I read a great quote by Clare Balding the other day about Pep Guardiola. She wrote, “He (Pep) is the manager not just of a team of players but also of backroom staff whom he always values, praises and thanks. He is a leader who makes them all believe the impossible is possible.”

It just got me thinking about how bosses and managers treat their ‘backroom’ team. One of my pet hates over the years is hearing a manager giving someone a task and apologise for it. How does that person then feel? How can they take pride in their job and feel any sort of fulfilment? I’ve seen it in managers who want to be liked or are worried about a possible reaction, “I’m really sorry to have to ask you to do this…’’  

Now I’m not suggesting they do a Tarzan swing and ‘big-up’ a simple or repetitive job but rather to explain to people how their role fits in to the bigger picture. You may think cleaning toilets isn’t much of a job. Okay now imagine you work in an office and they’re not cleaned! I know many people who judge an eatery not just by its food and service but also by its toilets. Have you ever come back from the loo and raved about it or returned to your table vowing never to return to the restaurant? 

We had a US vice president at McDonald’s who would always make the toilets his first port of call when checking out a restaurant. Not for a call of nature but to make sure they were so clean that he could eat his burger off the toilet floor. (I wonder if he ever did?)

People want to feel that they belong, that they’re valued, that they are part of the business and that they make a difference to its success. I heard a story recently where a school had called a meeting about its future but had just invited teachers to it. Not the facilities people or the grounds team, those people without whom the teaching couldn’t happen. How to quickly make people feel they don’t count!

On the other hand, I know someone who made a point of working late a few times a week to catch the cleaners coming in so she could learn their names, thank them in person and explain the difference they made to the working environment and the business’s success. Yes, these people were employed by an Agency, but she felt they were still part of the team. She would also insist on clear desks and work areas every night explaining that it made it easier for the cleaners and to get her team members to appreciate their work. 

An old boss of mine used to love telling the tale of the man he used to pass regularly on his way to work pushing his dustcart round London streets. He was so impressed that this guy was always smiling, acknowledging people as he passed. His cart was decorated and the pride he took in his work oozed from his pores. Imagine if the person giving him that task had been apologetic rather than explaining that the first impression people get of a city is its clean streets.

So going back to Guardiola, I imagine that when he has a team meeting which is about the future, rather than next week’s tactics, he invites the whole team. And what is so great about it is that the extremes in that team would be hard to replicate in most SME’s; famous multi-millionaires and the person who cuts the grass being inspired by the boss about the future of the club.

Do one thing: make time to ask your team members individually how they think their role impacts the business. If they don’t know, then there’s your chance.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.

Does your other half complain that they see too much of you?

Do your kids groan ‘cos you’re taking them out for the day, again?

Are you the number one invite on your friends’ social calendar?

Do you never take your laptop on holiday with you?

No?

So you’re telling me you don’t have all the time in the world?!

Then let me ask you this: do you own your business, or does it own you?

We had a meeting with a new client recently, and we asked him how he felt about his business.  He paused for such a long time I can remember thinking, ‘this is going to be a loooong day’, and then he said just one word: 

‘’Resentful!”

“This ‘job’ - that’s what I call it now, totally owns me. It dictates my mood; my appetite, my energy levels. I think about it all the time. I lie awake fretting about it. It feels like my entire life is being sucked into a big black hole.

“I went out on my own to have more freedom - to spend more time with my wife and kids, and look at me now - working every hour God sends.

“Everyone told me I needed a team, but all that’s done is increase my workload - the tax, the paperwork, keeping on top of them. I’m sure right now they’ll be glued to their phones cos I’m not there. Arghhh….”

Of course he’s not unusual. 

In fact he could be a poster boy for the small successful business owner! Maybe he’s just like you?

You started small, right? Built a really great business, had loads of fun doing it, started taking people on. It was all ok for you too at first, and then… the wheels came off.  You lost your consistency, you lost your belief that people would perform for you, you began to work longer and longer hours to keep on top of everything.

But, and this may surprise you, even ‘the youth of today’ don’t come to work with the sole purpose of pissing you off. Nobody plans to have a bad day or do a bad job, especially not the people you hand-picked for your business.

The change you’re looking for doesn’t start with your people, it starts with you.

You want freedom, particularly time freedom? Then build strong foundations, that free your people first. 

