Management Secrets by Mary Elston

We’re continuing our journey through the three elements that are essential for managers who strive to interact the right way with their team. We’ve already covered the first two with my previous blog entries – communicate and enable. Communicating included the need for managers to share information regularly, honestly and in various formats such as group meetings, one on one and more. Enabling includes providing resources and delegating authority. Read the details and refresh your memory on both of these below this latest blog entry.

We’re now ready to bring the third element front and center for managing interactions the right way – support. What comes to mind when you’re providing management support to your subordinates? Is it resources, recognition, pay raises, promotion opportunities, information needed for them to get their jobs done or what? Yes and more! I think of support as part of what you, the manager does, to help get the work done and produce appreciation from your group. Side benefit is you get to feel good about it and build your personal integrity too!

The manager who supports their team is someone who executes managerial actions to consistently generate three P’s: Protect, Promote, and Progress. You should be exercising the three P’s as part of the total supportive experience an employee receives from a great manager, not something you squeeze or sandwich into your week as an afterthought. You may think you are a supportive manager, but non-supportive management style is something I hear professionals complain about all the time as lacking from the average manager. Don’t be “that” manager! Make your supportive management actions part of a tasty meal for exuding positive management character. In a sense, being supportive is something a terrific manager provides for his or her team, in appropriate portions and at timely intervals, as part of keeping his group motivated but not overly indulged. Let’s get into each of the three P’s now.

Protect. The supportive manager is a cheer leader for his or her employees in many ways. While cheering your team on, you’re the manager who protects team interests across the entire organization. This means helping your group maneuver through the political mine fields that populate every organization. You also protect your group by being the manager who watches out for employees at a high level, keeps them focused and serves as a buffer between them and upper management needs. Take heed – protecting your team does not mean you are babying and shielding them from the realities of business challenges. Strive to hit the right balance between protecting your team, continuing to operate in reality and not being overly protective.

Promote. A close ally to the P for protect is the P for promote. While you’re being the manager who protects your team and supports their work you’re promoting them at the same time. A great manager promotes their team by using their management position to help clear the path for success whenever possible. At the same time, you are ensuring upper management knows about you and your group’s accomplishments. This helps place you and your team consistently front of mind when promotion opportunities are being evaluated and sharp individuals are needed to drive a major business initiative. The other aspect of promoting your team is avoiding the temptation to bad mouth your employees to upper executives whenever something goes wrong. Yes, there are times when obvious bad behavior by employees must be honestly addressed, but avoid employee put downs simply because a problem occurs. Your integrity as an accountable manager and true team player shines much brighter when you do.

Progress. The final P needed for supporting your group stands for progress. Always be the manager who is ready and willing to help your subordinates progress their skills, knowledge and careers. Don’t hold people back or make them exist in a vacuum because it makes your job easier or you are coveting visibility only for yourself. When team members are ready to move forward, give them visibility, opportunities to learn new skills, engage in training, stretch their knowledge and prime themselves for promotion down the road. You will be gaining more motivated employees overall. In addition, new skills can enable more efficient job execution and improved productivity across your group.

As the manager who regularly supports your team’s efforts, keep in mind these three P’s that help consistently generate supportive management actions: Protect, Promote and Progress.

Now we’ve covered all three elements needed for being the manager who interacts the right way with your team – communicate, enable and support. Did you already know some of this stuff? Great! Here’s the tough question …if you already knew this, are you actually practicing it in your daily management behavior? If not, you now have the tools to get back on track. The truth is, every manager has to remind themselves from time to time to apply beneficial management practices and that includes interacting the right way with their group by consistently communicating, enabling and supporting team success.

Tell me how you interact the right way with your team and produce great team spirit – write to me and share your comments. My next blog entry will launch another new topic series …. I look forward to talking with you then!

