Management Training – It’s not just for the ‘good times’

With news of short time working, redundancies and business closures, it’s not surprising that many employees have become nervous about what the future holds for them. Inevitably, this will cause some people to become distracted and therefore not completely focused on what needs to be achieved. A potential consequence of this is that they become less productive, less creative and take fewer risks, which is not what a business needs in the current climate.

It is important therefore that managers are trained not just to recognise the ‘mood’ of their staff but that they are also given the skills and capability to influence the motivation and morale of their staff in a positive way.

Some business will have to restructure and make staff redundant, but the way managers handle this sensitive and emotive issue can have a big impact not just on those who leave, but also on the morale and commitment of the staff who remain.

One of the key characteristics of how successful organisations perform after any such restructuring is how retained employees feel their colleagues who left the business were treated. Organisations whose staff felt that their redundant colleagues were treated poorly often subsequently struggle with low levels of employee motivation and productivity for a while after the restructure. Treating people ‘unfairly’ can range from a number of things.

For example, redundant staff may have experienced:
· Little or no support to find a new job.
· No opportunities for retraining.
· Redundancy payments handled incorrectly.
· Broken promises from managers.
· Leaving the organisation’s premises with out any recognition or thank you from their manager.

It is important therefore that managers are given the appropriate management training and support to help them deal with the consequences of a business restructure. For example they need to be able to:

· Give appropriate time, attention and sympathetic support to affected staff.
· Help staff to focus on the future and not dwell on the past.
· Give practical and useful advice and guidance about how to find a new job.
· Demonstrate independence and not collude with staff.

Management training can therefore play a vital role in a successful restructure. It will help managers deal with the effects of redundancies sympathetically and appropriately and at the same time enable them to ‘keep an eye’ on future motivation. After all, you want staff who leave the business to be prepared to recommend it to potential employees in the future as well as maintain the productivity and commitment of those who remain.

Selling Yourself at an Interview

When your job application or CV have successfully earned you an interview, it is vital that you give yourself the best possible opportunity by preparing thoroughly for the interview in advance. Although you are unlikely to be able to think of every possible question or scenario that you will be presented with, preparation and planning will prevent a poor performance on the day.

Consider the following tips to help you improve your chances of success.

Before the interview

• Find out as much as you can about the organisation, the job and the interview process
  
  
• Prepare a list of questions that you wish to ask. For example: what opportunities will the organisation provide for personal development or management training?
  
  
• Put yourself in the position of the interviewer and think through the questions they might ask.
  
  
• Be proactive and prepare a plan of the things you will do in your first 3-6 months of employment.
  
  
• Prepare 5-6 ‘selling points’ i.e. the benefits an organisation will gain from employing you.
  
  
• Remember that first impressions count. Practice how you will introduce yourself in a positive and confident manner. Remember your handshake – no finger crushers or limp wrists!
  
  
• Make sure you know exactly how to get the interview location, and plan to arrive in plenty of time.
  

At the interview

• Be yourself – if you pretend to be someone else you will be caught out.

• If asked about your weaknesses or failures give examples that are not relevant to the role – in this way you will not talk yourself out of a job.

• Avoid being critical of other people or previous employers.

• Make sure you get your ‘selling points’ across– this is your responsibility not the interviewers.

• Ask the interviewer if they want to see your ‘3 month plan’.

• Be enthusiastic – no one will employ someone who doesn’t demonstrate motivation.

• Take time to answer questions – avoid ‘shooting from the hip’.

• If you think you have got something wrong, say so and rephrase your answer.

• If you don’t know the answer to a question say so!

• Before leaving the interview, make sure you know what the next steps are.

After the interview

• Write down key points that you remember from the interview. This will help you if you are offered a second interview.

• Write and send a brief thank you note as soon as possible.

• Follow up with the organisation if they haven’t contacted you within the agreed timescales. Show interest but not desperation!

In today’s competitive climate it is important to ensure that you sell yourself, and show yourself in the best possible light if you are going to land the dream job you are after.

