Challenge the youth

There is a specific management challenge emerging in most companies right now.

Due to our national demographics, the ranks of management in all types of organizations is becoming dramatically younger.

Don’t get me wrong, youthful exuberance is something organizations can all benefit from. The challenge is that many of these emerging managers have not been in the professional world for long periods of time.

These new managers have not had a lot of time to experience being managed, and therefore don’t have a strong knowledge base about what it takes to be a manager.

Most new managers get their jobs because they have been a star performer. But being a star performer doesn’t mean these folks have the skills and talents to manage and develop other star performers. Some times they do; some times they don’t.

The operating theory is that if someone knows how to do a job well, they can manage and coach others to do the same job well. Because of this, organizations usually do a poor job training folks for this change of role.

A popular intermediate step is to promote someone to the “player coach” role. A star performer is asked to take on a management role, but is still required to do a scaled down version of their former role even as they pick up their management responsibilities.

While this strategy makes intuitive sense, it is a tremendously difficult transition for new managers for a variety of reasons. Often these new managers are promoted quickly, turning co-workers and peers into direct-reports in only a day’s or week’s time.

I recently spent a few days interviewing managers in an organization that uses this promotion structure. In these discussions, several important themes emerged. I pass on their experience as helpful points to other new managers — and to upper-level executives interested in fostering success.

Generate respect. All of the managers I interviewed talked about how difficult it is when the transition time from co-worker to “player coach” managers was compressed. Sometimes they walked out of the office one day as a co-worker and came back the next as a boss.

Invariably, they immediately understand that there is a high pressure to “walk the talk” if they are going to be successful. As they still have a partial player role, they need to demonstrate a continued ability to do the work so that they can direct others confidently and effectively.

Train yourself. Each of these new managers intuitively picked up on the fact that to be able to get work done through other people requires a knowledge of psychology, motivation and strong interpersonal skills.

At the same time, nobody told them how to learn this, or the most effective way to implement this knowledge. They have to take it upon themselves to learn these requisite skills and talents.

Use a positive approach. The new managers in this organization benefit from an upper-level management culture of modeling and encouraging a positive approach to management. They are seeing the results. These young folks are enthusiastic managers who want to do a good job, and want their direct-reports to do a good job.

Require accountability. This essential element of management provides the most challenge for new managers. The steps I’ve outlined above help, but there will be times when managers must call direct-reports into their office and show them how they are not performing and tell them the consequences of that behavior.

You can’t manage unless you can do this. Yet these young managers are given very little in the way of guidance and support around this. Those who are adapting to having these difficult conversations seem to be doing better than those who aren’t.

I conducted these interviews because upper-level management has recognized the challenge. These executives believe that an internal management training program will accelerate the ability for these competent, new young managers to excel. Based on what they have learned on their own, that seems likely.

I was encouraged by my interviews. These young, new managers understand that leadership isn’t about authority and autonomy. Leadership is about inspiration and influence.

That youthful exuberance is helping this generation of managers emerge — and if you can provide them a framework of training and learning that helps them with specific management skills, you will capitalize on that energy.

Read more: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/business/x1040011872/Challenge-of-youth#ixzz1vW1NH7Ms

Read more: http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/business/x1040011872/Challenge-of-youth#ixzz1vW0bcGYH

People investment = Organizational return

Many companies wrestle with a core question when faced with economic constraints: Is the cost of developing your employees a necessary expense, or just a nice thing to do? After all, you pay an employee to do a job; do you really need to pay to make them better at their job too?

Recently I wrote about attracting, retaining, engaging, and activating highly skilled emplyees. A core concept within that framework was the need for coaching, mentoring, and supporting top talent in specific ways. Many leaders, however, don’t truly get what such talent management practices achieve.

There can be several reasons for this. The primary one is that usually folks who emerge in high level leadership roles are intrinsically highly motivated and driven people. They are also people who likely sought out and established mentoring relationships naturally. These leaders may understand the value of such developmental interactions for themselves or other skilled individuals, but don’t know the organizational value of human resource development.

Organizational programs that support mentoring or coaching seem like good ideas, but are they worth it to the bottom line? After all, in this fragile economy don’t all expenses need to be carefully considered?

The answer to both of these questions is yes. Your company needs to prioritize expenses that will tie as closely as possible to revenue generation or increased productivity. Yet in a pinch, two areas ripe for cost cutting usually relate to marketing expense and human resource development. Both types of cuts can hurt, but the latter will hurt you longer and potentially more deeply.

One of the themes of this blog has been the transitional employment environment we face this year. Yes, unemployment is still high and yes, our economy is still fragile. Yet we continue to see record numbers of folks looking to switch jobs.

