What great managers do

You have been on the job for over a year, tried to keep the boss happy and stay out of trouble. Now the boss has asked you to become the new manager of your department since you get along with others and seem to know what you’re doing.

So, what are you supposed to do? First, you may realize that you were not ready for the “promotion” and now instead of trying to get out of more work, you will be supervising your former peers to get more work out of them. You may even have the daunting task to hire more individuals to be a part of your team. The actions you take in the first few days and weeks will determine your future success or failure as a supervisor—but what do you need to do to become an excellent manager?

Management has been defined as the ability to coordinate resources and complete work activities efficiently and effectively with and through other people. You may be a very competent worker; however, as a manager you must know how to get the most from your people. In the book, The Service Profit Chain, the point is made that no matter what your business, the only way to generate enduring profits is to begin by creating a work environment that attracts, focuses, and keeps talented workers. Your ability as a manager to manage will have a tremendous impact on the productivity and profitability of the organization.

The manager acts as a “catalyst” to speed up the reaction between the employee’s talents and the organization’s goals so that optimum performance is achieved. There are four basic activities a great manager should master in order to reach inside each employee and draw out their unique talents so they can achieve their best performance: select the right people, set expectations, motivate, and develop the person. You may have charisma, intelligence, and education, but if you cannot perform these four activities well; you will never excel in your role as a manager.

Let’s look at each activity to understand how you, as a manager, can improve your ability to manage. Selecting the right person for the job will solve more than half of your problems. Hiring the wrong person will not only be very costly, but it will also create more problems down the road. There are many things you should consider when hiring someone, such as experience, intelligence, education, and personal attributes. However, according to Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman in First, Break All the Rules, great managers look primarily for talent when hiring the right person.

They define talent as “a recurring pattern of thought, feeling, or behavior that can be productively applied.” The key to excellent performance is finding the right match between a person’s talent and their role as a worker. Every role performed at excellence requires certain “recurring patterns of thought, feeling, or behavior.” Great managers know that in order to achieve excellence, they must select people with talent.

The second activity is to select accurate performance expectations. This is accomplished by defining the right outcomes and letting each person find her own method to achieve the outcome. There are times when conformity and standardization are important; however, a great manager knows when to encourage employees to exercise their individual style to achieve the outcome. If a hotel manager can measure the front desk clerk’s guest ratings and the repeat visits of guests they created, then he won’t have to monitor how closely the clerk followed a prepared script.

Third, to motivate someone, a great manager will focus on the strengths of their talented people and manage around their weaknesses. Do everything you can to cultivate their talents and allow them to become more of who they already are. You should develop a mindset that you work for your people, in order to highlight their unique style and allow them to perform at their best.

Fourth, develop your people by finding the right fit. This means you should help each employee find responsibilities where their unique combination of strengths match the distinct demands of the role. For one employee, it might mean encouraging him to grow within his current position, while for another; it might mean promotion to a supervisor’s position. A great manager’s responsibility is to steer employees toward roles where they will have their greatest success.

The four key roles of selecting the right person, setting expectations, motivating, and developing your people are the catalyst roles you must master to get the best performance from your people and become a great manager.

(Rik is a business instructor at NMC and Janel is the owner of Positively Outrageous Results. They have consulted with over 400 businesses in 40 different industries, and can be contacted at: biz_results@yahoo.com)