Strong foundations built around:

Your Plans - showing your team what the destination is, and how you’re going to reach it together - the route map for them to follow

Your Processes - having a set way of doing what you do - a system for everything

Your People - only hiring people who match your values, and fit your team, and then training them to follow your set way of doing things

Your Performance Management - taking every opportunity to give constructive feedback, to correct, to praise.  Having regular performance reviews that reward excellence

Successful business is built on the consistent performance of high performing teams who know where they’re going and follow the business systems to take them there. Look to McDonald’s, to Virgin, to Apple if you doubt what I’m saying.

And you can have this too. Put your energy into building your foundations, and you will find your freedom.

Do one thing: take a look at your life and your business and decide if it’s time to change.

Thanks for reading :)

​In my business I often come across managers with one thing in common; they are flying by the seat of their pants! People who are ‘accidental managers’. You know, the great team member who is plucked from their team and given a management role or the talented business owner who finds themselves managing people as their business grows. They have little or no training or development and rely on what they’ve learned along the way from managers around them, good or bad. And if you need a great management role model, we can learn some really crucial lessons from Ole at Man Utd.

Lesson 1 - Nurture your Culture
Many clients say to me, ‘I really want to improve the culture of my business. I want to get it right.’ So what can we learn from Ole? First of all, he had a really clear idea of what he wanted the culture of Man U to be. The thing with culture is that it starts with values; it starts with the values of the person at the top. Ole clearly is a man who has strong values, a really clear idea of how he wants to operate. And how quickly did he get those players to buy in. Despite the massive egos and the big superstar baggage everyone came on board. 

It’s always easier to instil a culture from scratch than turn an existing one around. Yet that’s just what he did in a remarkably short space of time. 

So great first lesson, nurture the culture you want to build. Think about your values; what do you stand for? Then act them every day.


Lesson  2 - Build Unity 
Prior to Ole it seemed to be ‘the staff and the players’ or at least ‘the manager and the players’. You only had to look at the body language and eye contact, or lack of it. This was reinforced by the manager’s public criticism of his players and team selection. Then the rumour mill started about bust ups and personality clashes. Ole immediately started to build unity in his language and actions;
it’s always, ‘We, the team,’ ‘We, the squad,’ ‘We, the club’.  I absolutely love that he’s brilliant at sharing praise, shouldering blame and reinforcing the positives. Just look at the individuals within that team and how well he brought them together and instilled ‘we are one team; we are united.’

So the second lesson is unity. Make your business one team.


Lesson 3 - Inspire and Motivate
One of the common questions I get asked by people on our Managers’ Development Programme is, ’What's the difference between a manager and leader?’  

There'll be books written on how managers are the logistic experts, they keep things ticking along. A big part of a management role is making sure that the attention to detail is there, that mistakes aren’t made and if they are, that they're learned from and so on.

But these days in any business, you have to be a leader as well. You have to inspire and motivate the team, and modest as his media persona is, Ole is clearly a very inspiring and motivating guy. He didn't immediately crack the whip. I’ll bet when he first met with the squad, he took them into a room and shared his vision of what it was like to be a Man U player and how privileged they were to wear the shirt. That would be his style. 

That is something I find that a lot of managers and business owners miss. They miss sharing their vision. ‘Where is this all headed? Where are we all going together as a team and why?’ He inspired and motivated them so well. 

He clearly showed them how much he believed in them, and as a result, they believed in themselves. He’s also been great at supporting those who were having a hard time. Look at the difference in confidence in young Rashford who played with his eyes on the ground unable to hit a barn door and then look at the difference under Ole, confidence and self-belief is oozing from his pores. Yes, he recognised this was crucial for success but also just because this was in line with his values, that he would look after his people. He would keep each individual feeling confident and part of the team.

He also treated them like adults. Sometimes, particularly new/young managers feel their role is to be the boss, to talk at people, to tell them what to do. When you have adults or adult conversations with people in your team, when you give them the training and development and support that they need, when you really believe in them and remember that you have a responsibility to help them to fulfil their potential, that's when you get your team to take ownership. That's when people start to step up and go, ‘All right. I'm responsible for this. This is my job.’ And you can see that now at United, the team are taking ownership. They are taking responsibility, and they’re acting like adults. 

