Posts tagged trust

Emotions in the Workplace?

Jan05
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

One of the most difficult tasks for a manager is dealing with emotions in the workplace. Partly because the organization as a whole, would like to keep emotions, especially negative ones, out of the workplace. I have worked for managers, VP level folks, that would have us all check our emotions (negative ones) at the door, before we walk in. Just not feasible. We all are feeling people. Whatever you see, hear or touch usually gets a reaction or emotion from you. Good or bad emotions – they all happen. A little story telling now. I happened to be in a senior level meeting, when we were discussing morale within the departments. Many of the works that came out were fear, frustration, anger, and dissatisfaction were used. The VP stopped the discussion and told us, “enough about these emotions, I don’t want to hear about them. You need to get morale up. That is your job, make it happen.” I am not one to sit and not say anything. I lightheartedly said, “Beatings will continue to morale goes up.” Some laughed, others sat quietly. I quickly pointed out that we (the leadership team) needed to validate their emotions. We needed to understand what was at the root of the emotion, rather than ignore them. VP looked at me with anger. I quickly added, that I probably sparked an emotion with those statements. Before you punish, let’s think… Defused situation (I just knew, I was going to get killed).  Emotions are there…

How do you as a manager deal with them? As a manager, at least a good manager, you have to be able to see, hear and help. How do you set this up for your people?

  • You need to develop an open, trusting environment. People have to have the ability to speak freely. With no fear of reprimand. Start with the individuals on the team first, then make sure you take it to the complete team. Start small, then go big.
  • Know you people. Think of the fear emotions… Some folks can deal with it themselves, they “fear” they may fail and they buckle down and do whatever is necessary. Others may shutdown. Recognize what works for each person and get to moving forward quickly.
  • Push through the uncomfortable. Sometimes dealing with emotions can be uncomfortable. It happens. You as the manager need to make sure that you deal with the situation as early as possible to lessen the effect long term. Role play that discuss with a mentor, be honest and push through – you will be surprised at the end of it.
  • Be real and yourself. Slow down.. The first thing that most people do is react. Slow down and think it through first. I know this is a broken record when it comes to be a manager. You have to set the example for your team. All eyes are watching you all the time. Make sure that you are being real. If you are having one of those days (like your folks), acknowledge it with them. Maybe they will have some insight for you! Last time I checked, you managers are people too.
  • Ask others if they are feeling the same way. When in the team setting, go ahead and ask for additional information. Some folks are more vocal than others and sometimes we think it is just them. If you ask, you maybe surprised to see that more folks are in the same boat. Just afraid to speak up first. Once on the table, it can be worked.

Don’t think that emotions are not going to play in your teams. Be ready, be prepared and don’t be afraid. The sooner you confront, acknowledge and validate, the quicker moving forward can happen. All negative emotions can true to a positive, if handled properly. Same is true for positive emotions (passion). If you play that one up too much on your “rising star” – the rest of the team will be deflated or be negative toward that person. This is a very tricky subject, probably why that VP wanted nothing to do with it. You have to deal with it…

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Mixed Messages

Jun27
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

Mixed messages, have you ever gotten any? As a leader, I bet you never think that you have communicated any. In today’s world we have mixed messages everywhere… They come in the form of visual and verbal.

The visual one’s are sometimes extremely funny!

  • How about when you see a person wearing a “Smaller is better t-shirt” and that t-shirt a XXXL and it is tight on the person? Sitting in the food court of the mall…
  • Ever go to the beach and sitting on the bench are people in normal beach wear (swim suits, sun glasses) and one bench down there is a person dressed for winter (long pants, winter jacket and a wool knit cap)? Which is it…
  • Posted signs do this all the time – How about the “Not an Exit” posted on door – with the “Exit” sign right next to it.. Just look around – I bet there are plenty more examples.

The one’s I really want to discuss in this post are the ones that we get as employee’s or maybe give as managers. More verbal in nature. How about these examples:

  • Performance message that goes like – “good job, but…” The old but sandwich! I wrote in detail on making sure that as a manager you don’t do this.. Check it out!
  • Ever hear – we need to be the best at providing top level quick  customer service (get your respond time down to seconds rather than minutes). In the sentences to follow – the staff is hearing make sure that you take the time to make the customer feel important. Listen to them, relate their words in your communication back.
  • The mission statement says we are going to provide a top level superior education using the best practices to provide an A+ rating. Really wanting all students to work hard, continuing to grow academically and challenging themselves everyday. Sounds good.. But when it comes to providing academic achievement awards – everyone needs to get one (we do live in that world today – everyone needs to get a trophy).  How many top learner’s were there in the class (25/25).
  • Another performance review, but this time it is going over team goals. Using data is a great thing – using the right amount of data is a tricky thing. I happened to work in a group that had data for just about everything. We reviewed it monthly. Each metric had a goal… Where the mixed messages came into play – is when two or more competed with each other. Example – on time delivery, quality and on-budget. It is extremely funny to listen to the managers talk about them, ask questions and then redirect. Great job on 100% on-time delivery, but we had a missing in quality or the cost was a bit too high. Again – that “but” sandwich.

