One of the most powerful things that you can do as a manager is to put yourself in the position of the people that you manage. It’s far too easy to get sucked up into our own world and believe that we’re the sun in our solar system.
You’re not. Soz.
Okay, maybe to some extent. But I’m trying to make a point here…
The point is that you need to remove your own experience, skills and ego from the dynamic of your relationship with your team – at least temporarily so that you can see things from their perspective.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll have a much clearer picture of what they need from you.
To help you get there faster, I’m going to share four questions that pretty much every single person will think about in regards to their career, their current job and their manager.
If you can provide answers to these questions for your team and back up those answers with your actions, you’ll be in a strong position to lead your team effectively, keeping them motivated and engaged along the way.
Here they are:
- Will what I do in my role make a difference?
- Does what I do in my role matter?
- Will what I do move the company forward?
- Will anyone notice my work?
All of these questions revolve around the same theme, but with slightly different angles. The theme is about the value of someone’s work.
If we go to work everyday and don’t feel like our work is valued, then it’s incredibly demotivating and disengaging. Someone may stick around for a while and hope that things improve but at some point, they’ll move on to a new company.
Ironically, if someone doesn’t move on, despite not knowing the answers to these questions, they’re probably not someone who adds much value to your team or company anyway! So you’ll just end up losing the people who you actually wanted to keep.
So, how do we go about answering these types of questions?
Cascading goals from top to bottom.
It’s all about cascading goals from the top of the company down to the day-to-day work that your team does.
Get clear on the goals of the company
First things first. You need to understand the game that you’re playing and the plan to win that game. You do this by understanding what the goals are for the company as a whole, this is probably going to include things such as:
- Vision/mission statements.
- Annual/quarterly growth goals.
- A mix of revenue/profit numbers, along with leading indicators such as user or customer growth.
- If you’re B2B or an agency, there will probably be goals around client or customer retention.
You get the idea…
Whatever they are for your company – get clear on them. If the company is a bit fuzzy about them, go to your direct manager and get the answer from them.
Get clear on how your team contributes to these goals
Even smaller companies are likely to have multiple teams working together towards the goals of the company. Each one will contribute value in their own way and you need to know how your team is expected to contribute.
For some companies, it’s pretty straightforward and may be as simple as:
- The marketing team needs to drive value into a pipeline.
- The sales team needs to turn that pipeline into customers.
- The customer success team needs to retain those customers.
In this example, each team has a clear role that contributes to the bigger picture.
For other companies, usually larger ones, there may be multiple teams that basically do the same thing when it comes to contributing to the bigger picture. For example, if you work at a digital marketing agency, there may be several teams or pods of digital specialists who do similar roles.
In this case, each team may be targeted on the same outcome and be given a target that relates to this outcome.
Whichever you are, get the clarity to know how your team contributes to the overall goal and how this contribution is measured.
Connect these goals to your team’s daily performance
This is where things get real for you as a manager.
Don’t make the mistake that most managers make here and repeat the goals from the previous step to your team and say “this is what success looks like”.
You need to go a step further and make it real for them on a day-to-day basis. They need to understand how their day-to-day work directly impacts the goals of the team and therefore, the goals of the company.
For example, if you are part of a digital agency and a goal for your team is to retain over 90% of your clients, then you could connect this to day-to-day work by highlighting the skills and behaviours that lead to high client retention. Such as:
- Timely and professional communication via phone and email.
- Meeting deadlines.
- Clear and regular reporting which includes actions and insights.
These points can drive the day-to-day behaviour of your team, giving them clear direction on how their day-to-day work connects to the goals of the team and the goals of the company.
Create effective professional development plans that connect to performance goals
Beyond the day-to-day work that you do, you also need to connect all of the above to someone’s individual professional development plan. This means that you can take a slightly longer-term view of someone’s work, whilst still keeping in mind the goals of the company and team.
Again, a mistake that a lot of managers make when it comes to professional development plans, is to disconnect them from these goals, along with general high performance. For example, they include things such as:
- Learning development, such as courses, conferences or training.
- Earning qualifications.
- Timelines for promotions and pay rises.
Don’t get me wrong – these are important. But on their own, they’re not enough.
You need to include specific development and goals that relate to someone’s day-to-day role and the goals they are contributing to.
So, continuing with the previous example of client retention being the goal, someone’s professional development plan should also include performance goals that include behaviours and skills that drive client retention.
Celebrate wins with your manager (and cc/tag your team)
Finally, a simple and fun one. Celebrate your wins both as individuals and as a team.
Bonus tactic: when one of your team does an excellent job and has clearly achieved something that helps the company hit their goals, email your own boss to let them know, whilst cc’ing the member(s) of your team who are responsible for it. Or if you have a Slack channel for this, post in there and tag the team and your boss.
This gives them recognition at a higher level and demonstrates that what they are doing has value beyond their own work and team.