Third lesson - look to inspire and motivate your team to build ownership and belief.


Lesson 4 - Have fun!
It’s become obvious over the last few months that Man U players are enjoying their football again. It’s like a huge weight has been lifted off them and they’re playing with the swagger of teams of old. And Ole himself is chilled and smiling, setting the tone.

We are lucky with what we do, a lot of us, and why not have fun doing it? Why not encourage our teams to have fun? People are at work for so many hours of the day, it's part of our responsibility as managers to help people enjoy it, not dread coming into work and be managed by us.

Fourth lesson - create an enjoyable workplace. This goes back to culture and values as well.


Lesson 5 - Learn, learn, and then learn some more! 
The final thing that I really wanted to bring up as a lesson from Ole is his desire to learn, his desire to be the best possible manager he can be. And one of the things that stops us learning is our ego. Not for Ole. Instead of Alex Ferguson being the ghost of Christmas past or the old guys in the balcony criticising their fellow Muppets, Ole’s got him in giving talks to the players. He’s brought back Mike Phelan, Utd through and through and gaining from his years of ‘been there, done that’. And you get the impression that Ole is like a sponge soaking up knowledge and experience so he can do the best for the club, the fans and the players. ​

That's really what I want for each of you. I want you to be the best possible people managers that you can be; the best leaders. So think about the lessons from Ole. Think about your values and your culture. Think about how you can create unity in your team. Think about the development and support that you're giving, not to the team as a whole, not just to the stars, but to every single individual, however minor their role is in the team.

Think about how much you're inspiring and motivating the team who work with you. Think about how you're going to become a better manager, a better leader; what you need to do and the skills you need to develop. Explore where you can learn the lessons you need to learn to keep improving, keep developing, and be the best manager that you can be.

Fifth lesson - keep on learning.

Do one thing: do your team members know how you started and where you’re heading? If not, start by sharing with them the story of your business.

And if you or a manager in your business could use some help then check out our MPL ‘Managers' Development Programme’. Our structured 6-month online programme is aimed at developing the mindset and the skill set of business owners and their managers. 

Details and testimonials here:
​https://www.mariannepage.co.uk/mpl-managers-development-programme.html

Thanks for reading.

One of the questions I always ask my clients is ‘How many of your current team would you re-hire tomorrow if you were given the chance?’

So…how many would you re-hire?

If you say all of them, congratulations! I’m delighted for you, because I know from experience how rare that is. In fact it’s only happened to me once since I started asking the question.

Most people have at least one person in their business who was never right; they may be the rotten apple in the barrel or just a round peg in a square hole. Someone who you’ve trained, developed, probed, and coached to no avail. You've put up with them for years rather than removing them from the team; knowing they should never have been hired in the first place - they were never a good fit for you, your team or the business. And on the other hand you’re probably not a good fit for them and perhaps they could blossom elsewhere. But both parties are just playing safe avoiding the pain of parting.

So how does hiring the right person for you, first time, every time sound?
By the time you’ve read this blog, I want to have convinced you that it’s possible. Not only possible but pleasurable; that it’s an exciting opportunity to build your high-performing team and grow your business.

I’ll go through the three steps to a great job advert and there’s a template too which you can download. I’m going to share with you my 2 Golden Rules for hiring and show how, if you embrace these, you will be well on the path to hiring a ‘keeper’.

So how to get it right first time?

Golden Rule No. 1

Never, hire in a hurry.
Why? Because anything you do in a hurry tends to be botched. You’re rushing to plug a gap; hiring somebody to make up the numbers. They may not be a great fit but you settle for the best of the bunch.

You hire in a hurry, you make mistakes.

Golden Rule No. 2

Always hire to your values.

Think about why you’re hiring. You're not just hiring a body. You're not looking for someone who's going to clock on, park their brain at the door, and then clock off at the end of the day. You want somebody who is engaged. You want somebody who cares about what you care about - who buys into that goose bump-giving inspiring vision of yours; who has the same values as you.

You’re hiring a mind and a heart, not just a body.

Things go wrong when you ignore the golden rules and only look at skills and experience; when you hire in a hurry cos it’s all just too much hassle; when you abdicate responsibility to a third party.

