What to Do as a Manager When Your Team Falls Apart – Prevent & Cure

First of all, let me define “falling apart”. I’m sure you have a rough idea, but let me be clear. To me a team that is falling apart means unhappy people leaving the team, people that are not motivated to do their job and make sure others are demotivated too, people that constantly complain, people that you see are constantly coming late to work, taking too many breaks, spending too much time on social networks or job portals, people who no longer do their job (but used to) and come up with silly excuses, people who stay home on sick leave too often, who no longer answer their phone after 5 pm, who no longer stay willingly in the office to help finish a team project if the clock is 5.01 pm, who miss team events outside the office, people who seem bored and annoyed around their colleagues, around you or inside the office. Sounds familiar? I’m sure you’ve had that in your team at some point…

Now, what to do?

Well, there are several possibilities depending on the number of team members in that situation – if there’s only one, obviously your team is not falling apart quite yet and the situation can easily be improved. However, if there are several team members involved, you need to rethink your strategy entirely and FAST!

But, before treatment, try prevention:

-          Get to know each team member really well – what their personality is (introverts, extroverts, ambitious, timorous, courageous), what their skills are, what their ambitions and goals are and important as well – get to know their personal life too – their parents, children, problems, hobbies, illnesses, whatever they are willing to share. I know it seems like a lot, but it is worth it. You will get to understand them better and use their skills in an optimum way and at an optimum time;

-          Spend enough time with each team member and the team as a whole – this will make them feel valued and important; get to listen to what they have to say, to their suggestions, reply in a realistic manner and use their ideas if they are good – you may never know who is the one saving your next project;

-          Accept the idea that there may be people in your team better than you. I mean it! Help them develop and support them. You will lose them eventually if you don’t and the image they will spread about you and the company won’t be a nice one. If you support them, they may be replacing you when you get promoted and the company won’t lose a great next manager; you may never know what lies ahead;

-          Do your best to offer your team the resources they need to do their job – knowledge, office supplies, time, whatever necessary. Involve them in the process and they will respect you for trying even if you fail;

-          Roll up your sleeves – don’t just sit there ordering them what to do. If there’s a big project that requires a lot of work that is beneath your level of expertise, but the team has to do overtime to finish it (and you have some spare time), leave the strategic thinking for later and help them. Team members respect their manager if they see that he is working next to them archiving dusty papers.  Don’t be afraid you will fall from your throne! No way! They will just appreciate your effort and it will be great team building for them too;

-          Make people feel important – value their ideas. Read more about it here;

-          Accept the idea that attrition is good up to a point and that people need to evolve. Don’t panic and run like a headless chicken around the office if someone leaves. The rest of the team will panic too and moreover they will think that you don’t value them as much. Simply organize a team meeting, explain to the team what happened, ask for ideas if necessary to bring things up to normal then continue your work. That’s it!

-          Allow team members to enter your busy strategic world. Offer them information about the company, about what you are doing, about your projects. Let them see as mush as possible of the big picture. This will allow them to better understand their work and their part in the company;

-          Give your team members SMART objectives. And I mean SMART. Don’t just say they are SMART.  Talk to them and make sure they understand what you need the to do. Putting parts of their job description as SMART objectives for the year is stupid and dangerous. Make sure they can measure at all times what their progress is. If an objective you give them can’t be measured in terms of progress, then that’s a non-SMART objective and can demotivate your team member who will struggle to achieve it but won’t see the end in their struggle. Let me give you  an example of a non-SMART objective that I received some time ago from my manager and that annoyed me and demotivated me: “ Have a good work relationship with your colleagues from location B.”. Well, how do you measure that? How many times I traveled there and took them out for lunch?

-          Be honest – don’t lie and don’t promise things you can’t offer; empty promises  will help on the short term, but they will backfire horribly on the medium and long term;

Now, assuming that you did all that and your team is still falling apart, then…

First of all, if there’s only one team member that is obviously demotivated, you need to:

-          Talk to them.This is the first thing to do. Maybe they don’t have the courage to tell you something. Maybe they have a family problem, maybe they did something and are afraid of the consequences, maybe they are overwhelmed with tasks, maybe their best friend in the team is no longer doing his job and they are doing their job too not having the courage to say. I don’t know. Just talk to them. People react strangely sometimes;

-         Try to improve something – maybe the employee needs more resources, maybe you need to change their shift, maybe they have too many tasks or maybe they just need a few days off. Try to help somehow, the employee will expect it after the meeting; don’t implement favorable measures just for the demotivated employee if there’s the case. Extent it for the entire team;

-          Explain the changes to the team – you don’t want more of them getting demotivated. Allow them to understand what happened and why.

