8.10 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Providing an Inspiring Place to Work

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Rewarding And Engaging People at http://www.mindtools.com)

When your work space is inviting, energizing, and fun, it's easy for people to bring their "hearts and souls" to work.  They're more engaged, inspired, productive, and committed.  Creating an energizing work environment can benefit almost all groups of professionals, especially knowledge workers and those doing creative work.  An energized work environment includes:

·        office layout and color.

·        quality of people's relationships

·        organizational culture

·        leadership

 

Finding Deeper Meaning in a Job

Your job exists for a reason.  On an individual level, people who understand their job's wider purpose are happier, more engaged, and more creative.  It's essential to realize that every job provides a service to someone else.

Helping Your Team Find Purpose

Write a Meaningful Mission Statement ·        identify customers' needs ·        the ways in which the organization will meet them ·        how success will be measured

Link Personal Drivers With Team or Organizational Goals ·        help them understand what really drives them ·        encourage each team member to reflect on how they can connect their motivations with the goals of the organization ·        link your team members' personal goals to those of your organization

Uncover Strengths ·        Encourage team members to explore their strengths ·        uncover the tasks and responsibilities that bring them the greatest happiness and

Build a Positive Work Environment ·        positive working environment brings out the best in everyone ·        give your team the chance to be the best that they can be ·        help people build good work relationships ·        encourage them to socialize before meetings, or outside work ·        Give people more autonomy over their work ·        provide learning and career development opportunities ·        Promote values such as integrity, honesty, and humility by praising employees who demonstrate them

Use Feedback to Boost Positivity ·        Positive feedback is a highly effective motivator ·        Provide regular feedback ·        share stories from customers or clients that show how your team is making a positive difference

8.9 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Helping People Take Responsibility

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Rewarding And Engaging People at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

People duck responsibility for reasons ranging from simple laziness or a fear of failure, through to a sense of feeling overwhelmed by the scale of a problem or a situation.  if people fail to take responsibility, they'll fail in their jobs, they'll fail their teams, and they'll fail to grow as individuals.

Signs and Symptoms

Lacking interest in their work, and in the well-being of the team.

Blaming others for mistakes and failures.

Missing deadlines.

Avoiding challenging tasks and projects; and not taking risks.

Regularly complaining about unfair treatment by team leaders and team members – and engaging in self-pity.

Avoiding taking initiative, and being dependent on others for work, advice, and instructions.

Lacking trust in team members and leaders.

Making excuses regularly – they may often say "It's not my fault," or, "That's unfair."

The aim should be to provide your people with the skills and resources needed to do their jobs, and then to create an environment where it's easy for them to take responsibility for their decisions and actions.  Sometimes you'll need to be firm and courageous, and sometimes your actions will cause conflict.

STRATEGIES AND TOOLS

Start by Talking ·        talk to the individuals concerned ·        Find out the circumstances that are contributing to the situation ·        provide feedback so that the individuals know that their behavior needs to change ·        may need to provide appropriate support

Ensure Adequate Resources ·        ensure that your people have the resources they need to do their job ·        might include providing training, equipment, access to mentors and coaches

Communicate Roles, Responsibilities, and Objectives ·        have an up-to-date job description for each team member ·        be as detailed as possible about every responsibility that they have ·        keep assignments and responsibilities clear ·        define everyone's roles and responsibilities within the team ·        make sure they understand how their work ties into the larger goals of the organization ·        Highlight the importance of what they're doing ·        paint a picture that details the unpleasant direct and indirect consequences - See more at: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/taking-responsibility.htm#sthash.iVjISYz6.dpuf

Re-Engage People ·        take responsibility for your actions ·        lead your people down the path towards personal responsibility ·        aligns work with their values ·        Take some time to discover their strengths and weaknesses ·        analyze whether or not they're using their strengths

Help People Take Control ·        determine team members Locus of Control so that you can determine where they fall on this spectrum ·        external locus of control o   Set modest goals o   achieve some quick wins o   help them build their self-confidence o   remind them of their strengths and past successes o   teach them to think positively

Don't Micromanage ·        learn the art of delegation ·        avoid micromanagement ·        Give your people the freedom they need to make their own decisions ·        be ready to guide them in the right direction if required

Give Plenty of Praise ·        give plenty of praise when people do take responsibility ·        help them improve by providing them with consistent, effective, fair feedback

8.8 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Turning Negative Back to Positive

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Rewarding And Engaging People at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Disengaged people exist in all types of businesses.  They don't care about the company, they probably don't like their jobs, and they send negative signals everywhere they go.  Disengaged people are like poison.  They don't perform their own jobs well.  They have a bad influence on your other staff.  It's typically a process that happens over time, as employee and employer expectations grow further and further apart.