Change your mindset around hiring 

• See it as an opportunity to add to your highly engaged, high performing team 
• Invest time and energy in this crucial task and get creative even with your job ad
• Think differently

Create Inspiring Job ads

So many people put out the job description as a job ad. ‘You will be responsible for, you will have so and so reporting to you, you must be able to do this, that and the other.’

Who's inspired by that sort of job ad?

No-one. So when it comes to your job ad I want you to lead with three things.

1. The vision and purpose of your business. You want to inspire people, so tell them about the purpose of your business and where you’re going with it? Tell them about your inspiring picture for the future; your goose-bump-giving vision.
2. Next, the purpose of the role. Tell them how the role adds value to the business; how crucial it is. Tell them how it fits into the bigger picture; how it adds value to the team, your customers, you.
3. Finally, a pen portrait of the individual that you're looking for. A picture of the person you’re looking for written as if you are in their shoes. ‘I leap out of bed every morning looking forward to the day. I like an early start, to get ahead of the game. I love being part of a team, working together to get the job done. I like to be supportive too, helping my teammates out when they need it. I’m really big on detail - my pet hate is sloppy mistakes.’ You get the idea.

Think about the person you're looking for, the sort of role that you've got for them, and write your pen portrait as if you are them and this is their ideal.
You want them to be reading going, ‘That's me, that’s me, that’s so me!’
If you want to know what this looks like click here to get your hands on a template which explains what you need in each section and gives you an example of what the ad might look like.

So let’s recap.

If you:

1. Take your time when you're hiring
2. Know your vision and values
3. Write your job ad to inspire your ideal candidates;

you will be well on your way to hiring the right person for you, first time.

Of course, there’s more to it than just that and I’ll be exploring the next stage in a future blog!

Do one thing: Download the job ad template here (or below) and use it for your next hire.

Thanks for reading. Have a great week.
​

In my business I often come across managers with one thing in common; they are flying by the seat of their pants! People who are ‘accidental managers’. You know, the great team member who is plucked from their team and given a management role or the talented business owner who finds themselves managing people as their business grows. They have little or no training or development and rely on what they’ve learned along the way from managers around them, good or bad. And if you need a great management role model, we can learn some really crucial lessons from Gareth, and his signature waistcoat.* ​

Lesson 1 - Nurture your Culture
Many clients say to me, ‘I really want to improve the culture of my business. I want to get it right.’ So what can we learn from Gareth? First of all, he had a really clear idea of what he wanted the culture of Team England to be. The thing with culture is that it starts with values; it starts with the values of the person at the top. Gareth clearly is a man who has strong opinions, strong values, a really clear idea of how he wants to operate. What I think he did brilliantly was choose people for his team who shared those values. I don't think it's any mistake that certain people were not brought into the England setup, people who maybe had massive egos, big superstar baggage or people for whom it was ‘all about them.’
 Just look at the individuals within that team and how well he brought them together. Regardless of what team they came from, he managed to bring in those people who shared his values, who bought into the idea that ‘we are one team,' and he did a fantastic job of building that culture.

He talks about the England DNA. If you think about the last 20 plus years, the England DNA has been big egos; it's been superstars; its been cliques, it’s not been about pride in wearing the England shirt. Look how many people have pulled out of playing for England, have not seen it as a real privilege. They've seen it as a chore, and he, in a very short space of time, has been able to turn that around.

The fact that he'd raised a few of these guys from a very young age as manager of the England under-21s, proves there’s an awful lot to be said for growing your own talent - bring in the attitude and then develop the skill. 

Obviously, with football you have to have natural talent, but attitude is so, so important. In a lot of situations it's not the superstars who win, it's the collective, it's the team. Look at Croatia - great example. Look at England - great example. We got all the way to the semi-finals, and Argentina with Lionel Messi went out. Portugal with Ronaldo went out. The collective, bringing together a great team, will always win, and Gareth Southgate as the manager was responsible for that.

So great first lesson, nurture the culture you want to build. Think about your values; it starts with values, then bringing in people who share those values.

Lesson  2 - Build Unity 
Within the England setup, there was no us and them. There was no ‘the staff and the players’. That was really clear from what you saw on TV, how they were with the physios and the psychologist and with Gareth himself. Although a few of them did slip into calling him ‘Gaffer’ they mostly called him Gareth, which was just unheard of in the past. There was no us and them. Absolutely, they were one.

