Despite all the hoopla about how tech skills will drive the future, it turns out soft skills, like communicating and coaching, top the list when it comes to being a most valued employee.
Even the tech-types are now saying so.
Two recent Google studies suggest overlooking soft skills is to your detriment.
It’s a challenge for most managers: What to do when people who used to work with you now work for you, thanks to some reshuffling, etc.
Though they may come at you with handshakes and congratulations, inside they might be feeling a little skeptical — and a lot envious. You’re just like them, after all – what merits YOU to now be in charge?
New managers can succumb to early power-struggle mistakes when supervising former co-workers.
We either overstep our boundaries or under-enforce them. Or we fail to recognize common pitfalls we that could mess up team dynamics and one-to-one employee relationships.
Successful managers always seek to take advantage of those “teachable moments” when they present themselves.
But we’re afraid that what always seems to come out sounds like criticism.
Especially with new employees, you want to find a way to deliver necessary feedback without sounding like you think the employee can’t do anything right!
The key is to make negative feedback sound like constructive praise. Most managers start out with “You’re doing a great job, but … ,” which just tells the employee that despite the good things he or she does, it’s really the bad stuff that stands out.
When’s the last time you asked your employees what they really think?
About anything – their jobs, the company’s prospects, the physical space, what they get stuck on most.
Forget “brainstorming” – that’s not what this is. It’s an effort to find out what’s been making them tick lately, and whether you’re missing any subtle messages they’re trying to send.
Soliciting feedback can be as simple as telling employees about upcoming projects and asking what they feel should be prioritized. Or discussing company efforts toward a goal, and asking what they’d do to get it done.
Even though your team might not make the big decisions, this practice does two things: It gives you insight into how your employees think regarding their jobs and, more importantly, lets your employees know they’re more than just a number.
Forget cleaning out your closets or cleaning up your diet.
Make 2018 the year you clean up your communication.
Ditch the clichés and buzzwords. Put meaning and credibility back into what you say – and what you write. You’re sure to get better results if you do.
Here are 11 all-too-popular workplace words and phrases that have seen their day come and go – and why you really do want to make a point of putting them to rest this year.
It seems we find ourselves in meetings all day long. Some are pretty productive, but I bet you find yourself in a lot more meetings that just seem to be a waste of time.
And you end up asking, “Is this meeting REALLY necessary?”
The cost of bad meetings is staggering: $37 billion dollars are wasted every year in the U.S. on useless meetings.
Well, this great infographic/flowchart from our friends at fundera can help you decide whether you should hold that meeting at all. So next time you think about calling a meeting, walk through this flowchart first.
Successful managers get to the top by knowing how and when to effectively delegate. Being able to use your human resources wisely makes both you and your team better.
But when the time comes to delegate, you might find yourself doing a delicate dance. It’s your job to delegate work, but it might not be obvious what tasks should go to which employee.
One option is to fake it: Gather your team together, outline the project tasks to be done, and let your employees choose what they want to be responsible for.
It might be easier, but it’s less effective. Why? Because employees respond better when they feel they’ve been chosen for a particular task, rather than having to volunteer for it.
Ken Jennings says knowledge isn’t trivial.
As the winningest Jeopardy! contestant of all time (74 matches in a row), Jennings knows something about knowledge and trivia.
Like this factoid: “Trivia” is the only word you’re not supposed to say on air as a Jeopardy! contestant (as in, “I was always good at trivia”).
Why? Because trivia equals trivial, and Jeopardy! isn’t trivial. (Jennings’ payday of $3.4 million certainly wasn’t.)
But in this age of being able to ask Google or Siri for a piece of information, is knowing stuff still important to managers and supervisors for anything besides winning on TV game shows?
Jennings, who calls himself a “nerdy guy” who “knows a lot of weird stuff” argues it does. And it applies to leaders and managers, too. Here’s why:
When you see an employee do something wrong, your instinct most likely is to call it out and show how to do it better.
And unless the employee has done something egregiously offensive, pointing out the mistake can turn into a good coaching opportunity.
But if it’s not done right, it can demoralize the employee and usually won’t lead to a better outcome. Worse, it could work against you.
So deftly correcting employees requires a little bit of subtlety.
Here are six tips on how successful managers pull it off:
So, you’ve decided to call an employee in to talk about his performance. Maybe you’ve noticed the employee seems disinterested about taking on new tasks. Or that his work is regularly late when it used to be prompt.
Regardless, you know you have to have “the talk.”
How you approach the performance chat will affect the response you’ll get – and the turnaround you’re hoping for.
But even though your main goal is to improve the employee’s performance, your chat might backfire if you have an underlying motive going in.