Plenty of this goes on! How do we stop sending and receiving these messages? For me – I do a couple of things…

  • Never use “but” in a sentence… Practice, practice and more practice. I have told my employee’s that if I use “but” they have the opportunity to call it out. Right away!
  • Confused are you? Then ask questions.. I pretty much get confused when I first hear something that is sending a mixed message. It is like my radar – so, stop and get clarity. Ask questions to help you get the understanding necessary to move in the right direction.
  • Call it out! Here is where trust comes into play. Having a good working relationship with your team can make this really easy. Using a sports analogy here – having a way to call foul (or penalty, or throw the flag) is necessary. This opens up the discussion – no one is at fault – we have something that needs to be cleared up.

 

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Pressure Moments – How Do You Do?

Jun16
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

As a leader of your team – many eyes are on you from many different angles. You have your team, your manager, your support groups and even your customers. How YOU behavior is important. Decisions can be tough.  Everyone can do a pretty effective job of leading their team if there are no pressures. Working with your team can be difficult at times.  Some key contributors are out. The team is just not getting along as well as it should. Overloaded “to do” list can really make meeting your deadlines a bit tough. There are some many more pressures that can hit you that can make anything seem impossible. Your words and actions during these times are what is truly key to your success as a leader. Remember, everyone is watching.

How do you normally react doing those tough times?

  • Maybe a little short with answers to questions?
  • How about frustrated when things are not going right?
  • Start micro-managing your team?
  • Little slow with answers to tough decisions?
  • Take a day off when a key deadline is due?

Hopefully you did not say yes to any of these behaviors. These were not made up examples, I have seen them throughout my working career. I can almost put a face and a name to each of them. As I have written in past blog posts, learning from ours examples (both failure and success) can be very helpful to you in the future. I have taken those bad examples above and changed up how I perform under extremely pressure.

What I typically do is:

  • Insure that the pressures that I am under are not outwardly visible to my team. I try to maintain my positive and cheerful attitude everyday that I in the office.
  • Sometimes this is extremely difficult, at the very least, I communicate to my team what is going on. Letting them know the pressures and how they can help, usually is a good thing.
  • Come in a bit early and stay late if needed. I always like to get in early to help me with quiet time. Helps me focus on what is important. I want my team to understand that I am here, no matter what.
  • Prioritizing and delegating workloads. Work assignments may need to be shifted in order to meet some extreme deadlines. Asking the team their input on how best to accomplish this has been helpful in the past. Sometimes, a team member may have a skill in something that they don’t especially care for doing, but when times are tough – they step up and get it done.
  • Pressure situations need to bring out some creative solutions – more minds working on that creative solution the better.
  • Most importantly – Be myself! At the end of the day, your character and being true to yourself is what matters. If I am not happy with myself for any reason – I am the only person that can fix it.

How best do you handle those pressure moments?

 

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Doing It Too!

Jun08
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

Ever have a supervisor that never walked in your shoes? Ever have a supervisor that loved to tell you have to do something, but did not know how to do it themselves? Over the years, I have had plenty of them. Usually not for long! I just don’t understand how any supervisor can lead his/her team without doing the work too. I have always done exactly what my people have done. Building credibility with your team is extremely important!

It started back in that very first assignment as a new second lieutenant in the US Army. My assignment was motor pool officer in a reserve engineering company. We had plenty of vehicles and a bulldozer. I went out and got certified to operate every one of them. My commander was shocked by this. It sort of chalked it up to brand new reservist. Later on, the commander came to realize that this was a good thing. My platoon was working well – they aced everything that was set in front of them. It was something that had not done in quite sometime. Our Inspector General inspection was that first fall and I was tasked with taking the inspectors through the motor pool paperwork, equipment inspections and whatever they wanted. We aced that too! In fact, the Inspector General called out the fact that I was certified on everything and actually performed operation of the bulldozer perfectly. Having heard that and watching how well my platoon worked together – I learned that this was a good thing. I continued this practice with every other position that I had since.