Gareth Southgate was great as a manager in sharing any praise. It was always, ‘We, the team,’ ‘We, the squad,’ ‘We, the entire group of staff and players.’ And taking responsibility for any blame, ‘Yeah, I'm responsible. I'm the manager.’ I absolutely loved that he was brilliant at sharing praise and shouldering blame.
He was also very good at supporting those who were having a hard time. Take Raheem Sterling, the England scapegoat; Gareth was great at protecting him and keeping his confidence high. Not just because he recognised that Raheem was so crucial to the team effort, but also just because this was in line with his values, that he would look after the team. He would keep that person feeling confident and part of the team.

So the second lesson is unity. Make your business one team.

Lesson three - Develop Relationships 
As a manager, you need to build great relationships, and Gareth did just that with his competitors. 

When you saw him going around at the end of each match they played, he seemed genuine in his congratulations to the other players, to the other staff, made a really big point of shaking hands with everybody. Perhaps that’s easy when you’ve won, but even in defeat, when it must have been absolutely killing him when they lost to Croatia, you saw him going around to every single member of their team and to the staff, hugging them, congratulating them. 

Then going to his own team to just remind them how far they'd come and how well they’d done. Building relationships was really important, just as he did with the managers of the players he brought into the England squad. He didn't antagonise them in the old ‘club versus country’ way, but was just very firm, fair, and friendly with everybody that he had dealings with.

So the third lesson is about building relationships.

Lesson 4 - Inspire and Motivate
One of the common questions I get asked by people on our Management Development Programme is, ’What's the difference between a manager and leader?’  

There'll be books written on how managers are the logistic experts, they just keep things ticking along. A big part of a management role is making sure that the attention to detail is there, that mistakes aren’t made and if they are, that they're learned from and so on.

But these days in any business, you have to be a leader as well. You have to inspire and motivate the team, and quiet as his media persona was, our Gareth was clearly a very inspiring and motivating guy. He didn't immediately crack the whip. When he first met with the squad, he took them into a room and shared his vision of what it was like to be an England player and how privileged they were to wear the three lions shirt.    
That is something I find that a lot of managers and business owners miss. They miss sharing their vision. ‘Where is this all headed? Where are we all going together as a team and why?’ He inspired and motivated them so well. 

He clearly showed them how much he believed in them, and as a result, they believed in themselves. Every interview there was no talk of, ‘Oh, well, crikey. If we get to the quarterfinals, we'll be lucky. We'll have overachieved.’ No. ‘We're going to win this. We're going to win this.’ That's what inspired the country. It's coming home. He got those players to believe that they could win it, that they really could win it.

He also treated them like adults. Sometimes, particularly new/young managers feel their role is to be the boss, to talk at people, to tell them what to do. When you have adults or adult conversations with people in your team, when you give them the training and development and support that they need, when you really believe in them and remember that you have a responsibility to help them to fulfil their potential, that's when you get your team to take ownership. That's when people start to step up and go, ‘All right. I'm responsible for this. This is my job.’ And you saw that right through the tournament with England. The team were taking ownership. The team were taking responsibility, and they were acting like adults. 

Fourth lesson - look to inspire and motivate your team to build ownership and belief.

Lesson Five - Have fun!
It became obvious as the tournament progressed that the team were enjoying themselves. They had an enormous amount of fun, which was something, again, that Gareth Southgate encouraged. He wanted them to enjoy themselves.

We are lucky with what we do, a lot of us, and why not have fun doing it? Why not encourage our teams to have fun? People are at work for so many hours of the day, it's part of our responsibility as managers to help people enjoy it, not to dread coming into work and be managed by us.

Fifth lesson- create an enjoyable workplace. This goes back to culture and values as well.

Lesson 6 - Learn, learn, and then learn some more!
The final thing that I really wanted to bring up as a lesson from Gareth was his desire to learn, his desire to be the best possible manager he could be. Look how he went and studied other really successful people, both in sport and in industry. He really wanted to learn how the most successful teams operate, and he left no stone unturned. He will continue to learn. He'll have already learned lessons from this tournament. He'll already be preparing for the next because he wants to be the best he can be. 

That's really what I want for each of you. I want you to be the best possible people managers that you can be. So think about the lessons from Gareth. Think about your values and your culture. Think about how you can create unity in your team. Think about the development and support that you're giving not to the team as a whole, not just to the stars, but to every single individual, however minor their role is in the team.