If the team is really falling apart, then you need to:

-          Organize a team meeting and encourage the team to tell you about their problems. Try to improve at least of few items during this first meeting if you have the ability and power; they will see you care;

-          Go to upper management with the problem if there’s something you can’t fix – maybe they want higher salaries, maybe there’s a new company on the market offering something more and you could fix it with their help, maybe you need to hire someone new to take some of the tasks the others can no longer handle; come back to your team members with results or at least keep them posted with as much as you can tell them – there may be confidential items you may not say;

-          Keep a close report of leavers – reasons of leaving, duration of stay in the company, positions of leavers, other details you may find useful – this will help you improve the life for the rest;

Tough being a manager, huh? Who said it was easy?  Managers keep teams together and have a difficult job. What else would you add to the lists above?

Take care,

Geo

I Need to Fire Some People in My Team. How to Do It?

All managers have to go through tough moments throughout their career. Being a manager comes with rewarding moments when it's all about you, all about your great achievements, your amazing team, but also with tough times when you have to be strong and think of the team. There may be times when the client tells you that they no longer have money to pay all members of your team and some of them need to go. Your job is to decide which ones. Tough one, huh? Being a manager no longer seems so appealing, right? Well, you have to do it and here is how to:

1. Take time to think things through - don't decide on the spot. You will need to explain your decision to the team and you need to have strong arguments;

2. Discuss with some fellow managers or some people you trust if you feel like doing so. You may need support with your decision. Being guilty is inevitable, so at least they will help you accept the situation easier; they will confirm your decision or help you decide and feel better;

3. Make a list of the criteria to use in selecting the people that have to go. Include professional criteria ONLY related to performance on the job. No social reasons like: this one has a family, this one has an old mother to support, this one has a loan, you have a better relationship with this one, this one brings food on Fridays for the team, this one gave you a great Christmas gift, this one is your brother or you date this one's sister - all these criteria can't exist on your list. No way! By using non-professional criteria you risk losing the respect of the remaining team;

4. Rate all team members according to the criteria on your list. Make a top of all team members according to rating;

5. Now that you have the names of the people that have to go, meet each one in particular and tell them; explain that it was your decision and that they were selected according to the criteria you used; give them all the details and take responsibility for the decision - tell them about the situation created by the client, but don't blame everything on the client - admit it was you who selected them and tell them why in a firm and clear manner; offer them alternatives if they exist - show them you care and that you have tried to help them somehow - if no alternatives exist, at least offer them support in finding another job - offer them recommendations, ideas, contact fellow managers from other teams/companies for help if this is an option;

6. After telling each team member, organize a team meeting and tell everyone - tell them about the criteria, about those that have to go and again take responsibility for your selection.

This is it. Not nice at all, but think that it will make you stronger as a person and as manager. Not everything is pink and wonderful in your job and dealing with such critical situations is your chance to prove that you as team manager was a good choice for your managers.

Take care and I wish you as little situations as the one above as possible,

Geo

Why Do Top Performers turn suddenly into very Poor Performers?

I am sure that all experienced managers have had at some point in their career one of these guys in their teams – smart, capable people, top of the list, better than anybody else today and then bored, tired, annoyed by any task they get, sometimes dragging everybody else down the next  day. Sounds familiar?

Well, managers, did you think that you may be doing something wrong? Did you take the time to think about what may be happening? Here are the potential causes that you need to investigate deeper:

1.      Employee is bored – the average time that an employee should stay on the same position with exactly the same tasks is maximum 2 years, sometimes less depending on each individual. After that, the natural tendency, especially if we are dealing with young and ambitious professionals is to get bored and start seeking for new responsibilities and challenges. Managers need to make sure that the employees seek inside the company and not elsewhere and that their newly acquired skills are not wasted. What should you do as a manager? Prevent this by constantly discussing with the employee and by constantly trying to involve him in some new projects and challenges;