Sometimes I would get some very strange looks from my managers. Why are you doing that? I would always bring up that very first ever work assignment with the US Army… I would make them a promise that it would work or they could find someone else to do my job. I am still surprised to this day, that many managers do not take them time to learn how, perform the tasks and understand exactly what has to happen to get the work done.

If there is one simple piece of advice to get to any new manager – walk a mile or so in the shoes of your team. Get to know exactly what they are doing. If you company has a certification program for the work – complete it. The time that you spend doing that were be paid back to you ten-fold. Your team will thank you. You will have a better understanding of how all the pieces fit together. You will also be a resource to making the work get done – if needed. All good stuff for a team!

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Working Trusting Relationships

May12
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

How many times have you heard the word TRUST around the office? How many times have you been trained on trust? It is one of those important building blocks to a successful working relationship between a manager and their people. I have participated in a few TwitterChats with #leadershipchat and we have discussed trust (and it keeps coming up on other topics as well). Giving this a bit more thought, why do people leave their jobs (or companies), besides the almighty dollars? From a personal perspective – I retired from my last job because of:

  • Lack of follow-through on commitments made.
  • Openness of communication.
  • Amount and availability of communications.
  • Incompetent or poor decision-making.
  • Incompetent job performance.

Maybe those examples hit home a bit. Are you experiencing them as well? It is always easy to point out a problem or run the other way.. Thinking back on my overall 28+ years, I have had to work through the above concerns many times. What did I do? What did our team do? What could you do? Here are some of my basic working relationship principles that I have tweaked over the years.

If you are a manager:

Believe in your team — their motives, knowledge and skills..

  • Spend some time getting to know each team member’s capabilities, interests and skills.
  • Understand your team’s strengths and weaknesses. Take advantage of the full capabilities of your team. Work to fix shortcomings.
  • Share information with team members that will allow them to understand their tasks and how they fit into the bigger picture.
  • Have faith in team members to set appropriate objectives. Let them do the doing..
  • Delegate decision-making authority: This one maybe a bit tough depending on your companies overall decision-making processes. Figure out what decisions go where – and share it with the team.
  • Negotiate realistic expectations, then have faith in team members’ ability to deliver what we get paid for.

Provide honest business communication..

  • Share the good, bad and ugly results.
  • No question – Tell the Truth – always; no sugar coating, no politics, no spin doctoring.

For the team (managers and teammates)

Demonstrate open, honest communication at all times..

  • Your word is your bond!
  • Share information that is important to others — no hidden agenda.
  • Explain reasons behind statements, requests and decisions.
  • Recognize healthy friction as a key to critical thinking, and respect another teammate’s right to disagree.
  • Criticize constructively by sticking to the issue and not getting personal. Try not to think why someone is doing something.

Make realistic commitments and keep them..

  • If you say it, then do it!
  • Do not overcommit. It is too easy to always say yes.. If you can’t do it, say so.
  • Admit you don’t know something. I would rather hear, “I don’t know. Let me get back to you.” Then some made up answer.
  • If you find, because of changing circumstances, you can’t keep your commitment, say so early and rework the commitment together.

Work together – you are already there..

  • Be responsive to one another’s needs by offering, and accepting assistance.
  • Speak up early – especially if it is bad news. Never shot the messenger! We just saved ourselves a bunch of time.
  • Always bring forth potential solutions rather than drop a bomb.

Is this the complete answer? No. I see this as a foundation. Level the playing field for yourself and your team…

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My Manager Musts

Apr06
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

Over the years, I have learned some important things to do and not to do. Managing people has been a learning experience. When I was a new manager, almost every situation I encountered was new. I stumbled through them sometimes, but I can safely say, I learned something from each situation. Some of my managers were good sources of my experiences. Some of them offered the “don’t do this” variety, but those are key lessons to take with me. So, what are the major things I have learned in all these years of managing people? What have I shared with other managers? I have written on almost all of them (see hyperlinks). Here are the things that I have in my toolbox of managing people:

  • Your job is to remove roadblocks for your staff. This is one key that many managers forget. What do you really offer your staff that they can not get on their own? Roadblock remover! Sometimes the manager gets in the way. If that is true, get moving.
  • Set expectations. Giving your staff the opportunity to help set expectations is very powerful. Giving them the end point, gives them vision into what needs to be done. Don’t tell them how to do it. See the first one…
  • Empower them. I know this one is a lot of lip service. Truly empower them is giving them the authority, confidence and the space to get the job done. Sounds easy… Make it happen, you will be rewarded more from your staff with this one.
  • Never give someone a task, you wouldn’t do. Let’s face it sometimes there are crappy tasks that need to be done.. Don’t be afraid to say that, “I know this is a crappy task. I am sorry, but I really need you to get it done.” Helps..
  • Problems occur, address them ASAP. In a previous post, I wrote about conflict. Well, those problems don’t usually go away. Stand up and acknowledge there is a problem. Respectfully address it.
  • Praise in public. Critique in private. If you must critique, make sure that it is about the professional part of the job. Stay away from the personal. Everything must tie to what is happening back on the job. Your behavior in this situation caused this to be missed, that to slipped or whatever happened  in their job. Setting the stage is critical.
  • Let them speak (or vent). Give them the opportunity to let of some steam if necessary. Listen, you could hear something that is going on, that you were unaware of. Too many times, I have heard a managers voice and not my own. Those don’t work well.
  • Respect their time. I had a manager that was late to everything. His time management was terrible. For me, I felt that my time was not important. My time and their time is important!
  • Don’t be afraid to say, “I don’t know.” I don’t know everything.. The worse thing you could do is make something up. A simple, “I don’t know, but let me find out” works best.
  • No surprises. Don’t blindside your staff members. A performance appraisal should not be the first time someone hears there is a problem. You should be communicating all the time. Here is more deeper thoughts in this area.
  • Never micromanage. Again, another past post of mine. For me, micromanaging is the worst behavior any manager can do. Give your people room to work!
  • Finding the “right” people to work in your team. Your team is key to your success. Finding the right people to work together is critical. Sometimes the person with the most experience is not the best fit for the job
  • Mistakes happen, just not the same mistake over and over. No one is perfect, so when a mistake happens, learn from it and don’t let it happen again. I always use the first one is on me… Have a positive outlook and control
  • Blame is useless. I have had managers that are looking for the “who” to blame. I would rather find out what happened and make sure that it doesn’t happen again. See the above one.
  • You set the example of your staff to follow. Your staff is a mirror of yourself. You don’t like what you see, then you change.
  • You are nothing without them. It is a funny thing, when you go on vacation or are out sick, the work gets done… If you staff is all out on vacation or sick – nothing gets done.

There probably are more to add.. Everyday as a manager is a learning experience. Take this list, use what you want and add some of your own. Either way, your staff will appreciate it.

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Keys to Empowering Your Staff

Mar28
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

Plenty of what I have written have been how to really help you, as a manager or leader, in the area of getting a good working relationship with your staff. One area that I have not really called out, but have written about some of the principles around, empowering your staff. Employee empowerment is something that every manager or leader wants for his staff. Do you believe that you truly empower your staff? Have you asked them? Did you see their body language when they answered. Look at how you feel empowered by your manager. Is that empowerment that you want for your staff? We truly want to have our staff feel empowered to do their work. What does it take to set that stage for empowerment? Here are some of the keys that I believe are necessary:

  • Value your people – in all that you communicate and do for them. If you do this, your staff will “see” it. They will appreciate your words and actions…
  • Share your vision – with your team. No one likes to be left out in the dark. If you have plans, share and ask them their opinion. Keep that vision where they can find it!
  • Share goals – I know I have written a lot about expectations and goals. To me that is key to helping each of my staff to understand what and why.. They make sure the how to is theirs. They get it done…
  • Trust your people – again another topic that I feel is very important. Trust is a two way street – insure that you trust your staff. Earn their trust by setting strong expectations, do what you say you will do and remove roadblocks.
  • Insure all information is available – this one is making sure that the “why” is communicated freely with the what. Issue that your staff has access to everything they need to help them get their job done.
  • Delegate to your staff – for me, this one is making sure that the people getting the work done have the power to make decisions (when appropriate), get help when necessary and give them opportunities to shine. It is so easy for most managers to delegate the crap work… Don’t do that, your staff reads right through that stuff.
  • Provide feedback often – nothing says you value them than providing positive or constructive feedback. Do it timely.  Do it in the right setting..
  • Listen to your staff – it is all to easy for managers to do all the talking. You staff is “doing” the work, they do know what is truly happening. Listen… Problems may come up and if you listen – you maybe able to help solve the problem with them. Don’t listen – you will miss what is really happening.
  • Reward your staff – recognize good work and let the staff know. They will feel that you do value them.. That their work means something and they will continue to do some amazing stuff.