Make yourself an asset and not a liability

Some people believe that if you put your head above the parapet at work it will only result in it being “shot off”. But is keeping a low profile at work really a good idea, or should we be more proactive?

On the basis that you only get out of something what you are prepared to put into it, then work is no different. Great sportsmen and women didn’t become great by waiting at home for someone to find them, they worked hard to improve themselves and put themselves about so that they were known.

Gary Player once replied to a gentleman who claimed he made a lucky shot out of a bunker “Well, the harder I practice, the luckier I get”. Work is not different, if you want success and promotion you need to “put your head above the parapet”.

The key thing to do is to make sure you sell yourself on a regular basis. Too often people think that all they need to do is a good job. While this is clearly vital, if no one knows that you have done a good job you may as well not have bothered in the first place. It is exactly the same in business – you may have come up with the best product in the market, but if no one knows about it they won’t buy it! This means that you have to let your manager and others know when you have been successful. Whilst publicly bragging about your achievements will just alienate your colleagues, a simple email to your boss outlining the success you have had in a particular area will probably suffice.

Equally important is building a network in your organisation. By getting to know colleagues in other areas of the business, you may find opportunities to expand your role or develop yourself further. Again it is unlikely that these opportunities will be handed to you, you have to go out and find them. Get to know the senior management in the organisation, demonstrate to them that you are interested in helping the organisation to achieve its goals and objectives. Show them that you care and talk to them about how you might help.

It’s never really a good idea to keep a low profile at work and it is probably even more so in the current climate. Many organisations are actively seeking to reduce costs and cut jobs, so make sure you don’t become one of the statistics and make yourself indispensible.

Do you have to like the person coaching you for it to be effective?

This would be nice to achieve but is not essential with every coaching relationship and it is unrealistic to expect this in every case. What is essential is a respect for each other and for what you can bring to the executive coaching relationship. What is key is respect for your skills as a coach and for your communication ability. You need to help the coachee to think differently and to look at things with fresh eyes and to provide a new perspective and to be a catalyst for them to ACT on this new thinking.

You may not actually greatly like or warm to the person that you are coaching, nor they you. We are all different individuals and there is ample scope for us to recognise the different perspectives, ideas and beliefs that other people possess. Where this can become difficult is in the area of values, behaviours, management styles and standards. I would find it hard to coach or be coached by a person who lacks fundamental integrity, who was rude to or dismissive of me or his/her people or who wanted to manipulate them or me to do something negative or illegal or completely against their will. If their style is completely autocratic and controlling and if they could not see the possibility of leading and managing in a more positive, democratic way then I would not be able to build and sustain the required rapport and positive relationship with them that I need to establish for me to be an effective support to the people that I coach. I

nterestingly enough, if I look back on the hundreds of people that I have coached over the past 15 years I realise that there have been very few coaching assignments where I have not felt that I could establish the necessary relationship and rapport with my coachee. I suspect that this is largely because the pre-coaching engagement routine that we go through with new people would discourage those with inappropriate values, styles and expectations and that both they and I self-select out of a coaching relationship with someone that we cannot identify with.

Can coaching just be "done" to people - or do they need to know that it is happening to them?

Yes they do need to know that they are being coached. How else can they be expected to play their part in this complex process? How will they understand the approach and techniques that the coach is using? How else can they be expected to be willing to take responsibility for their own issues, learning, thinking and actions?

If you don’t tell them upfront that they are being coached then there is little or no chance that they will play their part in addressing their issues and actively and purposefully work at addressing their issues and acting to resolve them. Furthermore when they do eventually find this out might they then feel manipulated into doing what you want them to do rather than what they really want and need to do? Is this necessarily a bad thing anyway? Well not if you are happy to be manipulating them to take action in the short term that will help you to achieve your goals. But in the long term, when you are not around and leading and controlling their behaviour then how will they act and react and what will their motivation be to do the best job that they can?

