Tips & Tricks for Managing People

Congratulations on getting promoted to manager’s level. You have worked hard and put in a stellar performance to earn it, and are looking forward to your new role, but are you prepared for it? How do you see your new role? You are aware that at this new level you are expected to accomplish much more than before, and may even be a little apprehensive how you are going to measure up to the raised expectations.

I can relate to how you feel as I experienced it myself in the beginning. What does it mean to be a good manager? Over the years, I have worked with many managers, and from their example, learned what is good management all about. In this post, I am putting together a collection of ideas that should serve new managers as a good starting point, and experienced managers as a refresher.

Change Your Mindset

First, you require a paradigm shift in how you see yourself and your role as a manager. So far, you have been a champion and heavy lifter in the team, and now you have become a manager, and a team is assigned to you. While you may continue to tackle challenging issues with your expertise, your focus should gradually shift to getting the best performance from your whole team. This is vital to meet the raised expectations from you. Your success as a manager depends on how your team performs. If the team does not live up to its potential, even if work very hard, you will either burn yourself out with overload, or under deliver. This was my first and most important insight as a manager. You must get used to the idea of success through your team, and actively work to enable them to succeed. This requires very different skills of leadership and people management. Sounds like an obvious idea? Look around and you will spot many seasoned managers who still do not internalize it.

Prepare Yourself

How do you go about acquiring people management skills? In the same way you honed your technical skills. Read the available material, go through trainings, talk to mentors, try to prepare yourself well for all aspects of your new role. Take time to be well versed with the process and guidelines of your company for managers. More importantly, start applying your learning in your everyday work and refine your skills with practice.

Understand, Respect, Build Trust

This is the most important quality you need to develop as a manager, and it needs regular communication. Schedule 1-1 meetings with each of your team member every week. If you have a large team, you can make it once in two weeks. Learn the right way to do it from your own 1-1s with your manager. Give due importance to the 1-1 slot, do not cancel it often. Never be impatient, cut short the discussion saying that you are too busy. Take time to listen and discuss the work, challenges, and aspirations of the employee. Listen attentively if the employee expresses an opinion about an issue. Provide feedback about her work, and suggestions for resolving the issues. If the 1-1s are handled well, they help you develop a solid understanding of your people, and enhances trust in your relationship over a period of time.

Create a High Performing Team

Learn to delegate work effectively to your team. Define what needs to be done, set up performance agreement, and then let the team do it on its own. For sure, have regular checkpoints to measure the progress and address any blocks. Be available to provide support for problem solving, but only when needed. Avoid micro management and top-down management style of making all decisions for your team. Let your people take the decisions in their projects, and do not interfere. Even when you are called upon to take a decision. Use a consultative approach with the team and aim for arriving at the best decision together. Your goal is to create a well-oiled machinery that runs smoothly even without you. On the contrary, if you are too busy and overworked as a manager, something needs to be fixed. Look carefully if you have made yourself the bottleneck in the team, without whom nothing moves forward. Organize your team better to free up your bandwidth for the important stuff.

Coach Your Team to be Proactive.

Do not just focus on crisis management / urgent stuff, which is often an outcome of not doing an important action in time. Coach your team to finish the important stuff well in time before it turns into an urgent crisis. Lead the team by your own example.

Encourage Collaboration

A team that works well together can accomplish much more. Avoid politics and rat-race, and do not foster a culture where people talk to you behind each other's back. Instead, encourage them to be open in giving feedback to others. In case of a conflict, do not take sides. Ask them to work it out between themselves through discussions. If you love being a mediator, more such instances will happen. In any case, never form a biased opinion about an employee based on what someone tells you behind his back. Try to ascertain the facts yourself first-hand.

Develop Your People

When you help people improve, they contribute more and it makes your team stronger over time. Make a habit of providing feedback to the team members on a regular basis. This helps them improve their performance over time.

Treat performance evaluation and rating process very seriously, as it impacts the careers of people. They have put their best in the job, and now it is your turn to show that you care. Remember to avoid bias in your performance judgement, your review should be based on facts, not impressions. It is even more important if you manage a cross-geographic team.

Think about career advancement options for each of your employee, and make sure to discuss it with her and be a mentor and coach. If you are a senior manager, work it out in consultation with the managers in your team. Trust the manager's judgement of his team's performance.

Handle Mistakes Well

Despite your best intentions, there are times when you make errors, and are confronted by your team about your bad decision. Such a discussion can be really difficult to handle. Best way to approach it is with sincerity, integrity, and openness. Do not shy away from admitting your mistake if required. Such an open behavior will earn you respect from the team.

Do not try tricks to wriggle out of the situation by making stories. e.g. do not blame it on senior management or HR, or push it under carpet, or say that this decision was required as per the company policy. Your employees can easily see through such antics, and you will land up with dissatisfied and disengaged employees. They will also lose respect for you looking at your shady tactics. So, the right way is be honest and act with integrity and serious intention. Sounds like an obvious principle? You will find many senior manager violating it.

Finally, do not feel bogged down by all this complexity. Working with your team and succeeding together is a lots of fun, and can be a rewarding experience. Just follow a few common sense practices well, and you will be on your way to become a successful manager.