I remember it like it was yesterday. I received a phone call from HR along with Mrs. Candie Rogers, my soon to be boss at that time, saying congratulations Antoine you have been chosen to lead our Advanced Care Team in Support. Your new title will be Senior Manager of Support Services. You have this weekend to decide whether you are going to accept the position or not, please get back to us with your decision on Monday. It was the beginning of the weekend and my wife and I were driving to South Carolina from Atlanta to see my grandmother. I was very happy but knew I had a decision to make very quick. After all, I applied for the position to continue to develop myself to become a better manager and leader of people. So, I picked up the phone, called Mr. Larry Hilgert, my current boss and told him that I was offered the position in the support organization. He tried to convince me that it wasn’t the right thing to do. Staying close to the customer was and he would make me a Product Specialist with a team assigned to me in Professional Services. He also said Antoine, look you are already taking a pay cut and support just isn’t the place where he thought my talents would flourish. I respect Larry’s opinion but when I have set my mind to do something I usually do it. So, I said to Larry, I am going to accept the position on Monday and started the position as Senior Manager of Support Services 3 weeks later.
Management is the process of working with and working through people along with acquiring resources to accomplish organizational goals. And the main purpose of management is to get results and to retain the team that is being managed. I learned this after being in the job for years, so this article will hopefully save you time and heartache that I have experienced. After all, I was tossed into my role without much preparation like many of you will be.
A few days ago, I did a podcast with Ms. Essence Nance and we compared our first experience in a management role. I told her about me not being prepared and she said that she was and currently has a manager who mentors her. This is great! I had a mentor as well but when I asked her what it was that makes her a good manager she said, “knowing your team, developing goals and meeting those goals”. I said ok and set off to learn as much as I could via reading and trial and error. After all, there was no manual to become a good manager. So today I am going to give you readers a behavior that will save you time and heartache and will instantly help you deliver results as a current manager or a soon to be manager.
The most fundamental thing that you can do as a manager is to get to know your people. If you are a manager, you are probably saying I already know my people. Every manager says this, but do you really know your people? Do you know the names of the most important people in you direct reports life? Do you know their favorite food or what they spend their time in the evenings or weekends doing? Think about the best manager you had. What made them a good manager? You will probably say they cared and knew you, well this is what I am telling you to do. Don’t fake it, care and get to know the things and people that are most important to your direct reports. We all have friends in our life and we know their kids name, wife name, etc. The reason is because of the frequency of the contact with them and trust. No, I am not telling you to become friends with your direct reports, not at all, but what I am saying is to develop a strong relationship with your direct reports. To build a trusting relationship there must be frequent communication about the things that matter to them.
The people in your team and how they behave is what delivers results to organizations, so it is very important to make sure that you set yourself up for success and instant results by getting to know your people. Now, how do you get to know your people at work. The best way is to have a touch-base. A touch-base is a 30-minute meeting between you and each of your direct reports at a scheduled time once a week. Yes, the touch-base needs to be planned and on the calendar. You want your direct reports to know that you care about them enough to put time on your schedule for you both to talk. The touch-base should be structured where the direct report has 15 minutes to talk about anything that they would like to talk about and they should have the first 15 minutes of the meeting. You should be taking notes on actions that you need to follow up on. After your direct gets there 15 minutes, then you can spend the next 15 minutes talking to them about what is important to them and what you heard and then performance. It’s that simple. If you begin to spend time with your direct reports weekly, getting to know them, you will immediately be a better than average manager. Now get it done, it is simple.
BH Nugget:
There is more to management then the touch-base. In fact, there are 4 critical behaviors that an effective manager does to get the results and retain their people. The touch-base is the most important with a weight of 40% so start here. In the next article, I will explain the second critical behavior.
EARN MORE FASTER.
LEARN HOW TO MASTER ESSENTIAL SKILLS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT.
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