Back in the '70s and '80s, Japanese organizations were arguably the most productive and efficient in the world.  The secret to their success was how they were managing their people.  Japanese employees were engaged, empowered, and highly productive.  Management professor William Ouchi argued that Western organizations could learn from their Japanese counterparts. He created Theory Z – a model that, he said, blended the best of Eastern and Western management practices.  Ouchi first wrote about Theory Z in his 1981 book, "Theory Z: How American Management Can Meet the Japanese Challenge”.

For Ouchi, Theory Z focused on increasing employee loyalty to the company by providing a job for life with a strong focus on the well-being of the employee, both on and off the job.  According to Ouchi, Theory Z management tends to promote stable employment, high productivity, and high employee morale and satisfaction.  William Ouchi doesn't say that the Japanese culture for business is necessarily the best strategy for the American companies.  He takes Japanese business techniques and adapts them to the American corporate environment.

The most important pieces of this theory is:

·        management must have a high degree of confidence in its workers

·        assumes that workers will be participating in the decisions of the company to a great degree

·        employees must be very knowledgeable about the various issues of the company

·        employees possessing the competence to make those decisions

·        the need for the workers to become generalists, rather than specialists

·        to increase their knowledge of the company and its processes through job rotations and constant training

·        develop a work force, which has more of a loyalty towards staying with the company for an entire career

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN AMERICAN AND JAPENESE MANAGEMENT PRACTICES
AMERICAN ORGANIZATIONS	JAPENESE ORGANIZATION
Short-term employment	Lifetime employment
Rapid evaluation and promotion	Slow evaluation and promotion
Specialized career path	Non specialized career path
Individual decision making	Collective decision making
Individual responsibility	Collective responsibility
Explicit control mechanism	Implicit control mechanism
Segmented concern for employee as employee	Holistic concern for employee as a person

 

Theory Z of Ouchi believes that people are innately self-motivated to do their work, loyal towards the company and want to make the company succeed.  The theory Z managers would have to have a great deal of trust that their workers could make sound decisions.  This type of leader is more likely to act as ‘coach’ and let the workers make most of the decision.

The manager’s ability to exercise power and authority comes from the worker’s trusting the management to take care of them and allow them to do their jobs.  The workers have a great deal of input and weight in the decision making process.  Conflict in the Theory Z would involve a great deal of discussion, collaboration, and negotiation.  The workers would be the ones solving the conflicts, while the managers would play more of a third party arbitrator role.

8.7 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Job Embeddedness

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Rewarding And Engaging People at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Think about why you stay in your job.  There can be many positive factors that anchor you in your job, and the happier you feel about your work, the less likely you are to look for a position elsewhere.  "Job embeddedness" brings together all of these factors, and determines how committed people are to their jobs.  This is particularly important if your organization struggles to keep hold of good people!

Terence Mitchell, Brooks Holtom, Thomas Lee, Chris Sablynski, and Miriam Erez first introduced the concept of job embeddedness in their 2001 Academy of Management Journal paper, "Why People Stay: Using Job Embeddedness to Predict Voluntary Turnover."  According to the authors, job turnover has traditionally been assumed to relate to job satisfaction or dissatisfaction: if someone believes that another job has more factors of satisfaction and fewer of dissatisfaction than their current role, and if their organizational commitment is low, then they're likely to leave the organization.

The reality is that many things influence whether an employee stays with an organization, and job embeddedness deals with some of these.  There are three (3) aspects to it:

1.    Links: The connections that people have with other people or activities.

2.   Fit: How well the job and the working environment suit them.

3.   Sacrifice: How easily links can be broken.  What would they give up if they left?

People become embedded in many different ways.  The more links that they have with both their organization (on the job) and their outside community (off the job), the more likely they are to remain engaged, positive, and committed to the organization.

On-the-job embeddedness led to a greater feeling of organizational citizenship and higher job performance than off-the-job embeddedness.  You’ll retain people best if they have a good quality of life outside work, and you'll get the best from them if their work is satisfying.  focusing on improving job embeddedness in both areas – job and community – can help you boost morale, strengthen commitment, increase resilience, improve work relationships, and reduce job turnover; as well as increasing feelings of well-being and job satisfaction within your team.

 

Increasing Commitment with Job Embeddedness

Links Links are the connections that you have with people, activities, and institutions in your life. Ways to build links: ·        building good work relationships ·        establish a foundation of trust ·        through coaching and mentoring ·        communicating openly with everyone ·        allow some time during meetings for friendly conversation

Fit Fit describes how far the organization and wider environment suit individual employees. Make sure that everyone on your team is in a role that not only fits with their strengths and skills, but that also means something to them. ·        use Management by Objectives ·        link your team members' personal and group goals to the organization's objectives ·        meet with your people individually, and ask about their career goals ·        work with them to develop a career strategy ·        help them define their values and understand how they're using their values in their work ·        increase engagement and job satisfaction ·        link personal values with tasks or projects ·        identify what makes your team members truly happy ·        take into account the person's interpersonal skills and strengths ·        match people with the right tasks and projects

Sacrifice Sacrifice is the perceived psychological and material loss that people would experience if they left their job. You should always do your best to create a happy, healthy, and rewarding work environment for everyone on your team, regardless of whether you're trying to decrease turnover. ·        have a healthy work environment ·        make an effort to minimize workplace stress ·        help your team members thrive ·        help them to become happier at work ·        show your people how much you appreciate their hard work ·        Give plenty of praise ·        reward them appropriately for good performance ·        practice Management by Walking Around ·        quickly identify problems ·        say "thank you" in person

There are some risks to job embeddedness.  if people are embedded deeply in their job, they're less inclined to develop a rich, diverse social and professional network.  Employees can miss out on learning new concepts and skills.  It can also slow the growth of their expertise.

