Hitki Blog

As you may recall from You are an Accidental Manager , Andy, an excellent engineer, was promoted to a managerial position when his boss left the company. Andy was promoted because he had all of the necessary technical skills, he was well liked by his other team members, and he was next in line for [...]

This last chapter of The Accidental Manager looks at the impact that organizations have on creating unsuccessful managers and what they need to do to create successful ones. Then we return to the case of Andy Mercado, the story that opened the book, to see what happened to Andy when he went to work for [...]

When team members are relaxed and having fun, the chances of creating a motivated environment are much better. Managers can bring fun to the workplace in several ways:
Set aside a fun room or cubicle. Many companies have a room where staff can go when they are feeling stressed out or need to get a [...]

Up to this point we have reviewed two of the three components for creating a motivational environment: the organization, and the organization and its managers. The organization’s role in the motivation picture is to satisfy the fundamental needs of its employees; the role of the manager and the organization working together is to demonstrate that [...]

The organization and its managers have certain joint responsibilities in motivating individuals. They have to:

Provide for excellent supervision.
Give rewards to those individuals and teams that deserve them.
Build social relationships among the staff.
Treat staff fairly.

Supervision. One of the biggest factors that adds or takes away from how motivated a team member [...]

There are three components—the organization, the organization and its managers, and the managers—that, when they work harmoniously, create a motivating work environment . Motivating, as we will see, is very easy to understand but hard to implement. It is hard because it takes a commitment and partnership from both the organization and the managers to [...]

There are many ways that managers can maintain their positive attitude in the workplace. Managers can, for example:
Set goals for themselves and accomplish those goals.
Do an excellent job and receive positive feedback from their managers.
Create an environment for themselves and their team members that’s spontaneous and creative and where people can relax [...]

Can a manager really motivate team members? No, a manager cannot motivate other people. People can only motivate themselves. What a manager needs to do is to create an environment where team members will want to motivate themselves. The most successful managers find out what the needs of their team members are and then try [...]

It’s also important to recognize that there are different types of feedback, each of which requires a different response.
Valid Feedback. Valid constructive feedback is in some ways the most difficult type of feedback for managers to handle. Valid feedback means that the feedback is accurate and the team member is correct.
The best way [...]

There are four ways that managers react to constructive feedback. Read the following scenarios and then select your answer to determine the way you prefer to receive feedback.
Scenario 1. You are given constructive feedback for something you definitely didn’t do. You decide to:

Defend yourself by saying, "I did not do that."
Blame the [...]

The other half of feedback that managers need to be concerned about is being able to successfully handle the feedback that team members or others give them. Managers need to view receiving feedback as a plus. If a team member is willing to give a manager feedback, it demonstrates that the team member is concerned [...]

When giving constructive feedback, avoid a laundry list. Deal with one issue at a time. More than one at a time can become overwhelming and have a negative effect instead of the positive effect intended.
Select a time when the team member is likely to be most receptive. Avoid times when the team member is [...]

Giving positive feedback, once mastered, is one of the most valuable skills a manager has to motivate staff to high levels of performance. However, when team members are experiencing performance or behavior problems, managers need to act quickly and provide constructive feedback in order to allow team members to continue their progress.
Giving constructive feedback, [...]

Positive feedback is letting team members know what they did right and how it has positively influenced the work environment. Providing positive feedback correctly is valuable because it can increase employees’ confidence and improve their performance. It should only take seconds to give someone positive feedback and can be done face-to-face (the best method) or [...]

When managers give feedback, the feedback should be related to their team member’s job performance or work behaviors or habits. Feedback should never be given on nonwork-related issues or subjects, even if it is positive feedback. When managers do this, they may be crossing the line between doing their jobs and getting too personal. In [...]

Here’s an example that illustrates the problem with silent or no feedback. Dana Lane is one of three receptionists in a law office in Chicago. Dana is responsible for answering all incoming phone calls, greeting visitors, and helping job applicants. Often, some of the partners give him work when their personal secretaries are absent or [...]