In the short term some managers have said to me that they are taking this coaching approach automatically with their employees within the day to day managing of their people. This is true to some extent where they are using the core skills of a coach in their role as manager.

However this is not the same thing as genuinely and openly executive coaching them to improve their performance by using the COACH technique or similar process to address their own issues and objectives, take responsibility for their performance – and not just working to achieve the basic objectives those chosen for them by their manager.

How to make your first management job a success

It has been suggested that as many as 4 out of 10 newly promoted managers fail in their jobs in the first 18 months, so make sure that you are one of the 6/10 successful ones by following our few simple tips:

1) Brush up on your interpersonal skills – The ability to build relationships and to get along with others is vital in a management role. Having poor interpersonal skills will most certainly lead to failure. Key to this is having excellent listening skills and the ability to give and take criticism well. Try not to be defensive and don’t view conflict as something bad and should be avoided at all costs. Instead view conflict as something inevitable that needs to be handled.

2) Recognise the need to adapt – You have been very successful in your career to date. However, the skills that made you successful may not be the ones that will lead you to even greater success as a manager. For example, as an employee you may have been known for your outspokenness, having strong opinions, and being a tough negotiator. While these are still important, always saying what you really think to your team will simply alienate them. It is important to recognise that being rigid and inflexible in your approach is ultimately a self-defeating style.

3) Avoid being self centred – This is the "me only" syndrome. Self-centred managers have an overriding concern for being in the spotlight. They worry about how much credit they're getting, how much money they're making, and how fast they're moving up the ladder. They alienate others by constantly demanding recognition and they seem incapable of any selfless acts towards others. Just as a successful business must pay attention to its customers, a successful manager must use team-oriented approaches and pay attention to the needs of their staff.

4) Take action - Managers who hesitate to put themselves on the line and act will eventually jeopardise their careers. Such a manager over-analyses every situation, fails to take action and is primarily motivated by avoiding risk.

5) Be resilient - Managers succeed by making decisions, taking risks and at times failing. It is absolutely critical to be able to bounce back after a failure. Managers who become defensive or try to blame others, don’t rebound, fail to learn from their mistakes and ultimately fail themselves.

6) Understand what is expected of you – Make sure you understand from your boss what is expected from you in your first year. Be clear about how your performance will be measured and find out your bosses preferred way of getting progress reports and feedback.

7) Ask for support – Make sure you get the appropriate management training support to develop the skills to enable you to succeed. This shouldn’t be a ‘one off’ one-day or even a one week training programme. Appropriate support means ongoing, intermittent management training with feedback and mentoring that gives you a means to learn, practice, and improve abilities as you progress.

Following these few simple steps will help you to make the change from team member to manager successfully and avoid becoming one of the 4/10 statistics.

Planning for the future

An organisations strategic vision defines what the organisation wants to be and where it wants to go. An effective strategy guides the decisions made that affect the direction of the organisation.

In order to deliver the strategy it is necessary for managers to incorporate the vision into their plans and day to day operations.

Often the best strategic plans fail either because managers do not develop concrete action plans for delivering the plan, or because they are too bogged down in day to day details and lose site of the big picture or lack management training.

To develop more effective strategic plans managers should:
• Check to ensure their own teams targets are congruent with the organisations.
• Rank targets to identify the top 2 or 3 that will have the greatest impact in delivering the strategic plan.
• Define their goals clearly and the roles of their staff in achieving them. Who is going to deliver what?
• Determine key results areas and identify the steps required to achieve these results.
• Develop measures to track progress to enable managers to know when they have reached their targets.
• Document their plans in a clear format that can be seen by the whole team.

However, what should a manager do if the organisations strategy is unclear or doesn’t exist? The answer is simple - prepare their own mini strategic plan for their team/function.

For example managers should:
• Be clear with their team what the purpose of the team/function is.
• Develop a number of targets/goals that will improve the performance of the team over the following 12 months.
• Create a plan to deliver the targets/goals set out above.

At the end of the day a significant part of a managers role is to plan for the future and more than ever it is time for managers to lead from the front.