Those are the keys that I strive for with my staff. Many have communicated over the years, that they had some of their best times working with me and in my teams. I truly enjoyed that feedback.. I believe it is because I empowered them to do their best work.

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Sometimes Change Is NOT Good

Mar11
2011 2 Comments Written by Steve

I guess because I am an older person, with many years and experiences under my belt, that I have seen a few things. Some of those things have changed and significantly over the years. The one that I want to write about today is just plain personal. I can remember from the very first time I went off to school – elementary school and the experience has carried me through my kids going through school and now since I volunteer a lot – I get to witness it daily (with other people’s children).  The title of the blog post is “Sometimes Change is NOT Good” for a reason. I know we need changes in our education system – I truly understand that.. But, the change I want to focus in on is teacher, student and parent. Why? Like I said, years of experience…

Let’s look at this relationship. We can all agree that it takes a village to raise the children. Especially, parents and teachers when it comes to education. Don’t forget the main ingredient – student (your kids). The relationship over time has changed significantly. Let’s look at my experience -

  • I went off to public school back in the mid to late 60′s and graduated in 1977. I know I am dating myself.. But that is okay. It is a frame a reference! I am not going to tell you I walked uphill in the snow both ways – we all know that is not true, but I did walk to school (and the winters were pretty cold – Canadian border upstate New York). Well, back to the topic; parent, student and teacher relationship. My parents taught me the teacher is right, always right. They are very important and you need to listen to them and do what they tell you. My parents attended all scheduled conferences and shared communications as needed. When I acted up or didn’t get along with a classmate, a call or note would go home – and I was 100% at fault, no questions asked. My parents would tell me, what is your side of the story.. Here was the trick I learned later on – they were baiting me to lie. Fact is they sided with the teacher 100%.  Back in that day, corporal punishment was allowed and I got my share (I liked to be the class clown).
  • Fast forward some to when my kids attended school, 80′s and 90′s. Times were changing some. Teachers we used to see get out and about (we did see them eat in public). They even shopped! I never knew that growing up.. When my wife and I used to discuss the importance of a very good education, we shared that the teacher is a very big part of your success. Listen, work hard and do what you are asked to – these were the important points. Along the way, we had some issues with how things were going. We never once attacked a teacher for anything. We would sit down and work out what needed to be done. I was lucky, my kids were gifted students - they set high goals for themselves and worked hard. Sometimes the school would only focus on working to the middle (or on getting students to passing). When my kids got their calls or notes for behavior issues – we sided with the teacher more times than not. Rarely did we take the stand for the kid. Did I bait my kids like my parents did? Some…
  • Fast forward again to the 2000 and 2010′s. I have seen an increasing number of challenging of the teachers on the simplest of things. Let’s go back to the behavior issues examples. I have witnessed an increased focus on the teacher as the cause of the behavioral issue. Not a complete 180 degree switch – but the first step is to agree with the child’s words. Which puts the parents on the offensive when meeting with the teacher. Upset parents coming to the aide of their kids… Making excuses or defending the behavior – it can not be my child that did it.. Why has it changed? Do we think that the 9, 10, 11 year old is right over the teacher?

Like I said, in my day, my parents accepted the teacher as gospel. When my kids went through school, I was definitely more supportive of the teacher. I can only remember one time – that it was definitely not my child that was at fault, but was there – guilty by association (make a better choice). Watching what I am seeing today scares me. Maybe it was me not being like my parents – 100% support of the teacher no matter what.. Helped to pave the way to what I see today.. I hope not. The village has to raise the kids – it is time for the kids not to raise part of the village. Sorry, but if you are a parent that supports your child 100% over the teacher in all matters, ask yourself one simple question. “What does the teacher gain from what you just heard from your child?” I think that will help put into perspective who has something to gain…. Working together for the best for the child’s future.

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Effective One on One Communications

Feb14
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

After 20+ years of managing and working in corporate America, no one will argue that communicating with your direct reports is not important. One on One communications is the life blood of coaching, mentoring and developing the boss/employee relationship. Why is it, that many managers fail at this? Or employee’s just don’t want them? Could it be that the sessions are just not effective? Over those 20+ years, I hate to think how many of those one on one’s I have led or attended as the direct report. I do know I have had some great, good and terrible one’s.

Here are my very simple steps to making sure that these sessions are effective:

Agenda’s set in advance: Normally the one on one was the employee’s meeting (in my last employer) and they had to have an agenda. I have found that agenda’s are the first critical step. Know what is going to be discussed sets up the meeting in the right way. Some of the worst one on one’s were those that had no agenda. One point that I would make is, the agenda needs to be sent to the manager at least 24 hours in advance. This way, the manager has time to prepare.

