Category Archives: feedback

04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

You Can’t Be a Great Manager If You’re Not a Good Coach

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In a recent blog post on hbr.org, Professor Monique Valcour presents a powerful suggestion for managers to connect with and get the most out of employees. She argues that “if your job involves leading others, the implications are clear: the most important thing you can do each day is to help your team members experience progress at meaningful work.”

So how do you know what is meaningful to them? By developing a coaching relationship and having coaching conversations. These conversations will allow managers to understand what drives each person, help build connections between each person’s work and the organization’s mission and strategic objectives, provide timely feedback, and help each person learn and grow on an ongoing basis. The goal is to develop the employee, just as the goal of a pitching coach is to develop his pitchers.

To do so, she lays out 5 tactics for managers.

  1. Listen deeply. Listen with your full attention, and create a high-quality connection that invites your team member to open up and to think creatively.
  2. Ask, don’t tell. In a coaching conversation, it’s essential to restrain your impulse to provide the answers. Your path is not your employee’s path.   Similar to the Socratic method,  open-ended questions, not answers, are the tools of coaching.
  3. Create and sustain a developmental alliance.  Follow-up is critical to build trust and to make your coaching more effective. The more you follow through on supporting your employees’ developmental plans, the more productive your coaching becomes, the greater your employees’ trust in you, and the more engaged you all become. It’s a virtuous cycle.
  4. Focus on moving forward positively. Similar to Professor Smith’s recommendation to have a 5:1 positive to negative feedback ratio, the reverse is true here — when an employee focuses on the negatives during coaching conversations, it’s the job of the manager to end the venting session and steer the discussion into a positive, solution-based dialogue.  You might ask, “Which of the activities you mention offer the greatest potential for building your knowledge and adding value to the company?” “Could you schedule two hours of time for developmental activities each week as a recurring appointment?” “Are there skills or relationships that would increase your ability to meet your primary deliverables?” “How could we work more efficiently within the team to free up and protect time for development?”
  5. Build accountability.  In addition to making sure you follow through on any commitments you make to employees in coaching conversations, it’s also useful to build accountability for the employee’s side of formulating and implementing developmental plans. Accountability increases the positive impact of coaching conversations and solidifies their rightful place as keys to organizational effectiveness.

I wanted to share this article because viewing management through a coaching lens resonates with me. To this day, I deeply appreciate and have nothing but fond thoughts towards my high school athletic coaches — they took a genuine interest in developing me as an athlete and as a person. I’ve yet to have a manager take this same kind of interest my own development, but I imagine my response to that kind of attention would be to make my time at work more meaningful and encourage me to do more meaningful work.

04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

Effective Delegation

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At work I am often tasked with ensuring that younger engineers are  billable on my projects. I find this task much more difficult than the project itself, probably because of my ineffectiveness at delegation. Carl Selinger, in The Art of Delegating, discusses 4 ways engineers can be better delegators:

  • “Clearly describe what needs to be done and by when”: Here Mr. Selinger discusses creating the proper framework to allow the delegate to be successful and communicating this framework to them. I have experienced where a misinterpretation by the person helping me results in them progressing down the wrong path. However, it is also important to not construct a framework that is too restrictive as it limits the delegate’s creativity. Mr. Selinger’s next point also speaks to this.
  • “Accept that the work will not be done exactly as you would have done it”: Provide the delegate with some freedom in making decisions – this may result in them making mistakes, but in my experience the feedback they receive from those mistakes is their best learning tool.
  • “Keep track of delegated work”: It is up to the delegator to keep track of all delegated work. I think it’s important to let the delegate concentrate on the details of tasks they have been assigned and leave the tracking of their progress to me.
  • “Give constructive feedback and criticism”: As I mention above, the feedback engineers receive on their work is the best way to learn. Mr. Selinger calls for “good, substantive points”. I think all feedback should first discuss the project at hand and also include a more generalized version so that the younger engineer can apply it to future tasks.
03-Planning the work of a team, 04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

Managing [Remote] Teams

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Remote work is a passion of mine. Since 2007 I’ve worked remotely in multiple jobs and in multiple capacities. Yikes — that’s 7 years of self-discipline, Skype calls, and lunchtime showers.

