Not in order of priority…
1. Provide a vision of where we are going—for their own part of the organisation at least.
2. Think about systems—can things be organised better, are things falling between the cracks, should we invest?
3. Be creative about vision systems and people. Creativity is vital, it’s the only way you add value in the end.
4. Have the courage to be yourself, be honest with people, fight for what’s right, rise above politics. Courage!.
5. Motivation comes from all of the above but also—involving the team as much as possible in decisions.
6. Thanking everyone approx once a week for real things they have done that are good.
7. Being a coach and teaching people things—the manager is growing machine of people and coaching is how this is done.
8. Be strong about poor performance. If coaching doesn’t work then get rid of poor performers. Following company procedures of course.,
9. Being a good planner—using project management techniques so that change happens smoothly and correctly and that everyone can see the plan and how they fit into it.
10. Appraisals—these fix every problem that can occur between a manager and someone working for them. They are easy to avoid but are vital. Tom Peters says they are the only thing you can’t delegate..
11. Sharpen the saw—keep developing by reading and going on training courses.
12. Being a good delegator. It’s really hard to delegate things you care about, and delegate means let it go! You still monitor and support if needed, but mainly you let them do it their own way, even if you secretly think you could do it better. Bad delegators have demotivated staff and no time themselves.
13. Review the motivation of your staff regularly—are they learning, do they each have a challenge to work on, do they each have an area that is their own that they are accountable for; and are they happy?
14. Set a perfect example—because the bad things get copied but the good ones often don’t! This means hard work, positive attitude, great customer care, attention to detail, etc, all day every day!
15. Build the team by having weekly team meetings, every week without fail.
16. Be organised yourself—write everything down, and everything you delegate you get a date when it’s due, put it in your diary, and check they’ve done it on that date.
17. Patience with poor performers.
18. An interest in the lives of your people—they are not just workers, and everyone has talents that you can discover and which the organisation can benefit from as the person enjoys using the talent for you.
- Listen to our podcast with Chris here.