Be prepared: Both the employee and manager need to be prepared! Prepared to discuss what is on the agenda without holding back. When the discussion is guarded, no one wins. Having the agenda ahead of time, helps the manager to be prepared to discuss in more detail. Being put on the spot sometimes can be damaging to the relationship. The one explain that really used to get me fired up as an employee was… My question would be something like, “how is my performance to date?”  The answer back, “keep doing what you are doing.” Two things come to mind… First, my agenda was probably not looked at ahead of time because the manager was not prepared… Or worse, this manager has no idea what I am doing – I have basically been goofing off the past month…

Set up meeting frequency regularly: Maybe it is me, but having a regular cadence and basic discussion topics insures successful discussions during the one on ones. Basic discussion topics are overall performance, professional development, help needed, coaching and general discussions. Not every topic can be accomplished every time.. Set up the meetings in the right cadence (every 2 weeks maybe) and have certain basic topics preset..

Listen: Better yet, effective listening… Make sure that this meeting is really about your direct report. This is one of those critical times where you as the manager get to really learn and help develop the employee/manager relationship. Listening helps you learn!

Follow-up: Sometimes the one on one will be so successful that the employee and manager may have some stuff that needs to get done outside of the session. Don’t forget to follow-up! Successful sessions get people excited and really to take on whatever is in front of them. Forgetting to follow-up, just demonstrates the words were just that words… Actions speak much louder!

Sounds simple, it truly is.

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Team Processes and Procedures

Nov23
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Steve

Every new managing will get to really enjoy their time in the next phase of the Tuckman Model for team development, storming. I have spent time with many new managers and they always say that they are not looking forward to repeating the storming aspect of team development. Their experiences have taught them that it is ugly and sometimes difficult to move through. Personally, I find this particular phase a challenge and helpful in making sure that I have focused the team in the right places.

What is Storming really? This is the time where competition and conflict start to surface. Each person is starting to feel out their individuality and inserting their influence on subject matter. May get to see the resistance to tasks or processes. Lastly, depending on the size of your team, you could start to see subgroups or polarization form. Since you are the new manager – I would bet that you are the cause of this happen at the time you joined. Same thing will happen as soon as a new member joins. The time spent in storming is really all about how the roles and responsibilities are set up. What should you have?

  • Assigned duties. If you have set up your SMART team goals, work tasks are assigned! What about the other tasks? Do you have a coverage model for when you or your team are out of the office? Do you have meetings? Do you have assigned meeting duties? Should you? Taking any of the guess work out of the team on who is doing what, when will help get out of storming quickly.
  • Cross training. Does you team have knowledge of other’s jobs? The more that each one knows the better it is for helping each other out, rather than point the fingers. Should this all be documented? Would be extremely helpful for reminders and for any new members coming in.
  • Documented processes. Not the job documented processes, but the ones that they team has for each other. Getting back the discretionary items. If you set up a schedule for coverage or meetings… Writing it down, sharing it with the team makes it clear.
  • Documented procedures. As a manger – do you have a set of pet peeves or rules that you like to work within with your team? Most new managers are feeling that out. Over the years, I have developed a simple list of team procedures that I use – and work with the team to refine to get commitment moving forward.

Storming can be fun! Especially if you work as a team to go through the team processes and procedures. There should not be too many questions that come up that can not be handled from your basic team roles, processes and procedures. The goal is to get to Norming!

Norming is that area where the team is working with cohesion and alignment. Roles are well established and practiced as witnessed by an increase in trust and communication. Listen for “WE-ness.” What really helps here is taking all of the work in forming/storming and adding a deeper understand. Focus on problem solving, like identify problems and working through them together. As a new manager, you have to be willing to let go when the time is in norming. That does not mean ignore. It means that you are still in it, but on the outside with the team. Communication should flow – but not just through you. Having a tool in place for each member to track their performance or at least know what is happening goes a long way to moving forward (that will be coming in the monitoring team performance post in a few days).

The last stage of the Tuckman model is Performing. As a new manager – you want to strive to get your team to this stage. Why? Goal achievement is consistant with each member focusing on high task output. The team starts to put the emphasis on their performance and production. The team sees you, manager, as just another member of the team. Trust is a big component in performing. Trust in each other to do what is right for the good of making the results be the best that they can be.

So, where is your team today? Do you have the basics in place? Are you updating them?

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