Think about the relationships you're building and how they will help you to be a better manager. Think about how much you're inspiring and motivating the team who work with you, and then think about how you're going to become a better manager, what you need to do, the skills you need to develop, where you can learn those lessons that you need to learn to keep improving, keep developing, and be the best manager that you can be.

*waistcoat optional ;)

Do two things: think about how you need to develop as a manager then think about the areas you need help. 
We run a highly successful online Managers' Development Programme; the next is starting in August. To find out more, click here

Testimonials
‘I'm only two modules in, but I've already grown in confidence in leading my team and I'm no longer nervous around giving them constructive feedback. Thank you to Marianne for her wisdom and expertise!’ - Maddy Kelly, Boda Skins
---
‘Since starting this programme, my team’s productivity and progress is going up, consistently, month on month. And not just by a few percent! It’s significant. I’ve got my team into a really good position. Everybody knows what’s expected of them. Everyone is looking at their performance, and looking at their goals. I’ve shared my knowledge with other team leaders in the business, and they are starting to implement change in such a positive way throughout the whole company.
On a personal level, I’ve gained confidence, I’ve become more direct and clear with my expectations. I feel like a manager now, and I can also manage upwards to my boss effectively.’ - Ryn Moser - Chief Language Officer, Supertext    

I saw a tweet the other day by a business owner saying that we should all be teachers - his mate was off for his third trip to the Northern hemisphere this year! 

Just imagine those six weeks+, how switched off, how re-energised you could be…? I’m not saying that teachers don’t have a shed-load of work to catch up on and prepare for the next year, but to have that space away from work, and to be able to travel… 

It’s a sad stat that 52% of all small business owners in the UK say they only took five days holiday or less last year, with 21% per cent not taking any days off at all! 

I hear business owners all the time, saying that they’re working hard for their children, to give them a better life, a better future. But if they asked their kids which they’d prefer, you can bet they’d rather spend time, having their fun with mum and dad right now…not at some distant point in the future.

When I ask clients what their ideal future looks like, one of the first things they say is they want ‘a great relationship with my kids’. What many don’t get is that it’s hard to pick things up when you’ve made your millions and your kids are turning eighteen. You need to build those blocks from a young age, by being there for school sports days, reading stories, teaching them stuff.

Of course it’s not just relationships that suffer; working without breaks can break you. Your health can suffer both physically and mentally. And how can you do your best work if you’re constantly tired? Holidays re-energise you, re-invigorate you, and re-focus you, and if you’re anything like me, you always come back refreshed and bursting with ideas and inspiration for the business.

The more holiday the better - for you and your business.

So how can you holiday like a teacher?

How can you go away for weeks at a time, and completely switch off, no phone calls, no e-mails, no stress?

Well, you need systems in your business…of course; that ‘one, right way’ to do everything.

And then you need someone to be you when you’re away. Someone who is your voice with the team, who shares your vision and values. 

Someone you know will use their initiative if things don’t go to plan.

Someone who takes the day to day in their stride, and has the respect of the team. Someone who you trust.

When business owners realise that they need this person in their business, they often throw money at the problem - offering a big salary, thinking that money, and a great CV will guarantee them a great manager. 

They throw out everything they’ve learned about hiring to your values, and go for the best CV, which as you know, doesn’t always work out. Sometimes they get lucky, and their new (very expensive) manager works out well. But sometimes it doesn’t, and they’ve not only wasted time and money, but also often upset and unsettled their team.

The other route that many business owners take is to promote someone from their team - very often the person who is the best performer, great at what they do. But of course, the best workers don’t always make the best managers. Not everyone wants to be yanked away from a job that they are really good at, and that they love, to manage a team.

The person you’re looking for is already respected by the rest of the team - they listen to him or her. The person is solid and dependable, but also motivates the rest of the team when the pressure is on. They have high standards, and they love training new people, and picking up on any sloppiness with the old hands. They’re not necessarily the most technically gifted, but you love working with them

Identify that person in your team, and then develop them as a manager. Skills can be learned if there’s a sound base, so invest in their development - either teach them yourself if you have the skills and the time, and if not, get someone like me to do it for you. 

The investment you make will pay dividends in a happy and engaged team, and not just great for your business but for your life. 

