Let all beings be happy; Let all beings be peaceful; Let all beings be blissful
Managing your team
Managers can get the most out of their employees by helping them achieve meaningful progress everyday
Setting up team to succeed
- Set project goals: communicate clear objectives and negotiate a timeline or deadline.
- Establish accurate metrics: qualitative and quantitative parameters to monitor progress and define goals. Align measures to motivate the team.
- Supply needed resources: Ensure access to resources required to complete the project. Financial, manpower, equipment and know-how.
- Monitor without suffocating: Provide adequate freedom to your team so they can complete the task as they see fit. Perform a mid-flight check to discuss progress and identify hurdles. Change course as needed.
- Tolerate mistakes: Expect and accept the inevitable failures. ‘Mistakes are okay-hiding them is not’
Use any failure as a teachable moment. Calmly provide honest and constructive feedback. Dissociate person from the mistake, don’t attack the person. Deliver critiques in private, not in front of others. Keep the conversation respectful. Praise in public and praise often. Highlight specific behaviors or actions to create positive feedback loop.
Managing your boss
‘You don’t have to like or admire your boss, nor do you have to hate her. You do have to manage her, however, so that she becomes your resource for achievement, accomplishment, and personal success.’- Peter Drucker
What to communicate about?
- Set prioritized goals which are mutually agreed upon
- Discuss periodically
- Ask for feedback before formal performance evaluation
- Mirror or complement the mode of communication to the boss
- Adapt to the management style of the boss
- Inventive: Eager to take risks and perform experiments. Dynamic and stimulative work environment. May create air of chaos.
- Empathetic: Pays lot of attention to the feelings. Fosters trust and can be very productive
- Cautious: Values his/her routine and works hard to minimize risk. Slow and steady performer
- Obsessive: Demanding of themselves and their teams. Can be critical of work of team members.
How to make partnership work?
- Meet or exceed expectations
- Be a team player: Step up during time of need
- Make your boss aware of your accomplishments
- Provide adequate warning in case of delays or major blowups
- Offer solutions for problems
- Take responsibility and avoid blame
- Do not publicly criticize your boss
- Look for opportunities to make your boss look good to his/her superiors
- Be quick to give credit to your colleagues
- Do not override chain of command
- Keep your boss in the loop if you receive a request from your boss’s superiors
How to disagree with your boss ?
Avoid conflict by talking in advance about your course of action for a project. This allows your boss to have a chance to object if he/she has serious concerns.
How to deal with a bad boss
- Assess your own performance and improve as needed
- If your performance is not an issue, obtain opinion of other team members
- Once you are certain that your boss is a micromanager, sit down with the boss and talk about his/her overbearing supervision in a collegial manner
- Try to ease your boss away from his/her micromanaging tendencies
- Address manager’s fear of something going wrong by providing frequent updates on the project. This will reassure your boss that everything is under control.
- A neglectful boss fails to give appropriate instructions and directions to their team members
- When you receive an assignment, ask for clear goals until you are satisfied that you know what you need to do
- Engage in frequent communication during the course of the project
- Prefer face to face meetings
- Do not take the boss’s behavior personally
- Their attitude is a reflection of their own problems
- Try to avoid situations that trigger bad behavior
- Have a collegial discussion to provide constructive feedback
- Insist that your boss treat you with respect
- Follow chain of command if needed
- Contact HR department to discuss your concerns. Ensure you document specific instances to build and support your case