As a manager, are you satisfied with how you’ve been communicating with your employees lately? Looking at it from another direction; how has your boss been interacting with you – has it been effective or falling short from what you’d prefer? With this second installment on our current topic, we’re well on our way to uncovering more answers to these types of questions as we continue exploring this latest blog series on managing interactions for maximizing performance.

Two Minute Video Management Tip — Managing Communication and Interactions

Communication issues surround us. While eating a casual dinner at a restaurant a few weeks ago, I overheard a little girl in the next booth ordering a grilled cheese sandwich off the kid’s menu. It took me back to a communication challenge I encountered when I was about the same age as that little girl. Sitting at a drug store diner with my Aunt Bessie and Grandma in Rock Island, Illinois, we perused the usual cafe choices.   I sat up tall in my fresh cotton dress, black patent leather shoes and lace-edged white socks and ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. Communication turned out to be a problem.

I had asked for a “cheese sandwich” thinking everyone knew the only cheese sandwich on earth was a crispy grilled cheese. Ten minutes later I found out that wasn’t true. I was served a cold cheese sandwich on cold white bread. My much anticipated buttered and perfectly golden, toasted bread with melted cheese center was nowhere to be found. I was perplexed and frustrated. What had I done wrong to deserve this injustice? I had said please and thank you too! My aunt softly explained I had not correctly communicated what I wanted.

As a manager communicating to your team, how often have you been frustrated and perplexed that your employees didn’t respond to your requests with the behavior or deliverables you were expecting? What’s more frustrating is the time and effort involved is much more than what’s required to whip up a grilled cheese sandwich! One of my management programs that I deliver to professionals covers “Secrets for Finding Your Winning Management Style.” One of these secrets is interacting the right way with your team. Managers who interact the right way with their team must do three essential things: Communicate, Enable and Support. It is these three actions that we’ll cover over the next few weeks in this blog series.

Managing productive interactions with your team starts with communicating the right way with your group. During the many seminars I’ve taught on management methods found in my book “Master Your Middle Management Universe;” we discuss management issues professional participants are facing. Every group includes communication challenges on their list of issues. STOP — before you say — “I know this stuff already.”  Think about it … if you know it are you actually practicing it??  Most admit they’re not — at least not on a consistent basis.  With that in mind, let’s keep going.  Look at this info as either good enlightenment or a good reminder.  For a manager to be effective, what constitutes communicating the right way with your team? Communication must be open, accurate, honest and provided on a regular basis. These are communication “must haves” for every manager. This means your team wants to be given information and instructions that help them understand what’s needed, allows them to ask questions and indicates what great performance looks like. Managers who communicate with a lot of bull, rhetoric and cryptic requests are probably getting mixed results from their team. Likewise, managers who are overly detailed may be generating resentment for being micro managers.

What’s the happy medium? Ask your team! If once a week works well, go with it. If once every two weeks is better, consider that option. During high stress times, daily communication may be needed. In all cases, open, accurate and honest communication from management must be genuine and sincere – no bull. It must include updates and detail to make employees feel motivated, appreciated and informed. As a manager, if you expect your team to provide you with consistent input on a request, then take the time to figure out what you want and the format you want it in. Do this before you throw it in their laps and make them do it over four times because, you, the manager, didn’t bother to define what was needed up front! In short, don’t baby your team but do be a manager who communicates with accountability and respect for your team’s time and effort.

Management communication must also be provided regularly in a variety of formats. Face to face, email, memos, phone conversations and staff meetings — including both one way and two way dialogue. It’s amazing to me how many managers think “management” means one-way communication only when a manager feels like giving it. Wrong! Two way dialogue is essential! Communicate – often and in a variety ways – as part of interacting the right way with your team.

That covers the first portion of the three elements required for managers to interact the right way with your team. We’ll dive into the second element in my next blog installment. What are your communication techniques for managing your group? As a manager, what was your most recent “grilled cheese” communication challenge? Let me know! I’ll look forward to talking with you again in a couple of weeks.