You want to holiday like a teacher?

Build your systems | Develop your managers | Free yourself

​Do one thing: Send an email requesting to join our mailing list at: hello@mariannepage.co.uk for free tips, advice and information about how we can help you to holiday like a teacher.

How to Foster a Culture of Improvement

‘Do this and your business will fly!’

Feedback! The key to improving performance. And yet so many people feel awkward about giving it or shy away from it altogether. So why do people find it so difficult? Perhaps you’re one of them. You may be the person who makes a joke of everything or someone who says, ‘Well, they know what I think from my body language.’

We all approach feedback differently. To those of us who have a British upbringing, feedback can often be seen as awkward, negative & confrontational. We see giving feedback as daunting. For me, the only reason to give feedback is to inspire improved performance. ‘Inspire’ is the key word. You want people to be walking away thinking, ‘I know how I’m going to do it better next time now,’ and wanting do just that.

So how do we deliver that? Let’s take a look at ways of giving feedback which will remove the angst. There are two methods. There’s informal feedback – the ongoing, day to day feedback, and then there is the formal performance management to back that up.

Informal Feedback

Find someone doing something good everyday!

Ongoing, day to day, when someone in your team is doing really well, you want to showcase and highlight that to the rest of the team. Have a philosophy of ‘trying to acknowledge someone doing something good, each day.’ Publicly acknowledge the event and explain why you’re pleased – perhaps it positively impacts a customer or the rest of the team and so forth. It’s all about positive reinforcement – you want more of this.

Spot learning opportunities everyday!

Don’t just walk past the bad stuff. Don’t allow it to happen without addressing it – nip it in the bud. Inaction does nothing to sort the problem and worse still, erodes the trust and respect of the other team members if they think you’ve let it slide. This, if you like, is ‘just in time’ coaching where you again, on a daily basis, seek out learning opportunities. In these circumstances just have a quiet word, there is no need for public humiliation. This time ask the person ‘why’ – ‘Why is this not acceptable?’ Give them the opportunity to work it out for themselves and see the effects of their behaviour. ‘When you said that to John, how do you think it made him feel?’ If they can work it out for themselves they will take it onboard more than if you simply lecture them. Make it a genuine learning experience.

The EEC Model

Within the McFreedom System we talk about the EEC model.
Event
Effect
Continue or Change – ‘Continue’ if it’s something really good or ‘Change’ if it’s something not so good.

Event

What’s caused me to comment on the way you’re working? Maybe the way you answer the phone, maybe the way you spoke to a client, maybe the way you completed a piece of work. What is the reason I’m talking to you?

Effect

What effect has it had on me, on the client, on the business, the team? Is it a good effect or not so good? Did you forget to smile when you answered the phone, making your voice sound sombre and moody? Did you complete this piece of work, but it wasn’t absolutely spot on in terms of accuracy? Did you get a great customer review?

and then either Continue

‘Thanks so much. You did a great job. Loved the way you’ve got absolutely every detail correct, keep going with that. Customer x was thrilled with that. Do more; continue.’

or Change

When it’s something that you want to correct, then you’re talking about how you want somebody to change their performance. What can they do differently? What do they need to do to be up to standard? Give people the chance to get things right next time.

Formal Feedback

When it comes to formal feedback, remember that nothing should ever be a surprise. All of the informal feedback that you’ve given feeds into your formal, sit down performance review. We recommend that you do formal performance reviews at the end of each quarter. That you make it routine. It’s a chance to sit down with your team member to talk to them about the great things they’re doing, and to inspire them to do even better.

Many people shy away from that whole idea of sitting down with each team member. Either that, or they only sit down with them when something bad has happened and they want to tell them off. No wonder their team members dread the call, it’s like when I was little, our dogs hated the car because the only time they got in it was to go to the vets! When you make delivering feedback routine, it becomes a more positive interaction between you and your team. It becomes a conversation, a discussion. ‘How can I do this better? How can I improve? I really want to improve, how can I do it?’

Encourage your people to keep their own development journals

This will become a useful tool for development because it will help to highlight where your team would like to go, how they want to improve, and what they need from you in order to achieve this.

Encourage them to jot down the things they did really well, their ‘Proud Page’.