2.       Employee no longer trusts his manager – if this happens, then gaining trust back is very difficult to do. What may cause this? The manager doesn’t know how to deal with poor performance – he doesn’t know how to offer different rewards depending on performance (sometimes the manager may be impresses by the poor social status of a team member and award him bonuses even if they are not deserved – be careful, it may backfire!), manager is not fair, manager offers only negative feedback, manager is not a good example (i.e. he asks the employees to be always on time at work, but he rarely follows his own rule), manager is too weak when tough decisions should be made – reasons may go on and on; spotting this is not always easy to do – employee may no longer follow rules, may no longer do tasks on time, may visibly question authority. What can be done? Work hard to gain trust again – involve employee in decision making, offer fair feedback to all members of the team, reward good performance properly, be an example to follow for the team;

3.       Poor communication from the manager down – employee doesn’t have clear goals so he can’t know if he’s performing well or not,  employee is not aware of changes implemented or changes are being implemented via force, employee doesn’t understand his role within the wider picture, employees are not encouraged to express their opinion;

4.      Poor differentiation and recognition of good performance – manager must always be fair and reward good and bad performance accordingly; top performers must know they are top performers and the team should know why they were rewarded so they can gain their respect among their colleagues;

5.       Lack of feedback - manager never has time to discuss with an employee about his performance; he is always kept in the dark not knowing whether what he did was good or bad or if any objectives were actually met. What to do?  Meet at least once a month to offer the employee feedback or if something good or bad has happened, offer feedback instantly;

6.       Poor tools offered  -this may be really frustrating – not having a computer fast enough, not having all the software the employee needs,  not having access to the printer, the internet sometimes, books or even wanting to do something and not having access to all the information – all these may turn an employee from a top performer to one who doesn’t care;

7.       Professional growth not supported properly – this may be caused by not having enough positions in the company to offer the employee (and this is something that can’t always be fixed as it is connected to the business and the company policy only); however, some small things can still be done: allow the employee to learn from others by assigning him some of their tasks from time to time, delegate some of your tasks as manager, allow the employee to teach others and develop his training skills and last but not least try to find time to allow the employee to participate in the trainings he is interested in (even if sometimes this may lead to him wanting more and leaving the company – at least you motivated him to do his best while he was in your team);

8.       Poor measurement of performance – in terms of performance measurement companies are part of either of the 3 categories: those who don’t measure performance at all (there are employees who have been working for the same company for 7 years and  nobody bothered to offer them any feedback or give them any targets to achieve), those who have implemented some measurement system but this is not too good (either reviews are not done on clear time frames, are done when the manager remembers to do it or rules, feedback and rewards  are not consistent) and finally those who have a clear performance management system that works (reviews are done on certain dates, rules are clear, rewards for good or poor performance are clear and fair, everybody has clear goals, gets  consistent feedback and knows what comes next);

9.       Poor compensation, not in line with competencies and role – this is also something that may not be fixed if the company doesn’t have the resources; however, managers must at least discuss with the employees to see if they can be motivated by other means: days off, formal and informal dinners, relaxation spaces set up, fitness subscriptions, discounts on company products – all these may matter; also, managers must remember that compensation is an important reason for employees leaving the company, but only up to a certain level. Normally entry and middle level employees care a lot about money especially if they are young (because they want a family, a house, a car, they want stuff).  For the rest money matters only up to a point – after that point you may give the employee whatever amount and find out that they still leave (because of not having enough time to spend with their family, because of not enough development opportunities, because of lack of respect, because of not being involved enough in decisions – list may go on);

10.   No involvement in decision making – employee needs to understand when changes are implemented – so managers need at least to consult the team, even if decision is already made by the board, at least they must get the chance to offer their opinion. Otherwise, they will feel left out and exploited;

11.   No balance for family/personal life – a balanced employee is a happy employee. This is why, no matter what the employee tells you, he still needs some time for himself. Even if he doesn’t have a family, he needs time with his girlfriend, his dog, his parents, time to himself – whatever – he still needs to rest and think of his own problems. Work is NOT his life, even if he is young and doesn’t understand it yet. An overworked employee, even if he does it voluntarily, will turn eventually into an unhappy employee. This is a fact!

Well, did you see all this coming? Lots of potential causes for you as managers to investigate… This may seem a bit disturbing, but you really need to take the time to think about all this because losing a top performer is worst than losing your own pride as manager.

Take care,

Geo

I Want to Fire Someone..How Do I Do It?

Any new manager may find himself or herself in this new and unpleasant situation. Sometimes unfortunately it is necessary to start thinking about the company and the team and not about each individual in particular no matter how great your relationship with each of them is. Remember that it's not fair for the team to do the work of someone unproductive (you may start losing the good ones at some point) and also remember that you may end up explaining to your managers your team's poor results. How does this sound?