Not too long ago, I walked through the corridors and cubicle areas of a well-known insurance company and listened in (actually eaves-dropped) on managers communicating with their staffs. These statements were just some of the ones I heard them using when they were giving feedback:
"No."
"It will never work."
"Wrong. That’s not what I [...]

Feedback lets others know how they are doing in terms of their work-related performance and behaviors. Positive feedback tells team members exactly what they did well and why it deserves recognition. Positive feedback also encourages team members to repeat those same behaviors. Constructive feedback, often called coaching, corrects any performance or behavior issues before they [...]

People from different cultural backgrounds have learned to communicate differently. They also have different values and beliefs. As managers, we need to be aware of and be sensitive to these differences. We also need to educate ourselves about cultural differences in communication, especially nonverbal communication. The same gesture, physical movement, behavior, or facial expression may [...]

One of my first jobs was working for a major medical center in New York State. I was part of the organizational development (OD) department, which was headed by one of those worst types of managers. Glenn Stark was the unpredictable type. One day he would be your best friend, friendly, communicative, and approachable. The [...]

The active-listening skills lists the four types of active-listening responses, examples of which follow.
Clarifying. To clarify means to state in your own words what you believe the team member has said. Clarifying can also mean asking questions to make sure you have understood the message or to find out additional information that will help [...]

Active listening means demonstrating to the speaker that the speaker has been heard. Active listening also means creating a shared meaning between listener and speaker. Managers demonstrate and create shared meaning by using verbal and nonverbal-listening responses. The listening responses include clarifying, acknowledging, self-disclosure, and maintaining congruence. These four skills will be discussed at length [...]

The five styles of listening are:

Comprehensive
Fact-Finding
Directive
Empathetic
Appreciative

It is important that managers are able to use all of the styles in developing their team members. The style used should depend on the listening situation the manager is in. Different styles are required for different situations. For example, if a manager needs [...]

Listening is one of the most difficult skills. Very few people have ever had training in how to listen. It is estimated that most of us only listen at about 30 percent of our capacity. That means we are missing 70 percent of the message, or 70 percent of all the messages sent to us. [...]

Active listening is not only listening for meaning and understanding (which is fairly easy for most people), but also listening to let the other person know that he has been listened to (which is the real challenge). We also need to be aware of our nonverbal behaviors because how we react and present ourselves influences [...]

Training
Training is the process of teaching others new skills and behaviors in order to develop them for their current or future jobs. One of the biggest responsibilities a manager has is to train the staff. Once the staff members have the requisite skills and/or behaviors necessary to perform their jobs at high-productivity stages, the [...]

Productivity stages and "doing" behavior indicates the correlation between productivity stage and doing behavior. There are five productivity stages:
The higher the stage a team member is at, the more she can "do" and the more the manager can "do nothing." If managers can have 80 percent of their team members at stages 4 and [...]

There are innumerable management and leadership skills that will help managers "do nothing." However, the ones selected in this book enable the shift of focus from doing to managing and leading to occur quickly, with the greatest impact on successful management. I call these crucial management and leadership skills the Platinum skills (see Platinum skills [...]

It is very important to point out that there are certain exceptions to the "do nothing" rule. That is, there are certain responsibilities that the manager has and should never delegate to someone else. These exceptions apply to anyone supervising others, even the CEO of an organization. These exceptions are:
Performance, salary, and quarterly reviews; [...]

"Doing nothing" seems to be beneficial to all parties involved. If that is true, then why are so many managers not "doing nothing?" There are four main excuses that managers have for not "doing nothing." Let’s look at the excuses and explain why each of these excuses doesn’t hold much logic.
"Don’t Have the Time." [...]

The manager, the staff members, and the department (or organization) all benefit from the "do nothing" approach in the following ways:
The manager has more time. Once managers learn to develop their staff by determining what productivity stage different staff members are at, and then train them and delegate to them (The Platinum Skill of [...]