Performance Management

Describe the best manager you’ve ever had.

What qualities in that person did you most admire? Why did you like working for them? What did they do to make a positive impact on you and your career?

While everybody has different criteria for what makes somebody a great manager, there are typically some consistencies. I bet the person you’re thinking of helped you play to your strengths and work on your weaknesses. They celebrated your successes and guided you through failure. They listened to you, developed you, empowered you, and trusted you.

In other words – they were more like a coach, and less like a boss.

Click to continue »

Managing people is a continual improvement process.

Master a skill, grasp new knowledge, achieve a higher goal – then move on to the next. It’s your job and privilege to take employees to that next level.

Here are the seven best, research-proven ways to help employees improve performance – plus two tactics that don’t work.

Click to continue »

Even the most confident bosses can stumble when it comes to delivering difficult messages.

In fact, business leaders are slower to share bad news than good news, a study in Social Science Research Network found.

That shouldn’t be a big surprise. It’s simply easier to deliver a positive message.

But there’s more at stake at getting the difficult message right.

Click to continue »

Some people are naturally confrontational. It’s just how they roll.

And most managers’ first thought is how to avoid them!

That’s impossible all the time. But we can adopt an approach that at least lessens the pain of engaging them – without turning into an argument.

Salespeople are probably the most adept at dealing with combative people. They’re the ones who hear the complaints about a product or service (whether it’s their fault or not), so they come to expect some level of confrontation with almost every encounter.

They’re prepared, so they know how to respond. So you might want to use these tips from seasoned salespeople the next time you face a confrontational person:

Click to continue »

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:

Click to continue »

Even successful managers have their share of complainers.

You know the ones: They never see the upside of anything, they’re persistently negative and never seem to know when to stifle it. Hand them a million dollars, they’d complain you didn’t give them anything to carry it in.

But not all complainers deserve a brush off. In a lot of cases, you can cultivate your complainers and put them to good use.

Click to continue »

Good employees fear rejection from their managers more than anything. When it comes to that raise, or the extra day, or the idea they have, they want to hear “yes.”

Not surprisingly, most of us hate even more to be the “rejector.”

One of the uncomfortable situations managers find themselves in is denying a promotion to an employee who’s applied for a higher position. Since the employee has shown an interest in improving his or her status, which also shows an interest in the company, it’s doubly hard to deny the request – even though there are good reasons for doing so.

You know the employee isn’t going to take it well. So, it takes some deft handling to deliver it.

Try these steps when turning down a current employee for a promotion.

Click to continue »

Giving and receiving feedback is an interaction we all tend to dodge in one way or another.

It’s not our fault, really – we’re hardwired to feel threatened when receiving feedback, and knowing that makes it hard to give.

Our brain is constantly scanning our surroundings to determine whether we’re safe. When it senses danger, our fight-or-flight response kicks in, and our mind goes into defense mode. From a neurological perspective, the words “Let me give you some feedback” hit the same pain circuits as if we were physically hit.

Obviously, this doesn’t help create a positive space for discussion.

Click to continue »

There’s a lot of luck in getting along great with all those who work for you.

It’s hard to mold competing personalities into a cohesive team. And when it works, of course, it’s a sign you are a managerial genius!

Until a team member wants to take everyone (including you) on one of his or her Ego Trips.

It helps to have a road map, even for ego trips. Here’s a primer on some that you’ll want to avoid:

Click to continue »

Even good managers face times when we have something difficult to say and don’t quite know quite how to say it.

Think of the last time you had a message for your team and, rather than just say it, you found yourself going over and over the exact words you wanted to use.

The reason something might be hard to say has more to do with us overthinking the meaning behind it, rather than knowing what words to use.

Here are a few of the best ways to say the hardest things:

Click to continue »