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McGlothin Davis Outlook
Winter 2006
Do your employees understand your company’s mission? Are you sure? According to Joanne Sunjansky of the Key Consulting Group, a recent employee survey conducted by MMC Marketing Research and Consulting came up with some disturbing results. The study asked 1,727 professionals how well they understood their goals and how they fit in with the organization’s mission. Two key findings stand out:
- Fifty-three percent either agreed or were neutral that their management is disconnected from daily business activity.
- Forty-seven percent indicated they didn't have clear job goals.
Managers should be concerned about these issues. Why? If you don’t understand what your employees’ day-to-day lives are like, how are you going to convey to them what they need to change and what they need to keep the same to reach company goals and be in step with the company mission? And if employees are unclear of their own goals, it’s unlikely that they understand where your company wants to land in the future.
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When you are in a position of leadership, it helps to have a few guiding principles to assist you in navigating the difficulties you will inevitably have to endure. Here are a few thoughts to meditate on:
- Think about your ordinary interactions with your peers, colleagues and staff members. When you are in a meeting, at the water cooler or in the lunchroom, it is wise to remember that each interaction is an opportunity for you to take a risk in the realm of openness—and when you do, you open yourself up to growth and happiness.
- To understand your work world, you must simultaneously examine the work environment and examine yourself for biases and influences you are not aware of. Otherwise, it will be difficult to render the good judgment that will be required of you.
- One of the most powerful ideas to remember in the workplace or in life is that no problem will be solved unless someone takes responsibility for solving it.
—adapted from Meditations from the Road, by M. Scott Peck
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Are you a micromanager? A second-guesser? If you are, you need to stop. This is not a healthy way to manage people—for yourself or your employees.
Learning to trust your staff and allowing them to make mistakes is part of being a mature manager. A good manager helps make sure that his or her direct reports keep the flow of work going. A good manager is more interested in the growth of his direct reports and the eventual positive and freeing workplace that can be developed when they are operating as autonomously as possible.
To improve your ability to manage you need to let go of your need to control quality at every stop. You are not the quality control traffic cop. You are a manager, and that means you assist people in being able to do their jobs—you don’t block their ability to do it by second guessing, redoing work and spending long hours in the office.
You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” . . . You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
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