Are You A Manager? Do You Know What Your Job Is?
By Richard F. Libin, President, APB, rlibin@apb.cc, www.apb.cc
Many managers earn their position by rising up the ranks. Others are hired specifically as managers. In both scenarios, managers don’t always understand that their primary job is to develop the abilities of others to perform and produce specific outcomes. It’s a manager’s job to help each individual establish attainable goals that align with the needs of the business. Managers should help each of their employees define what success looks like. Finally, they let their people work while providing coaching, guidance and additional training and education along the way. This ensures they have the opportunity to continually improve.
How do managers recognize when their people improve? What does it look like? What does it mean? It depends on each individual’s circumstance, goals, and challenges. It might mean building better relationships with colleagues and customers. Or, it may be seen when more sales are closed.  Performance data will help identify exactly what this means for each individual.
In the day-to-day rush, many managers overlook these five basic steps that are imperative in helping their people develop action plans for improvement.
Step 1 – Career goals: It is important to understand how your people’s long term goals fit into your business. Be honest. Work together. Listen. Develop an attainable working game plan.
Step 2 – Self-assessment: Encourage your people to conduct an honest self-evaluation. Have them make a list of their individual attributes including their strengths, weaknesses, attitude and threats. Ask employees to answer the question, “Why do you work here?”
Step 3 – Guide employees as they establish a plan based on SMART goals that address three cases of career development.
Short-term should focus on the first year
Mid-term spans two to five years
Long-term extends five years or more
Step 4 – Feedback: Track performance so your people can see how effective they have been in attaining the goals. Without proper feedback channels it is impossible to adapt or adjust to the required behavior.
Step 5 – Adjust and reward: Adjust the plan to ensure it meets the desired outcome. Don’t wait for quarterly, bi-annual or annual reviews; work with employees weekly if not daily to assess and steer them in the right direction. As goals are attained, reward the employee for their efforts and to motive them to continue their improvement.
A manager’s job is to work with each person to determine what “growing in their role” means so they can contribute to the performance of the organization. For some people, it may mean reaching for a promotion; for others, it means expanding the current job. Managers with winning teams understand and appreciate the diversity of the people in their business. They know how to create “heroes in every role.” They recognize that since everyone has unique strengths, helping people become more of whom they already are, often may be the best way to improve their performance.
Managers Who Are On Top of Their Game Drive Remarkable Results
Even with a plan in place, the process of improving doesn’t happen automatically, and when management is not committed to helping and developing their people, it may never happen at all. But, when managers build a finely tuned team through goal setting, training, educating, and coaching, they will put the business on the road to success. Remember, if your people were capable of being managers, you’d be working for them.
Richard F. Libin is the author of the book, “Who Stopped the Sale?” (www.whostoppedthesale.com) and president of APB-Automotive Profit Builders, Inc., a firm with more than 48 years experience working with both sales and service on customer satisfaction and maximizing gross profits through personnel development and technology. He can be reached at rlibin@apb.cc or 508-626-9200 or www.apb.cc.