8.6 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Keeping Valued Team Members

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Rewarding And Engaging People at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

There will be members of your team you would miss if they left tomorrow.  They are valuable because

·        they've been there long enough to know exactly how the organization works

·        Highly competent at what they do

·        They are efficient, organized and with excellent soft skills

·        they know who to talk to in other departments to solve major problems

·        they're the "go to people" whenever things get difficult

·        they set the standard in attitude, behavior and results for everyone else

As a manager, you really want to keep these valued players happy, so that your team continues to benefit from their exceptional performance.  But what if you notice signs that some of your leading people may feel that their futures lie elsewhere?  Understanding how to handle this sort of situation, or even better, being able to avoid it happening in the first place, is critical to keeping valued team members happy, effective and engaged.

APPROACH TO HELP AVOID POTENTIAL PITFALLS

Identify the Warning Signs ·        always be on the look-out for significant changes in the behavior of your members of your team ·        The kind of signs that you might need to be concerned about include: o   Impatience, either with people or tasks. o   Disengagement from the team, perhaps by being "absent" mentally, or using increased sick leave. o   The venting of negative feelings in "water cooler conversations". o   a colleague who used to stay focused on his work, but who begins to chat at colleagues' desks, may be avoiding doing work that he no longer enjoys. o   a team member whose productivity suddenly increases may perhaps see this as a way of impressing a potential new boss in another department, or she may be anxious to leave with a clear desk and conscience.

Understand Possible Problems ·        it can often be difficult to link the symptoms of unhappiness with their underlying causes. ·        several tools that can help you understand o   Herzberg's Motivators and Hygiene Factors §  people become dissatisfied with their jobs when certain "hygiene factors" are not being fully provided. o   Expectancy Theory

Talk to Your Team Member ·        have a friendly chat with your team member to see if anything's troubling ·        listen carefully

Fixing the Issue ·        Work on a plan to improve the situation together ·        find a solution which plays to your valued team member's particular strengths

 

To experience job satisfaction, "motivating factors" need to be in place.  Typical motivators are the content of work itself, recognition of effort, and the availability of growth opportunities.

Remember there are a number of things you should be doing on an on-going basis to keep people engaged, productive and happy, these include:

·        Making sure that you work on building the trust of your team, so that your people feel confident discussing their jobs with you.

·        Helping to create job satisfaction   for individual team members.

·        Rewarding your team in ways that make people feel appreciated and recognized.  This doesn't need to cost anything!

8.5 THE SKILLS YOU NEED TO BE A GREAT BOSS: Increasing Job Satisfaction

(EXTRACTION FROM TEAM MANAGEMENT: Rewarding And Engaging People at http://www.mindtools.com)

 

Most of us want interesting, challenging jobs where we feel that we can make a real difference to other people's lives.  One of the key factors in good job design is job enrichment.  With job enrichment, you expand the task set that someone performs.  This increases the depth of the job and allows people to have more control over their work.

Job Enrichment Strategies

·        Rotate Jobs o   Give people the opportunity to use a variety of skills, and perform different kinds of work

·        Combine Tasks o   provide a more challenging and complex work assignment o   can significantly increase "task identity" o   work seem more meaningful and important

·        Identify Project-Focused Work Units o   Break your typical functional lines and form project-focused units

·        Create Autonomous Work Teams o   Set a goal for a team, and make team members free to determine work assignments, schedules, rest breaks, evaluation parameters, and the like o   may even give them influence over choosing their own team members o   people will gain leadership and management skills

·        Implement Participative Management o   Allow team members to participate in decision making and get involved in strategic planning o   an excellent way to communicate to members of your team that their input is important

·        Redistribute Power and Authority o   grant more authority to workers for making job related decisions o   team members' autonomy, accountability, and task identity will increase.

·        Increase Employee-Directed Feedback o   Make sure that people know how well, or poorly, they're performing their jobs o   The more control you can give them for evaluating and monitoring their own performance, the more enriched their jobs will be o   consider giving each team responsibility for their own quality control o   Workers will receive immediate feedback, and they'll learn to solve problems, take initiative, and make decisions

Job enrichment provides many opportunities for people's development.  You'll give them lots of opportunity to participate in how their work gets done, and they'll most-likely enjoy an increased sense of personal responsibility for their tasks.