It’s okay to care about the people who work for you, but how do you show you care without being creepy or over-familiar? How do you build the relationships and establish the trust you need to get the best performance out of your team as a whole?
Our first job always is to deliver results. That’s the bottom line. That’s what we get hired for, that’s what we get paid for, that’s why we have staff. If we don’t complete, conclude, accomplish, or perform what’s expected of us, then we’re not doing our job.
As managers we perform through the people that work for us. We can’t do everything ourselves. If we could, we wouldn’t need staff. When we try to do it all ourselves we end up being stressed out, angry, and non-productive. Or we become micro-managers, doing everybody else’s work twice and making them and us stressed-out, angry, and non-productive.
This is not the most valuable use of our time. Time is our most valuable resource. It’s more valuable than our skills, knowledge, talent, money, equipment, or staff. Without time we have no way to leverage the other resources. Whatever we do with our time, that’s what’s most important to us. What we do, not what we say.
So what do we choose spend our time on? One characteristic of the best leaders is that they regularly spend time with their staff, one-on-one. At first this sounds counter-intuitive. If you’re spending all your time with staff, when do you do your own work? Here’s the management silver bullet that everybody’s always looking for: your people are your work. That’s why it’s call leadership. You’re leading people.
Developing your staff is the best way to make sure you and your team will deliver. Ensuring that your expectations of them are clear. Making sure that they have the tools and equipment to deliver. Making sure their natural talents are brought and and used in their work. Then getting out of their way and letting them do the work. It sounds simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.
Regular, consistent, one-on-one face-to-face verbal contact with your staff is is the best way to establish trust, set expectations, give feedback, coach and develop your staff. It’s the best was to build a team. It’s hard work, requires discipline, and takes time and patience, yet it pays incredible dividends. It’s simple, but it’s not easy.
Why is regular face-to-face communication so powerful? Humans are hard-wired for relationships with other humans. The first thing a new-born baby will recognize is a face. We can’t help it. As much as all those those yucky soft-skills, emotions, and relationship building stuff seems to get in the way and slow us down, the reality is that people are emotional beings. No matter how goal-oriented or technical we like to think we are, we have to deal with people to get things done. Ignoring emotions is ineffective.
Interesting things start to happen when you meet with your staff on a regular basis. First, our communications are clear and targeted, tailored for the way each person prefers to communicate. Any misunderstanding that might get glossed over in a group setting has a better chance of being caught and clarified. That means less time going back and fixing things.
Second, when your direct reports know and trust that they’ll have regular, periodic, uninterrupted access they stop interrupting you quite as often. Things get saved up for your time together. More time saved for you, and more effective and efficient communication for both of you.
Thirdly, trust is built over time through regular contact. Expectations and project status are better communicated. Staff will know what your intentions and goals are, and will be able to step up and support you and each other without detailed, laborious instructions.
Fourth, you’ll be spending time putting out fires before they start. Regular, direct communication with your staff means that you’ll be better informed on regular basis. This means you’ll be able to make better decisions, make choices more thoughtfully and promptly, and be more proactive than reactive.
An example of this is Nelson’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar. He spend a lot of time with his ship’s Captains during his travels back and forth across the Atlantic searching for the Spanish Armada, both over dinner in groups and individually. When Nelson found the Spanish, the English Captains had a very clear understanding of Lord Nelson’s intent, knew everything Nelson knew, and trusted Nelson and the other commanders at all levels. Nelson didn’t need to saddle his Captains with tedious and detailed rules of engagement that tried to cover every contingency.
The result was that a fleet that should have been soundly trashed was able to successfully employ risky new tactics to defeat the more numerous and larger ships of the Spanish navy without losing any of their own ships. It was what modern military parlance calls a “self-synchronized force” (page 28).
Want to build a team? Spend time with each team member regularly. Spending time with your staff means you’ll have more time. Go faster by slowing down.
