Why your management style is backwards (and what to do instead)
A better way to think about your work relationships.
You want results.
To get the results you want, you need to hold people accountable.
Holding them accountable can only happen through candid feedback.
And through candid conversation you will build trust.
And once you trust your team members, you are willing to be more generous - perhaps with more flexible working, more holidays etc.
Whether its this explicit or not, this is how most managers work.
The only problem is, as a way to have motivated, high performing employees, this approach doesn’t work.
In fact, it’s completely backwards.
Today, I want to share with you a model that completely changed how I think about professional relationships.
It flips this model on it’s head in a way that will change your work relationships forever.
Let’s get into it 🚀
“The conventional definition of management is getting work done through people, but real management is developing people through work.” ~ Agha Hasan Abedi
Why work relationships matter
Work relationships are often transactional.
You give me money, I give you time. But simply giving someone a salary is no guarantee that they are going to work hard, do their best, or take the initiative.
Trends like ‘quiet quitting’ are just one of the more egregious examples of what happens when employees are disengaged.
So the timeless challenge, is how to motivate your team.
Faced with this question, you might take a number of different approaches.
You could try to pay people more. You could try to give them cushy offices with massages and free food and laundry on site etc. You can also try to exhort them about how important “the mission” is. You can try to bribe them with bonuses, or scare them with threats of “personal improvement plans (PIPs)”.
All this may make some marginal difference.
But what is critical is the direct relationship that someone has with their direct superiors.
Relationships with management are the top factor in employees’ job satisfaction, which in turn is the second most important determinant of employees’ overall well-being (after mental health).
A strong relationship can be one of mentorship, mutual personal growth and co-creation.
These are the type of relationships we want to strive for.
A poor employee-manager relationship can lead to stress, underperformance, disengagement, and possibly to them quitting.
These relationships will likely make or break the person’s attitude to their work, and be a decisive factor in whether they end up staying in the company long term, or quickly bailing out to the next thing.
Given how expensive hiring is, and how much of a difference it makes that employees are engaged at work, this is fundamental for managers to master.
Getting this right can be make or break for your team and your company.
And most people get it completely wrong.
How do most managers approach their team?
Let’s revisit the model we laid out at the beginning of the post.
Managers often have an instinct to go straight for results. After all, you might reason, this is what we are here to do. We are here to work, to get things done, to achieve things. I just hired you to do a job, so I need results.
You say to yourself, “I need to hold X accountable for the standard of their work”.
How do I do that, you might wonder?
Well, the way you do that is by being candid. Speaking plainly and clearly when things don’t go well. Giving frank and candid feedback to improve performance.
This makes you feel like you are being a good boss.
You are managing your direct reports.
Once you have established feedback mechanisms, then you feel you can start to trust this person to deliver.
And once you trust them, then you can start to reward them. You can start to be more generous. Perhaps you allow them more flexible working for example, or to manage their own time more independently.
I’m sure that parts of this story will sound familiar to everyone reading this.
We have all had managers that have taken this approach.
But this approach is exactly backwards.
So what should you do instead?
Let’s take the story I just told and reverse it.
You start by leading with generosity.
A habit of generosity builds trust.
When trust is established, it gives you permission for candour.
And candour allows you to hold people accountable.
With accountability, they will deliver better results.
You see that this is the exact opposite of how managers might typically approach this?
This model is called the relationship ladder.
Lets take a look at each rung of the ladder.
We start with this foundation of generosity.
It could mean taking the time to go for lunch with the new graduate.
It could mean supporting a colleague with something they are struggling with.
The important thing is that generosity is in the eye of the receiver. If I gave my uncle a book on AI, he probably would be more confused than grateful. But instead if I gave him a book on architecture, he would likely consider it generous.
Generosity is in the eye of the receiver.
Once you have led with generosity, you start to establish trust. I start to believe that you have my best interests at heart, that I can trust you.
From there, you gain permission for candour. How many of us have had people say some candid stuff to you that you felt hurt or offended by? All of us. If I get unthinking feedback from someone I barely know, I am unlikely to take it well. But if a trusted friend or colleague says to me “hey I think you could have done x, y, z better”, I’m going to listen and take what they are saying more seriously.
Once you have trust, and you are able to speak more candidly in your work relationships, it allows you to hold people accountable.
Accountability is the foundation of results.
Of course results is where you want to get to. But you can’t skip any of the rungs along the way.
You have to start from the bottom of the ladder with each new relationship. You can’t skip to results. You can’t skip straight to candour. This will backfire.
Instead, use the relationship ladder to totally rethink how you approach your work relationships, how you approach managing your team.
And even though this approach will allow you to get the most out of work relationships this is also a fantastic framework for how to think about any relationship, whether across your organisation, someone you are trying to sell to, or even in your personal life.
Ok so the things you might want to hold someone accountable for at work, and the results you might want in your personal life will be quite different.
But I still find this framework incredibly helpful, even if it’s just starting with generosity as a foundation to all my relationships.
So remember the Relationship Ladder:
Generosity → Trust → Candour → Accountability → Results
I found this framework totally changed how I approached my relationships at work.
I hope you also found it useful.
Until next time,
Jamie
Note: Full credit for this framework goes to Andreas at Trim Tab. I have worked with them several times, and would highly recommend them for your team facilitation and coaching needs. Thank you Andreas 🙏
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