solutions you found…’

Over time, you will get easier with your own favorites that work well for you, in the context of the conversation you are having with the person you are coaching.

The beauty of ‘open’ questions are that they show an interest in the other person, who, most often, will be only too delighted to talk more about themselves.

Then, using your excellent listening skills you ‘hear’ and get the ongoing contextual clues that will lead you – and them – forward along the self-discovery path, through the next question – and so on.

Remember, as a coaching manager, you are helping them find out about what they can contribute – not what you can fix for them.

The most fascinating component for any manager is the consistent focus on getting the job done. And the only way to measure this is through the results that show up where it counts…

Let’s get this clear, whether you are in a huge organization, managing a large team, or running your own business with just a couple of employees and your dog in the corner.

Whether you are a corporate high flyer in derivatives with a bunch of hot-shot dealers; or if you run a small engineering business in the backwaters.

If you are a team leader in a not-for-profit organization or a civil servant working to provide employment solutions for unmanageable teenagers, it doesn’t matter.

You are there to create value, however it’s measured. A manager’s role and value to the organization comes only – truth be told – from the outcomes they achieve that can be measured and expressed.

You are there to create the outputs that matter, through your interactions and interventions with the people you lead in your team. That figurehead role you strove to achieve in your career is now focused on the bottom line.

Over the last few years there has been much spoken about the behaviors that managers demonstrate as they deliver the returns on human investment, that’s true – and still the bottom line is the end of the line if you fail to make it happen.

Results are your reason for being there.

Cut to the chase? Well, without the healthy returns that the expenditure on you generates, there wouldn’t be much sense in spending it, now would there?

Indeed, investors who sink their money into the stocks and shares that values your organization as a healthy place to put their own hard-earned, could easily be tempted to put it in a savings account, if the income they generate in your business is not worth more.

Through your actions!

And as a manager, they are your accountability. It doesn’t belong to anyone else you see. As the conductor of your particular orchestra, what comes out of it is down to you. Sure, they are all capable individuals – up to a point – of playing their own instruments.

You will tease from them the virtuoso performances of which they are capable, hidden maybe deep down, you draw it from them!

And that translates into the successes by which you – and they – will be measured.

So it’s where your focus lies, creating the outcomes that you can, because of who you are and what you do. It’s not to be to melodramatic about the results you achieve, but it’s because the very bread on your table depends on it!

As a manager, it’s useful to understand what delegation is and how valuable it can be for you.

In fact, any business is usually run by managers operating at various levels who all need to delegate authority and tasks to their team members, so that they themselves can handle more relevant activities.

Some tasks are delegated as a matter of routine, while others are so important that managers decide these kinds of tasks more suitable for their personal attention and hence will not be delegated.

It is therefore important to ensure that you know which tasks are appropriate for delegation and those which should not be.

For many managers, delegating work and authority seems to be nothing more than a means of exercising free will in handing down tasks and responsibilities to others, who must then complete the task assigned to them and be accountable for the outcomes.

However, in its truest sense, delegating tasks and authority is not really an exercise of free will; it is meant to be a means whereby a manager can alleviate heavy workload and additional responsibilities that they cannot do on their own. By delegating some work and authority to others, it allows you to free your time and focus on doing more important work.

Nor is delegating authority and work is such a simple thing; for those who have never delegated before, chances are that they can make it difficult for themselves – because they do not know what is really required of them to get bit right.

To successfully delegate, you will need to have certain skills, patience, confidence and some courage too. With these attributes can should be able to delegate successfully.

Another question that you will need to answer is just how will you benefit by delegating work or authority! Effective delegation means picking the right person to do the right task – choosing a responsible person who can be given certain amount of authority to get things done.

However, even after delegating work/authority your job will not end there because you are, after all, going to be held responsible for the outcome for that you have delegated. You will always need to ensure that the work delegated is performed according to your high standards.

As a matter of fact, many companies view delegating tasks to be a means of developing an employee’s capabilities. When you delegate you will be giving an employee more responsibility, which in turn can act as a motivating force for them to complete the task in the manner you require.

After delegating activities, you will then need to look at the work done by the employee and use their performance as a yardstick with which to measure their effectiveness.

Someone who performs their delegated work well and shoulders responsibility in a desired manner can be developed further, perhaps leading to later promotion, while an employee that fails to produce desired results may be best left at their existing level.

The bottom line is that managers can use delegation as a means to resolve short-term activities, where they themselves need support. In fact, by delegating it is possible to create enough time to personally deal with more important tasks, improving effectiveness, whilst being more efficient in your work, whilst developing your people too.

A good manager who delegates, will be able to manage better and those entrusting new and interesting tasks will be more motivated and committed to their work – and an amazing win-win that works for all.