If you decide that someone in your team is not performing as expected, do the following:

1. Discuss the matter directly with the person in a 1 to 1 meeting; allow them to explain as the situation may be caused by an isolated family matter or personal matter that makes them not perform for a limited period of time. Also, allow them to explain if they feel not motivated, if they would like a different job, tasks, if they feel they don't have enough opportunities to develop themselves. Don't jump to conclusions. Find out all you can about the employee's history. If they were performing well at some point, maybe something happened. Find out what and don't start firing people just like that;

2. If you are a new manager ask for advice from your own manager or from other fellow managers. They may have some tips and tricks about motivating people, about communicating with the individuals in the team, some pieces of advice from their previous experience. If you are lucky, one of them may even agree to evaluate your own employee and give you a second opinion. Maybe you are young and eager to impress and you push the team too hard;

3. If the employee doesn't have any personal matters and they are just not willing to perform, meet with them and tell them straight that you are not satisfied and that if they don't change, they will receive a termination notice. Try to prepare an Improvement Plan with clear deadlines and consequences for the employee not to have any surprises; do everything in writing and ask the employee to sign; ask HR for advice;

4. During the Improvement Plan implementation meet periodically to receive and offer feedback. If the employee is really willing to improve and keep their job, they will collaborate and ask for advice. Don't give more than 3 months to extend the illness unnecessarily. 3 months should be enough to see if the employee is willing to work with you and the team or not.

5. If in the end the final decision is to fire the individual, then before taking any action prepare your plan in detail. Think about the following - order of steps, timing and what you plan to say:
-communicate to the employee - the most difficult step; think if you plan to give them notice or you want them gone the next day; ask for advice from HR concerning labor law and potential restrictions, risks and problems that may occur; think what to tell them concerning reason, think what tasks they are still allowed to perform during the notice period, remove any materials/information they may use in a negative manner, talk to other managers that have been in your shoes before;
- communicate to the team; be straight, give real details and reasons - they may already suspect something and some ugly lies can generate unnecessary rumors;
- post the recruitment ad - internally or externally;
- think if the two people should meet or if you can pass the knowledge to the new joiner yourself;

This is it and good luck.
Geo

Also read:
I want to become a manager
http://hr-faq.blogspot.ro/2012/05/i-want-to-become-manager-what-should-i.html

But also...do we really need managers?
http://hr-faq.blogspot.ro/2012/07/do-we-even-need-managers-or-should-we.html

Do We Even Need Managers? Or Should We Make Them Disappear?

A lot of employees think of management positions like they are the ultimate goal in their professional life; like they offer maximum satisfaction and that they prove and reward outstanding performance. Lots of companies offer hundreds of related trainings and thousands of management books sell in book stores every day. 

Students and fresh graduates hope and dream to become managers while parents teach their kindergarten kids that being a manager is like being the king. The last one is a bit exaggerated, but you get the idea.

Reality check: do we really need all these managers? Wouldn’t the employees who actually do the real work be better on their own? Are all this time, money and effort to grow and use managers really necessary? So much money invested in trainings, so much time, so many preparations and in the end even more money to pay all these people…does the company get anything back?

All managers reading this post will reply for sure that “yes, they are really needed”. But my post is not for you, sorry guys, but for the people you manage. It’s one of my tricky HR FAQs – do we really need managers around? Most employees with non-management positions may reply “of course not, we can manage ourselves just fine”. So, how is it?

The answer is in the middle, both are right, we actually need managers “yes, sometimes” and here’s why:

-          We need people in a company who are required to continuously check, analyze and adjust the big picture; all of you specialists know your tasks very well, but are too busy to know everything in the company; someone has to know all the processes (not necessarily in detail) to be able to confirm the right direction of the company and to implement  any required changes;

-          You need someone more experienced to confirm that you are doing a good job, to guide you and to help you improve. Why you may ask? I can decide myself or I can ask a colleague. But…your assessment is subjective and your colleague may not be honest; a manager may not be fair, but if you need improvement he will make sure you actually do it; you may be postponing trainings or forgetting about them; a manager will make sure you do all that is needed on time;

-          You need someone to represent you in front of the company owners (if a company has 3000 employees, not all of them can go to owners directly – imagine the queue) and why not propose salary increases for you to reward your performance; have you thought that you may not have the suitable speech to convince and that your more experienced manager may know better how to present the situation to have costs approved? In the eyes of the owners, it’s all about the costs and the profit. You need strong arguments to have things your way. Do you have all of these arguments ready?

