MANAGER ESSENTIALS

Building a Positive Team Culture

• Nobody affects the employee’s experience of work more than their manager. Managers account for 70% of Employee Engagement (Gallup).

• There are 12 ways you can measure engagement at work, and none of these reasons deal with money. 

• Build a culture of psychological safety in your team by being fair & consistent, forgiving, and addressing conflicts.

Creating Clarity

• Once we create clarity, it allows for more autonomy, less hand-holding, more productivity, etc. 

• Use the “3 AM Test” to create more clarity for your team. Ensure employees clearly understand their roles and responsibilities, communication and decision-making norms, and the impact and value they add to the organization.

The 101 on 1:1s

• Employees thrive with predictability. Use an agenda on a shared document to record meeting notes.

• 1:1s are most effective when employees drive the conversation. Ask the employee what would make the 1:1 meetings more meaningful to them.

• The top 5 things employees wonder are 1) How am I doing? 2) How do you plan to coach and develop me? 3) How is our company doing? 4) What are our goals and strategy? 5) What are others working on?

To Delegate or Not to Delegate

• Use the Eisenhower Box to help you prioritize your workload and determine what to delegate.

• Empowering employees focuses on the “what.” Micromanaging employees focuses on the “what” and the “how.”

Foundations of Feedback

• People need to feel safe in order to fully show up. Ensure you are creating a culture of psychological safety before you can create a culture of feedback.

• When delivering feedback to an employee, refrain from using judgments (vague opinions, debatable). Instead, focus on behaviors (facts, hard to debate against). Ask yourself, “What did the employee do or say to make me think this judgment of them?”

• If employees aren’t performing well, it’s either because they can’t or they won’t. There is no third option. If they can’t, provide them with the tools and skills to succeed. If they won’t, determine why they are disengaged.