While I do not have any direct reports, I’m a Senior Project Manager, which means for every one of my 33 projects, I manage a copy writer, designer, data manager, implementation specialist, and client team — none of whom are in the same state as I am, let alone down the hall.

I’m always looking for ways to improve team work, manage better, and communicate clearly. All of these skills need to be at a different level when there’s no face-to-face, but some of them can translate to an office environment.

Jana Rhyu wrote a blog post on LoopUp that hits several familiar points on managing remotely that I’d like to share with you.

1. Hire the right people
Jana gives some tips on what “the right people” are. You can probably guess “autonomous self-starters” lead the list of good remote employees, but did you know that introverts are some of the best remote employees? Extroverts tend to shrivel without that face-to-face and introverts shine.

Our method of hiring the right people includes a company favorite interview, affectionately called the “Why You Don’t Want to Work Here” call. People think that working from home will be a cakewalk, until they get on this call with a random five people from across the various departments of Fire Engine RED. We tell them things like “your home will be your workplace, so some days you might hate your house,” “your friends will not understand/believe you’re working when they have a day off and try to swing by,” “your spouse will try to ask you to do errands because you don’t have a commute,” “you’ll check your email before you eat breakfast and later realize you’re starving and it’s suddenly 2pm,” and “your boss will still give you work because s/he can’t see your full plate.” It’s a relatively fun call, but a sobering one at the same time.

What would you have on your WYDWTWH call?

2. Get the right tools
Tools for telecommuters are tools for everyone. If you don’t have an IM program in your office, you might consider bringing one in. Shoot a message to a colleague when she’s on the phone and get a response, or ping someone on another floor to see if they got your file.

Google Docs is something I can’t live without. Even in an office it just makes sense to have certain documents shared and thus have the newest version accessible (and editable) on the go.

The list in the article is longer and I definitely use every one and a few more. Ask any MP team member of mine who had a long commute spared for a group project.

3. Communicate regularly
The curse of telecommuting isn’t a lack of communication, but rather an over abundance of communication. Christine Shealy wrote about The Communication Loop and I can tell you that with all your team members able to reach you on your IM, your cell, your home phone, your email, Skype, and by text, that loop gets closed! You can be on a client call but you’ll still be expected to respond to an urgent message about another client.

I’m not sure I’d recommend all the regular meetings in the blog post (what’s the point of a bi-weekly call if you already have a weekly meeting?) but regular meetings to go over progress, outstanding items, and potential problems is a must.

Meeting just to meet, however, is a pet peeve of mine. In very busy seasons with dozens of projects going at once, I understand meeting every other day to keep each ball in the air. Still, it’s great practice to cut unnecessary meetings to once a week so as to not negatively impact productivity.

4. Set the tone
“Be willing to get and give feedback” is the most important on this list, followed closely by “be direct”. I’ll let you read through these points and comment below on what’s most important in a remote or office environment.

Link to the original blog post: http://loopup.com/blog/communicating-effectively/managing-remote-teams-top-4-tips/

feedback, team dynamics, team roles, work plans

Effective Leadership & Knowing Your Team

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I’ve been able to work in a small office over the past 5 years, and one of the things I’ve really come to appreciate is the flexibility provided to our employees in terms of their work roles and job descriptions. Oftentimes, we hire someone with the intent they’ll complete a specific job or task in our office but then find their skill-set or personality lends itself better to a completely different role. We’ve had the ability to frequently re-organize and assign people to new areas with their specific strengths in mind, oftentimes leading to an increase of quality work output.

This seems to support the phrase “you should hire for personality and train for skill,” which I’ve heard on occasion. Given my experience, and within reason, this seems to make sense. If your employee fits into the office culture and has the basic intelligence level needed to succeed after a period of training, how can you go wrong? To effectively do this, a manager undoubtedly needs to know their team well. Good leaders need to understand their employee’s strengths and weaknesses, their goals and professional aspirations, as well as how each member interacts with the others.

