How this one thing changed the results of an entire team

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
Henry Ford

I was always struck by this quote, it was one of my team members who had it by his desk and leads me to this week’s blog. The importance of developing the leadership skills of your managers.

Team dynamics

A number of years ago I took on a new role as a General Manager of a multi-million dollar business with over 60 employees. My 2IC was a woman who was very efficient at her role. Deadlines met, budgets met, processes followed but something was missing.

Since I was new, I asked my boss what he thought of her leadership style and he remarked that he was trying to mentor her to be less directive and more inclusive. I gave this some thought and continued to observe her management style. She was well liked by her team but still, something was missing.

I thought about how I could change her management style and decided to put all of my senior managers and supervisors through some in-house management training. I held this training once of a week for six weeks and what impressed me about this a particular manager, was her willingness to learn and take on board new ideas.

People Skills

Then a thought struck me. It wasn’t management or leadership skills she needed, it was people skills.

So I sent her along with another one of my up-and-coming managers to the Dale Carnegie Course in Human Relations based on the book “How to Win Friends and Influence People. The course was held once a week for 10 weeks and each week the participants had to put what they learned in the course into practice in the workplace.

At the 7-week mark – BINGO! She hit the jackpot.

I happened to attend the course that evening as a guest when she gave her presentation about her results. This is what she talked about.

Every morning she held a team meeting, or focus meeting where she would let her team know what was on the day’s agenda. After telling her people what to do, and praising them for good work they responded by saying, “BUT.” Then she realized, there was always a BUT. What she was been doing was giving praise but there was always a BUT.

The problem with a BUT – it negates everything you have previous said, especially when it comes to giving praise. You did a good job BUT……..

From that day on, she took the BUT out of her language and began to empower her team to take responsibility for their role. She also learned how to give each of her team a strength comment. A strength comment is based on something you observe your people doing well. It is not flattery, it’s a genuine comment that uses evidence to support the praise. For example, “Thank you for getting the report to me on time, more importantly, you were concise, to the point and structured your argument perfectly. Well done!”

Praise like this is specific (getting the report done on time) and used evidence (concise, to the point and structured your argument perfectly). Using evidence gives praise more meaning than simply saying – you did a good job.

The results

What my manager began to do was “catch her team doing things right” – not doing things wrong, which had been the basis of her BUT!

This small change in her management style made such a huge difference to the team so much so that customers remarked on it. Afterwards a customer said to me one day, “What happened to your front line staff, they are so friendly and motivated and their service has improved out of sight?”

I did nothing. It was my manager who did it. All I did was lead her in the right direction and she did the rest herself. As a result, she progressed and eventually became a general manager.

What made the difference?

What made the difference to the team dynamics is that they felt appreciated. They felt empowered. They felt like they had a say and they knew what they were doing was right because of the positive feedback they received (with evidence). This approach built a team. It was working together that made the difference all because of one small investment, an investment in a manager’s people skills.

What’s important here is that this particular manager had all the technical skills under the sun. She managed her time well, she knew the software she worked with like the back of her hand, she knew how to schedule, assign tasks, balance the day’s takings, follow up and so on. What she lacked was the requisite people skills to take her from a manager to a leader.

It was that simple investment in her people skills that made the difference.

At the time, I had to beg for the resources to put these two managers through the Dale Carnegie Course, an investment of over $4,000. At first my boss was reticent, and I had to work overtime to allow me to spend the money. Even he was surprised at the results.

Invest in your people

The message I would like you take away from this true story, is to invest in your people. When you do it serves multiple purposes.

• When you invest in your people, they appreciate that you think enough of them to spend money on their training, training they would either never do on their own or not be able to afford to do.
• People who are fulfilled in their role, perform better in the workplace.
• As you invest in people skills, teams begin to work together in a more harmonious environment.
• Harmonious teams are more productive because they know to catch their teammates doing the right thing.

And as Henry Ford says,

Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.