Know when to show your vulnerability
Lucy Cohen has tried all the latest management theories at her firm, but discovered that people sometimes respond better if you behave like a normal human.
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Sending senior managers on expensive training, to aid their development and effectiveness ; plying staff with pizzas , parties , bonuses and God knows what , only to be TOLD tools had been downed for the day with an unfinished deadline. Wow - what a shambles.
Reading all the books , doing all the courses aren't just the answers Lucy. You really need to get hands on and muck in to find out what's really happening on the shop floor rather than await messages from one of the [ apparent ] concientious few as to the problem.
The trouble with:
"We’ve ditched fixed hours for output-based work practices with the promise that if your work is done for the day – clock off and go and enjoy your life!"
is the flip side of course of such a policy is- if you haven't finished you stay till midnight or your boss will give you a dressing down. This is really the policy, not skip off merrily at 4pm as you are done. Everyone knows if you do that, you will get more work so its not a very bright thing to do as an employee.
Its a bit like the "as much holiday as you like", the reality everyone is too scared to take a holiday. its much better to have proper holidays and make people take them.
You can dress it up how you like, but staff want to come in, do their job and go home. They only come to work to get paid and hopefully not be treated like animals in the time away from their family.
Hi Lucy
I think you have to draw a distinction between management styles and leadership. Your management style seem to want to keep people engaged, and content so they enjoy coming to work. However leadership requires direction, and sometimes arguments when people are performing badly, or inconsistently, and are providing excuses rather than results. This can happen because the relaxed management style is being exploited.
Leaders make decisions, even tough decisions that are not universally accepted and However are viewed as unpopular. However most staff even if they complain are happy to follow. This is because that is one less thing that they have to do in their equally busy lives, and they want the leader to drive the bus so that they can get off at their stop.
Its long been documented that in all organizations some people are vastly more capable and productive than others often to a staggering degree. The high performers clearly should be showered with perks to keep them whilst the others need to be encouraged to up their game if they can.
Most organizations treat everyone the same wherever its love bombing or management by bollockings because its deemed "fair". I submit that that's a recipe for failure.
Time to read the riot act me thinks!
Make it clear that they've taken the p1ss by not finishing
They have let you down, they have let the clients down!
Sure some will have genuine reasons for clocking off early - in which case expect them to handover the work or at the very least bring their line managers up to speed on where they are with it.
It's all about managing expectations; yours, theirs, the clients.
And being fair is about being equitable, not treating everyone the same! this picture https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_crop,h_1351,w_2400,x_0... shows it better than a thousand words can.
Most of them say the same thing – share your vision, let your team know how they fit into the bigger picture, get everyone pulling in the same direction for the BHAG (big hairy audacious goal).
Great if you're running a salesforce or rapidly expending start up tech company- but pretty irrelevant if you're running an accountancy firm.
Stop reading so many books etc and start working on what's best for you.
Most people are sheep (this is a fact of life many don't want to face) and want to be lead - so you need to give them strong direction, targets, goals and the tools to manage their own workload to the best of their ability.
Leadership is about spotting who can manage and who needs managing and to what level, and then applying that so you get the most out of everyone. You will have people deeply engaged in the firm and those who could care less- but you might find the ones who care less are more productive as they are concentrating on working rather than fluffing.
Getting everyone to believe in 'insert management speak sound bite here' is a waste of your and everyone else's energy. It can also be counter productive as some might resent it as they don't share directly in the profits.
At the end of the day most are there for a wage- unless you split all the profit between your employees?
So figure out the types of people you want to employ, who has what skills and then play to those strengths and aid those weaknesses.
And read less books/videos/etc