I’ve copied two excerpts below that highlight these points. You have to know your employees well and then help them assume the role that not only makes them most happy at work, but will ultimately benefit the organization as whole:

2. Know Their Stories – Take time to get to know the people you work with, especially your direct reports. Have coffee or a meal with them. Ask questions to learn about their lives and what’s important to them. Questions unrelated to work might include “so you were born and then what happened?”; “what are your interests outside of work?”; and “where did you grow up?” These questions typically open the door for you to ask follow-up questions. This will give you insights into how the people you work with are wired, including what they value at work and in their lives outside of work.

3. Help People Get Into the “Right Role” – Help your direct reports get into the right role that fits their interests and strengths, and provides the right degree of challenge. If you are not able to get them a role that is a good fit, consider responsibilities or projects you can assign them that fit well with their wiring.

 

What I’m most curious about, is whether the flexibility and real-world practice of these two traits carry over into larger corporations or organizational structures. Do those of you who work in larger environments experience this type of management style and job responsibility flexibility?

See the full article here: http://www.foxbusiness.com/business-leaders/2014/07/10/7-best-practices-to-boost-employee-engagement/

04-Managing a project team, 07d-Delivering a presentation, feedback

Starting a conversation you are dreading

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In the HBR Blog post by Peter Bregman, “How to start a conversation you are dreading,” Bregman talks about how to best deliver not only disappointing news, but decisions overall.  First.

While many of us may hesitate to deliver the punch line, Bregman provides several examples where delivering the resolution first is key- with a single employee or to a team.

Waiting till the last minute causes one of two situations:

1) It makes the decision seem unclear. Not delivering the outcome first, causes confusion with your team. By delivering the decision first you are defining the outcome and giving clarity so the employee knows where the conversation is going. By doing this, you can follow-up with appropriate evidence to support the news.

2) It allows your team to question factors relating to the decision. Giving the facts before the decision, can side track your team or audience and open the door to debate. Therefore, ending the conversation before you deliver the final outcome.

Lesson learned: if their is a conversation you are dreading, or one resulting an important decision- deliver the resolution first. This will eliminate any confusion with your employee(s).

http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/07/how-to-start-a-conversation-youre-dreading/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

04-Managing a project team, feedback

First-Time Manager Survival Guide

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One of the motives for me in obtaining my MBA is to learn more about managerial best practices and apply what I learn in the classroom to the workplace. This is why I’m especially looking forward to taking ‘Managing Groups & Teams’ in the fall. Currently, I have only had the opportunity to supervise student workers and have yet to manage other full-time professional staff members. Many of you may be in a similar boat, as you find yourselves only a few years out of college and still trying to establish your place in the office hierarchy. As we continue to move up the chain and are promoted to management positions, we will be entrusted with increased responsibilities, and with this comes its challenges. Our success now is not only dependent upon our own performance, but also of those we oversee.

In order to be a successful manager, I believe you must be a leader first and foremost. Here are some guidelines to becoming an effective leader from Bill Gentry’s article 3 Tips For Surviving As A First-Time Manager:

1) “It’s not me, it’s you”

Schedule an individual meeting with each of your direct reports as soon as you move into the new management role. You need to figure out what motivates them, how they like to be led, and what questions or concerns they may have. Communication is critical in every (work) relationship, so this is the best place to start. Using the Birkman Method Assessment may be a very useful tool to utilize here as well.

2) “Mentor others for a win-win”

Mentorship is also a big factor in a successful supervisor/supervisee relationship.  Research has shown that it not only benefits the person being mentored but also helps the manager doing the mentoring become a more effective and efficient leader. Regular check-ins and providing feedback (both constructive and positive) will help both parties involved.

3) “You are 100% the boss, but only 50% of the relationship”

This is something first-time managers struggle with the most. You must accept the fact that you are only responsible for your own actions, behaviors, thoughts, etc. You cannot control other people’s opinions or feelings about you, so you must learn to let it go. It is impossible to make everyone happy 100% of the time. Just focus on being the best leader and manager you can be, and the rest will fall into place.

From my personal work experience, I feel like I’ve learned what not to do as a manager. I value this Forbes article because it’s provided me with some actionable takeaways or “To Do’s” rather than “Don’ts,” which we too often focus on.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/ccl/2013/05/10/3-tips-for-surviving-as-a-first-time-manager/

feedback, team dynamics

Stages of Skill Acquisition

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My career path in the last few years has been in workforce development. As a Program Manager for a graduate school work-study program, I work to find meaningful applied work experiences for students. 