We know employee turnover is expensive; it is much more expensive to hire and train a new employee that to develop an existing one. The lack of development that has happened in the last few years because of restricted budgets has exacerbated the problem: people feel under appreciated, stagnant, and in search of a place where they will find meaning as well as a paycheck.

The bad news is that this is old news. This type of cost benefit analysis has been known for decades. It’s not motivating organizations to change their ways. It’s tempting for leaders to say to themselves “In this economy, there is lots of talent on the sidelines; we can just replace this role if we need to.” True: expensive, but true.

Recent research in human resource development is increasingly telling us a different story. At a meeting of the New England Society for Applied Psychology, Dr. Caroline D’Abate presented some compelling research that showed developmental interactions aren’t just correlated with individual performance, they correlate with improved organizational performance as well.

Leaders take note: investing in development lowers the cost (and liklihood) of employee turnover, is linked to increased productivity, increased sales, and increased return on assets.

So, aside from getting more people to do more and better work, these types of programs are linked directly to financial bottom line metrics most leaders consider essential.

The good news is that senior leaders are beginning to get it. Connecting the “soft side” of human resource development with the “hard side” of organizational performance management is beginning to emerge in companies interested in creating sustainable success.

A focused effort at creating an organizational culture that supports programs such as mentoring and coaching is good for your employees, good for your senior level leaders, and good for your organizational performance.

Organizational culture emerges from the top, which means those very same leaders who are challenged to understand the impact of investing in people need to not only understand it, but become champions and supporters. As the research continues to strengthen the case for such investments, are you prepared to take the steps to make such investments happen? And the bigger question: in the current economic envrionment, can your organization afford not to?

How to help your team thrive

A CEO of one of Boston’s fastest growing companies approached me recently to ask for help with a key divisional leader and her team. The company is forecasting another year of remarkable growth, but to hit their growth goals, this division is going to have to have a blowout year.

The divisional leader and her team have started the year strong; the goals for January and February have been surpassed.

Given this, I asked what the problem was.

The CEO told me that the leadership team knows that for the organization to succeed, this group needs to excel and thrive – they need to be at the top of their game for the remaining ten months of the year. The goal, he told me, would be to create support for this leader and her team that would help them do just that – thrive.

Thriving teams are essential to organizational success. A recent survey conducted by the American Psychological Association reports that there is a strong correlation between employees who feel valued at work and organizational performance. In other words, if your team members feel valued for their work, they are more likely to thrive.

The survey found that 93% of all employees who reported feeling valued also reported they are motivated to do their best work, and 88% reported that they were engaged in their work. By contrast 50% of all employees who said they did not feel valued were not only disengaged, they were actively looking to leave their job within the year.

A bestselling business book, Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us by Daniel Pink, states that today’s workforce is motivated by three dominant factors: autonomy, mastery, and self direction. The recent survey by the APA bears this out.

Of those who did not feel valued, 84% noted having fewer opportunities for involvement in decision making (autonomy). 70% were less satisfied with potential for growth and advancement (mastery). 59% were less satisfied with opportunities for flexible work arrangements (self-direction). These folks are experiencing a direct demotivation effect.

Looking at the other side of the divide, the APA will recognize 11 organizations who have excelled at creating healthy workplaces. 80% of employees in this top group reported being satisfied with their job, and 78% reported they would recommend their organization to others as a good place to work. Not surprisingly, the annual turnover rate among these top employers is only 11%.

So, how does all this help the CEO and his division leader? The take-away is that if you have a team which has technical competence to do their jobs, there are specific steps you can take to help them thrive.

Give them the resources they need and get out of the way. If your competent team has the skills and resources they need to get the job done, give them the authority and autonomy to succeed. Think about “checking in” rather than “managing” them.

Give them the opportunity to learn. Support intentional professional development. If a team member can show you why learning a new skill or talent will benefit them and the organization, advocate on their behalf for the training, learning experience, or conference.

Give them the flexibility to succeed. Your organization may have certain requirements for each job regarding where and how work gets done. But be sure these requirements make sense. Encourage them to advocate for the best way they feel they can work for maximum effectiveness.

Today’s workforce is shifting to a “clock-less” mentality – if it is important, it gets done. Valuing employees has a lot to do with responsiveness. If you want them to thrive, you need to be able to respond to them when they need it – not when it is convenient for you, the leader.

That’s a shift in the traditional manager-employee power dynamic. It means, in an odd way, that you work for them; the best way to get your team to thrive is to be their coach, advocate, and principle resource.

This doesn’t mean you give up on accountability. In fact, this is a model that depends on true accountability – the accountability the employee has to him or herself to do their best work. And when that occurs, you’ve got a thriving team.