Manage Your Staff How They want to be Managed

I’m here to tell you that the days of one-management-style-fits-all are over or will soon be.

I’ve always found it interesting that we often ask people in interviews what their management style is. However, the managers of tomorrow are going to have to manage each individual based on their unique set of strengths and weaknesses. Thus, each individual is going to be managed differently. The managers that cling to the old way of managing across the board are going to find this increasingly challenging to do.

If you don’t believe me, consider that one of the reasons that places like Facebook have succeeded so wildly is that their platform enables each person to have an individual journey based on their unique interests. It’s ludicrous to believe the same doesn’t apply to a workplace. Just because a person steps through the front doors of their office building does not mean they stop being an individual or stop being themselves. Those days of people having to fit a mold at work are over. And the millennials are slowly but surely ensuring this happens; they are single-handedly slowly changing the way work happens. Coincidence? I don’t believe so. Humanity as a whole is heading towards an era where the individual does matter. We are becoming more enlightened as a species than we’ve ever been. And both the generation of millennials and surge of technology in every arena have a large hand to play.?

If this seems a daunting task, you might be wondering how you manage each person according to their own unique make up - when you’ve already got your hands full with everything on your plate.?

Here’s my abridged playbook on how to do so:

1. First understand that each person is a unique and complex set of characteristics and cannot always be labeled or put into a box. Sometimes those characteristics are contradictory.

When we meet or interact with someone, our mind immediately wants to categorize, label, and file away this person’s characteristics in under 10 seconds. It makes a part of our brains feel safe if we can organize the world, particularly people, in this way. I will challenge you on this. Start to throw away the need to label and categorize. Each person will inevitably behave differently than how we’ve expected them to in any number of situations. Who wants to live in a box or have others live in boxes??

It is limiting to their true potential.

2. Seek to truly understand what drives each person and what makes them tick. What gets them juiced up? What destroys their self-esteem and confidence more than anything? (So you can avoid this.) What gets them so motivated that they’d climb mountains for you and the company? Is more more money, is it more responsibility, is it more freedom to create, is it more of a partnership type of managerial style, is it more collaborative peers??

You’ve got to take the time to get to know those details and more about each of your staff. There are certain ways to learn this. You can contact me if you want to learn how I go about this.?

3. ‘Managing up’ is a wildly irresponsible saying. Understand that in your position, you have a responsibility to those you manage - not the other way around. If you are a terrible manager or don’t enjoy it, and your staff suffers as a result of this - this is not okay. They should not have to overcompensate for your managerial weaknesses. You have three choices:

a) first and foremost admit it to yourself and own up to the fact that you’re not a good manager. If you’re not clear on this, answer these three questions, and you’ll have your answer:

• when one of your staff comes to you with what they believe is an innovative idea that might actually be a distraction, what’s your first thought??
• when one of your staff is dying from laughter in the hallway with a colleague during work hours, what’s your first thought?
• when one of your staff fails miserably at something, what is your first reaction?

b) immediately cease being a manager and find another role. Ineffective management style does impact the company’s bottom line.

c) figure out how to improve fast. You can read all the management books you want, but that actually won’t teach you how to be a better manager. It will provide you with interesting concepts at best. You’ve got to work on the emotional intelligence piece. Have you heard that term previously and hated it? Well, get used to it because it’s going to become more frequently used as managers evolve.

Also, having candid 1:1 conversations with your staff can help. It is a misconception that honesty with your staff will cause them to view you as weak and potentially not respect you. If your honesty comes from a place of collaboration and desire to improve the culture, it will be greatly respected. If you do have anyone that does not respect such honesty, well that is useful information as well. It means you might have on your hands someone who isn’t the right fit for your team.?

4. Team building activities are extremely critical to understanding each person on your team and also allows your team to learn to become more collaborative. They should be a regular part of how you manage your team. Team building is not fluff and has been shown to positively affect the team’s outcomes.?A collaborative team is a successful team because it turns that team into finely-tuned 'machine' that can easily overcome any obstacle and can will always deliver on its goals.

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