To note when things didn’t go to plan – what were their learning points; if they had some training or coaching – what three things would they do differently next time as a result, their ‘Learning Page’.

Their ‘Aspirations Page’ – what challenges would they like, what training/development would help them get there.

The formal appraisal should be their story – you just need to listen. Then ask these question, ‘What do you need from me? What can I do differently that would help you?’ That is how to build trust.

People are more likely to ask for support if you’ve made this whole performance management system part of ‘the way we do things around here’. The way we do things round here is we give honest and open feedback, whether something is good, or needs to be improved. We are always honest and open; though honest doesn’t mean brutal! Make that part of your culture, and you have a real picture of continuous improvement. Everybody always looking to do that little bit better to make that marginal gain.

Do this and your business will fly.

Do two things:

1. Diarise those 90 day formal review slots now and make it routine.
2. Hand out development journals with a ‘How to’ for their use.

Thanks for reading 🙂

Britain is 3rd in the world for start-ups but only 13th for scale-ups!

It’s hard to escape the news at the moment about the lack of productivity in Britain and what that means for the economy going forward. I don’t know about you but when I start thinking on that sort of scale I get incredibly overwhelmed!

But what if we break it down; just imagine if each business in the UK, however small, did their bit. Imagine what that would look like. That’s what the challenge is. It’s not for ‘the country’ to do, it’s for each one of us in business to drive the improvement in productivity and growth, that collectively will make such a difference.

I was really fired up at the Great British Scale-up Conference in London this week. Can you believe that Britain is 3rd in the world for start-ups – there’s 600 million of them. But when it comes to scale-ups, we’re only 13th. What is it we’re doing wrong? Why are so many businesses staying in start-up mode?

Is it because they don’t have the people?

Is it because they don’t have the systems?

After all, scaling is all about these two things.

In last week’s blog I wrote about the importance of finding the right people, and not ‘settling’ for anyone who isn’t absolutely right for you. Once you have the right people, it’s all about keeping them.

How do you do that?

By inspiring them. That’s got to be the goal; don’t just engage them; inspire the life out of them.

Inspired people will stay with you, they’ll grow with your business. So involve them every day, be upfront about the challenges ahead and seek their opinion. If you want to improve the way you do things, ask the people doing them how, don’t always think you know best as the boss.

Communicate, communicate, communicate and then communicate some more. Make yours a business where people are falling over themselves to be a part of what you’ve got going. Give them a sense of emotional ownership so they want to stay. Give them the training and development they need, and then trust them to get on and do their job, take pride in how they do it, and feel that responsibility and ownership for their part in your business success.

Are you ready to do this?

I read an article recently that said two out of three people feel that they work for a ‘bad boss’. A bad boss doesn’t necessarily mean a bully or a lazybones. A bad boss can be lovely, but just not good at the job.

How many times have you come across people promoted to ‘manager’ because they were good at what they do? How many business owners, find themselves managing people as their business takes off? Of course some people are naturally gifted, and some may get training & support, but how many don’t?

Someone once coined the phrase ‘Accidental Manager’, and that’s exactly what these people are –  flying by the seat of their pants, fire-fighting, feeling under-pressure, losing sleep over their daily people problems. The joy has gone. They’re now bogged down with people issues instead of doing what they love.

And what does that mean for the team?  What does that mean for the business?

Chaos, inefficiency, confusion, and a group of people who would rather be anywhere but working in your business.

So what can you do?

Well, I know what I’m going to do… I’m going to run an online training session, aimed at giving these talented, but struggling managers, tools and strategies for overcoming their people problems, and moving their team from chaos to consistency.  In fact that’s what I’ve called it!

If you are one of these accidental managers; if good people keep leaving your business, and you don’t know why; if your team don’t do what you say, or work to the standard you expect; if you’re drowning on your own, but the thought of employing people brings you out in a rash… then you’ll want to be there, to learn:

    How to change your mindset around people management
    The 3 things all employees want from their managers
    The strategies McDonald’s use to get every task done ‘the right way’ every time
    How to give feedback & why it’s important
    The 3 essentials for building a high performing team

Don’t let the people management in your business chain you to start-up status forever.  Break free and reap the rewards of building your very own high performing team.

Do one thing: Put 28th November at 12.30pm in your calendar now, and join me for this free training. It might just change your life. Follow this link to register…do it today…do it now.