Table of Contents
If you are a manager, then you must do this exercise. On the left-hand side of a blank sheet of paper write down the names of the people who report to you in descending order of productivity, the most productive at the top, the least productive at the bottom. On the right-hand side, write down the same names, but this time in descending order of “time you spend with them,” the most time at the top, the least time at the bottom. Now draw straight lines joining the names on the left with the appropriate names on the right.
Do your lines cross? They often do. Many managers find themselves spending the most time with their least productive people and the least time with their most productive people. Anyway, your best employees can already do the job. They don’t need you. But those few employees who are struggling? They need all the help you can give them. Without your support they might not only fail as individuals, they might also drag down the entire team. And this is what you never want.
“Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”– Steve Jobs.
The Approach of Most Effective Managers
Most managers justify the more time spent with the less productive people, but the most effective managers do the opposite. When they join the names, their lines are horizontal. They spend the most time with their most productive employees. They invest in their best. But why?
Because at heart effective managers see their role very differently from the way most managers do. Most managers assume that the point of their role is either to control or to instruct. And, yes, if you see “control” as the core of the manager role, then it would certainly be productive to spend more time with your strugglers because they still need to be controlled. Likewise, if you think “instructing” is the essence of management, investing most in your strugglers makes similarly good sense because they still have so much to learn.
But effective managers do not place a premium on either control or instruction. Both have their place, particularly with novice employees, but they are not the core. For effective managers, the core of their role is the catalyst role: turning talent into performance. So when they spend time with an employee, they are not fixing or correcting, or instructing. Instead, they are racking their brains, trying to figure out better and better ways to unleash that employee’s distinct talents. This is what they do-
- They strive to carve out a unique set of expectations that will stretch and focus on each particular individual.
- They try to highlight and perfect each person’s unique style. And they draw his attention to it. They help him understand why it works for him and how to perfect it.
- And they plot how they, the manager, can run interference for each employee so that each can exercise his or her talents even more freely.
More Attention, Greater Yield
If you are spending your time with your people for— setting unique expectations, highlighting and perfecting individual styles, running interference — you will be drawn toward your most talented employees. Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield. The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.
At its simplest, a manager’s job is to encourage people to do more of certain productive behaviors and less of other, unproductive behaviors. Since human beings are wired to need the attention of some kind, if they are not getting attention, they will tend, either subconsciously or consciously, to alter their behavior.
Therefore, as a manager, if you pay the most attention to your strugglers and ignore your stars, you can inadvertently alter the behaviors of your stars. Guided by your evident indifference, your stars may start to do less of what made them stars in the first place and more of other kinds of behaviors that might net them some kind of good or bad reaction from you. When you see your stars acting up, it is a sure sign that you have been paying attention to the wrong people and the wrong behaviors.
In practical terms, great managers invest in their best because it is extremely productive to do so and actively destructive to do otherwise. During interviews, great managers were happy to explain the benefits of investing in their best was, first, the fairest thing to do; second, the best way to learn; and, third, the only way to stay focused on excellence.
The Fairest Thing to Do
Great managers are committed to the concept of ‘fairness’ but they define it rather differently from most people. In their mind “fairness” does not mean treating everyone the same. They would say that the only way to treat someone fairly is to treat them as they deserve to be treated, bearing in mind what they have accomplished.
Jimmy Johnson, the coach who led the Dallas Cowboys to two Super Bowl rings and who now manages the Miami Dolphins, captures their attitude toward “fairness.” He made this point in a speech to the Miami players immediately after taking the reins from Don Shula:
“I am going to be very consistent with every one of you because I’ll treat every one of you differently. That’s the way it is. The harder a guy works, the better he performs, and the more he meets my guidelines, the more leeway he is going to have with me. By the same token, if a guy doesn’t work very hard or if he’s not a good player, he’s not going to be around for very long.”
That language might seem a little blunt for the corporate environment, but the concept remains true with great managers. Quite simply, they choose to invest more time with their best because their best are more deserving of it.
Craving for Attention
The human being craves attention. Each individual might value different kinds of attention, but we all hate to be ignored. If love is not the opposite of hate, then surely indifference is the opposite of both. If you spend the most time with your worst performers, then the message you are sending to your employees is that “the better your performance becomes, the less time and attention you will receive from me, your manager.” From any angle, this is an odd message.
So better you spend the most time with your top performers. Pay attention to them. Be fair to the right people.
One of the most powerful things you can do is to go back and “rehire” your best people. That is, go back and tell them why they are so good. Tell them why they are one of the cornerstones of the team’s success. Choose a style that fits you, and don’t allow the conversation to slip into promises about promotion in the future — that’s a different conversation, for a different time. Simply tell them why their contribution is so valued today. (Excerpt is inspired from ‘First, Break All the Rules’ by Marcus Buckingham)
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