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An Under-rated Management Process That Makes The Difference Between Thriving Or Just Surviving
Like me many of the managers you know are probably in businesses and services directly affected by government spending cuts, one way or another.
Whatever level of management you are at; chances are your life is going to get a lot tougher over the next six to twelve months.
One of the biggest challenges I want to talk about here is the nature of the pressure managers are beginning to experience.
What is the impact on your managers? They are the ones you are relying on to deliver performance.
My business focuses on unleashing the power of line management to help people make sense of their work at an individual level - driving action and performance, engaging people and ensuring that they keep moving forward. For some time now I have been hearing even the most committed and optimistic managers talk about how pressured they and their people are beginning to feel.
Managers Tell me They Worry about: -
1. Organisational demands becoming unachievable. As workloads increase there is no corresponding decrease in expectations of performance. You may be asking yourself how on earth you extract more from people already working to full capacity.
2. Increasing instances of accusations of bullying and harassment, micro-management and related grievances as people resist the proactive pursuit of targets, especially where it has not previously been the norm. If it hasn't happened to you yet you probably know someone affected by this. It is often linked to those expectations described above - how do you get the balance right?
3. Disenchanted, anxious people going off sick and leaving already stretched teams under-resourced or short-handed. Sometimes people just can't cope and the pressure does make them ill. Colleagues having to back-fill and pick up the slack can find their goodwill and sympathy stretched to breaking point. Line management really comes into its own here to keep people motivated.
4. How to show your best people that their work is valued because you can't afford to lose them to your competitors - but you can't afford to pay more either and may have had to freeze cost of living incremennts. As someone's boss you are the singlest greatest factor in helping people cope with difficult conditions. When people are worried about their jobs, being able to trust their manager means a whole lot more than missing out on a cost of living rise.
5. An awareness that line managers have an increasingly significant impact not only on day-to-day results and levels of motivation and engagement, but are also expected to take responsibility for people's wellbeing at work, levels of sickness and absenteeism and encourage opportunities for learning and development.
There is a silver lining here. Think about it.
As services are squeezed and management layers reduced it has to be those managers who are able to show their ability to manage others and get the results who will be most likely to be retained. And, of course, the biggest worry is about how effective they are perceived to be as a manager - not just in terms of reputation or opportunities for promotion, but at the moment the likelihood of losing their job or being asked to re-apply for it under some plan designed to cut costs.
Does all of this look or feel familiar to you? Most of these conversations happen in corridors, during breaks and at the end of meetings when managers mention, quite casually, things that are clearly affecting them in a very personal way. All of this is a fairly normal reaction to the dawning realisation that while we know the changes happening now are permanent, we have no real idea what will replace them, nor can we imagine the longer term impact. The general anxiety is unsettling for everybody and we each need to ponder the impact.
At another level, for some managers, it is noticing that personal integrity and values are feeling more at risk of compromise as management decisions get more challenging. A growing sense of unease that the drive for targets might well be at the expense of quality and standards. Maybe it is even starting to wonder if you are in the right job or organisation but not daring to think about this for too long! A kind of weary ambivalence at both a personal and professional level can easily set in to stay. Warning - this can be infectious!
Part of the solution is to ensure that managers at all levels are fully supported through regular line management, and of course, in turn, everyone else too. Having the opportunity to just talk about some of these things in a structured way without feeling disloyal or appearing negative is deeply underrated. So,ralph lauren polo shirts for men, if you haven't looked at the support your line managers need for a while, maybe now is a good time to do so? You also deserve support so make sure you get the time you need from your boss?
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