What leaders often miss about People Management?

People Management is one of the most challenging and the most beautiful jobs there is. The chaos before everything starts falling into place, the unknowns that make sense with time, the various emotions that fill up the workplace when they learn how to co-exist, it’s all an experience that a people leader knows best about.?

But are they always successful??

In my experience into HR industry for more than 15 years now, there are 3 kinds of leaders, when it comes to people management -

1. Those who don’t know much about people management and don’t care
2. Those who don’t know much but care to know a lot about people management
3. Those who care about people and think they know-it-all about people management

For the sake of this topic, I am not going to address the first category, as that’s a different case altogether. I am going to focus on the second and third category of leaders today.

While their intention is pretty solid, their approach towards people management needs scrutiny. Many times, I am approached by these leaders who want me to plug in one/some of the popular leadership frameworks in their existing systems. The other day, someone approached me to implement the OKR framework for their teams. Now, I am a big fan of the OKR methodology and a certified practitioner as well, however, it didn’t take me much time to realise that OKR was not at all appropriate for their team, at least given the current context of the organization - they are a small and young organization, the org structure wasn’s defined yet, people were wearing multiple halts and literally all hands were on the deck!

Many times, we tend to force-fit models and frameworks, just because it’s in vogue or it’s what our peers are doing in the industry. And in that process, we lose the vision and purpose of conducting the same.

What am I saying? Let me explain with the help of an example. Company ABC decided to train their people on the Agile framework. Agile methodology has been in buzz for quite some time and this company decided to implement this way of functioning within and across all teams. Consequently, it was made mandatory for every individual to go through this training. Ergo, everyone did.

Much to leaders’ dismay, only a small fraction of the total employee strength pursued that methodology in their teams, that too at a very superficial level.

The issue was not with the concepts of agile, or the people. It just didn’t do justice to the reality in which the organization was functioning at the time. The whole experiment resulted in the loss of many productive hours, apart from other investments.

So, what should one do when deciding on which framework to follow/implement and when – how to identify if it’s the right time to implement a particular model in the current system?

Before diving into details, let me introduce some overarching principles that we should keep in mind, when considering the above question –

I. Understand the context, constraints and the ground reality of the organization in the present time.

Don’t follow the frameworks just because others are applying them in their organization or just because you have heard it’s good. I have seen leaders investing massive amounts of money and resources into frameworks that do not align with their existing culture or needs. It’s a waste that I can’t get over.

II. Whatever you do, whichever frameworks you implement, just keep it simple.

I know it sounds pretty obvious, but when it’s about application, it’s really not, trust me. People love to use fancy words, jargon, complicated taglines and processes. I don’t really understand the intent of using anything difficult to consume, when it comes to managing or training people to work better. At the end of the day, it’s about people, and it should be simple enough for them to consume. It’s our job to make it simple for them, not the opposite.

Let me share a scenario to explain it further. Let’s say you have decided to follow a Performance based Variable Pay Plan for your employees. You need to ask these questions -

1. What is the organization structure?

You won’t be able to determine the variable pay structure if you don’t establish the hierarchy and roles and responsibilities of people clearly. Keep in mind that almost everyone is wearing more than one cap in their role, more so in the start-up world. Especially since the pandemic outbreak, job descriptions and job responsibilities have evolved to a great extent.?

2. Have you clearly defined performance metrics?

This is a non-negotiable. In absence of clearly defined performance metrics, a variable pay plan will fall flat. Many times, organizations plan these metrics towards the end of appraisal cycle or during the cycle, which is totally unfair. Your people need to know what they are fighting for before they start the fight.

3. What process have you established to evaluate performance?

This is often the most underestimated one. You need to define models or strategies to evaluate performance. It can not be some random comments that you remember about someone’s performance. You need to identify the key objectives or expectations a company has from a particular role and determine the evaluation process accordingly. E.g, - the way you capture a Sales Rep.’s performance will differ from the way you do that for a Software Developer.

Organizations of all sizes, but most particularly the smaller ones, are always worried about losing out on an opportunity. FOMO (Fear of missing out) is real. In a hurry to catch up to the latest trends, leaders often ‘unintentionally’ fall into the trap of poor management.?

I hear them saying, “I have heard good things about this model. Let’s do this for our organization.”, without asking the most important questions.?

So, I present a few questions that may help you, when struggling with answers w.r.t. whether to implement a model in your system or not.

1. Have you done enough to clearly understand what your people really need??
2. Do your people really need this model/training program/framework?
3. Do you have the wherewithal to implement that model/training program/framework? Have you done the cost-benefit analysis? Do you have enough to allocate to this new program you are thinking of implementing?
4. Do you clearly understand your business priorities? Have you aligned them to the new program that you are considering?
5. Do you understand the future steps of this new program?

Also, there is one aspect that organizations need to consider for every new step that they take. When organizations grow, expectations grow too. As companies expand to different geographies or across different product lines, there runs a parallel need to add new skills to the company’s strengths portfolio. You can either build those skills in-house or buy them from outside of your organization. In either of the situations, your investment strategy would differ. Again, you need to understand the context and the realities of your organization, in that particular time, for that particular scenario, to strategize what will work and what won’t.

Most importantly, ask yourself- are you doing this because your people need this or because it sounds good??

You will have your answer.

P.S. – Don’t assume people don’t know. Always know that people know what you intend.