For many of them, these positions provide them with the opportunity to be mentored by their supervisors or by another worksite colleague in the field of public health.  As a result, I am always working to find the ways in which we can teach students to search for valuable mentorship experiences and engage in those opportunities.

A former mentor of mine introduced me to a what’s known as the Dreyfus Model (often used in field such as education) to demonstrate how students can gain skills through application, instruction, and practice.
The model consists of 5 stages— how a student goes from “novice” to “expert” in the acquisition of these skills:
  1. Entry-level (novice)
  2. Capable (advanced beginner)
  3. Competent 
  4. Proficient
  5. Expert
In summary, think about how each of these stages relates to your career progression thus far. I leave you with the following questions to think about when considering how this framework relates to your professional experiences:
  • Where are you in Dreyfus Model?
  • What experiences did you have previously that lead you to where you are now
  • Did you have a mentor at any of those stages?
  • Did you serve as a mentor to someone else at those stages?
  • How have you been able to implement change in your department or organization at those various stages?
  • How have you used the “stage” you’re in to work effectively in a team?
  • Have you been able to accept and provide different levels of feedback based on what stage of the model you’ve been in?

As career paths change and at times we may enter an entirely new industry, it is very possible that we enter the Dreyfus Model at a lower (or higher) stage than we were before.

Sources:
Miner, Kathleen. “The Mentor’s Virtue.” Mentorship Training, Emory Public Health Training Center. Emory Conference Center, Atlanta. 24 July 2014. Oral presentation.
Lester, Stan. “Novice to Expert: the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition .” Stan Lester Developments 2005 . Web. 30 June 2014. <http://www.sld.demon.co.uk/dreyfus.pdf
04-Managing a project team, feedback

Good Leaders Make Employees Feel Safe

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I love TED.

Sorry, but this isn’t an article, but a video of a presentation that’s 12 minutes long. At least it’s not a 3 hour Makadok video… My boss sent this to me and I’m passing it on.

The video talks about the origins of cooperation based on the first paleolithic reactions to danger. In all, it talks about cooperation in any collective, be it a tribe railing against hunger and predators, or someone in a business that’s competing against others in an industry.

In either case, in-fighting and mistrust within the company damages our ability to work together and effectively against a common external danger.

There’s a company, NextJump that has a lifetime employment policy where no one can be fired, but if there are issues, will be coached. I must admit that I kind of laughed at that concept.

I didn’t laugh about the Barry Weymiller 2008 furlough decision, however. If you watch one thing in this video, skip to 8:30.

04-Managing a project team, feedback, team dynamics

The Communication Loop

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Throughout my professional years, I have found myself in working situations where the majority of the people that I interact with are not in the same office as me. I imagine several of you have experienced a work relationship like this as well. Satellite environments have made me a huge proponent of closed loop communication.

Steve Adubato describes the impact of this tool in an article entitled Great Communicators Close The Loop. Proactively closing the conversation eliminates confusion as to what the next steps are for each party. While I know some people hate to receive “Thank you.” emails, I am not one of those. Those simple emails say so much. I read those two words as, “I received the document that you have provided, and it fulfills my needs perfectly. I will contact you back should I need anything further.”

When I receive no communication back, I am left in a state of confusion. Did my file go through? Are they too busy to respond? Is that all they needed?

Sometimes I imagine how this interaction would play out in person:

Christine: “Hi John. Here is the file you requested. Please let me know if you need anything further.”

John: (Grabs paper and walks away without responding)

Not an entirely beneficial exchange, but I know we all witness these types of passive conversations daily via email.

Steve also describes the importance of proactive communication. Don’t always force people to remind you that they are waiting on a deliverable. Bringing the topic up, explaining your work to date, and acknowledging a completion date all provide confirmation that you are hard at work on their task. People like to feel that their work is important to you, and these simple behaviors will reinforce that feeling.

Am I the only one that saves “Thank you.” emails as a sign of confirmed receipt? Do you all find yourselves frequently in email limbo, wondering if your document was received or if anything further is required of you?