-          You need someone to do the dirty job, the things you don’t like. Have you thought how many tasks managers have that they don’t like but which someone needs to do. Just a few ideas: tons of reports, answering in front of the company board for things that weren't achieved in your team, carrying out disciplinary actions for your team mates that don’t do their job (and whose job you need to do sometimes and of course you don’t like it), doing your job while you are sick or on vacation, meeting sales people from various partners, wasting time in conferences and meetings, staying overtime to meet with partners from a different time zone, traveling all the time (it can get annoying after a while, don’t imagine business traveling is all that fun, leaving your home and family for weeks and so on);

-          We need managers to represent the company in front of partners and clients and to take responsibility for any failuresconcerning signing contracts and closing deals; if contracts are not signed and clients are gone, guess what happens to your job. Do you feel strong enough to do this task?

-          You need someone to mediate any conflicts between you and your team mates for the job to go on and work to be done;

-          You need someone to see your needs (material needs, development needs, motivation needs) and take care of you. Do you always feel strong enough to have your own back?

And the above are just a few. The list can go on. My point is that delegating tasks to non-managers is ideal. This makes them more responsible and engaged. However, managers are also needed as they bring experience, decision making skills and strength to the company. They connect employees and company owners and are mediators in various situations. Wondering about me? Just for your own curiosity, yes, I am a manager and yes, I feel and hope people need me :)

Take care,

Geo

Also read:

http://hr-faq.blogspot.com/2012/05/i-want-to-become-manager-what-should-i.html

http://hr-faq.blogspot.com/2012/02/career-management-exercise.html

I Want to Become a Manager – What Should I Do?

First of all you must think really well if you have what is takes. What I mean is:

1. Are you willing to be the role model and image of your team?
2. Are you willing to take responsibility for everything that happens in your team, including the negative results?
3. Are you strong enough to solve the conflicts between the members of your team?
4. Do you think you are able to build authority and convince the members of your team to listen to you and to follow your lead?
5. Are you willing to talk to the members of your team periodically, listen to them, know them well enough in order to help them and be their mentor?
6. Are you willing to learn and understand the functionality and roles of the members in your team in order to assign tasks in a fair and efficient manner and maybe help from time to time?
7. Are you interested in knowing and doing more than your current role?
8. Are you interested in understanding the entire business conducted by the company you are in (or are interested of working for) in order to understand where you and your team fit?
9. Do you like working with people?
10. Do you have any idea what “motivating your team” means?
11. Do you feel confident to speak in public?
12. Do you like reporting or are patient enough to deal with this task even if you’re not very fond of it?
13. Do you feel confident enough to make your own decisions knowing that they might affect not only you, but the people in your team as well or even the entire company?
14. Do you feel strong enough to fire someone?
15. Do you feel strong enough to tell someone to their face that they are not performing well and need to improve?
16. Do you know what “delegating tasks” means? Do you trust your team members enough to actually do it?
17. Do you know what you current manager does on a daily basis?
18. Are you organized? Do you know how to prioritize your tasks?

If you replied in a positive manner to all or most of the questions above, then you want to become a manager. Now, from wanting something and making it happen, it is a long way. What you need to do next is shadow your manager and get involved in trainings.

How to shadow your manager: talk to him/her in an open manner and tell him/her that you want to learn more than what you know at the moment. Ask for additional tasks that are done by a manager mainly and see how it feels like: do reports, talk to the members of your team, plan meetings, be the moderator in meetings, propose improvements, come up with new ideas, take responsibility for results. This will give you the confidence to take this new role and do it well.

At the same time, get involved in trainings. Talk to your manager, to your Human Resources department and also search by yourself trainings in the following areas: decision making, time management, planning and organizing, conflict management, leadership and team management, motivating your team, recruitment and selection, building trust in your team, building authority, project management – at least beginner level, risk management, organizing meetings, communication and anything that your manager and HR department recommends.

Only then you will be ready to apply for this new role in your company or in a different one. Becoming a manager takes a lot of work, but if you really want it and are determined enough to do the work and learn,  you will succeed. It means having a lot more responsibilities, but also more satisfaction when projects are done and results are visible.

Good luck and always follow your dreams, no matter what they are.

Geo