Growing Great Employees

1. Listening: The Foundation of Managerial Success

Listening is the foundation of success in managing people. As a gardener prepares the soil in order to allow the plants an ideal growing environment, listening well creates the ideal human growth environment, one where people feel capable, valued, and respected.

The four skills of listening are paying attention, inviting, questioning, and restating. Paying attention involves giving the speaker your full physical and mental focus. Inviting encourages the speaker to continue through verbal and non-verbal cues. Questioning involves asking genuine, curiosity-based questions to discover the speaker's thoughts and feelings. Restating summarizes the essence of the speaker's message in your own words to ensure understanding.

Effective listening creates trust and opens communication channels. It allows managers to understand their employees' perspectives, concerns, and ideas, leading to better decision-making and problem-solving. By actively listening, managers demonstrate respect and value for their employees, fostering a positive work environment where people feel heard and appreciated.

2. Clarify Your Workplace Vision and Core Competencies

For a gardener, creating a dream garden requires knowing what kind of a garden you want to create, and then what kinds of plants will help you to create it. For a manager, creating a great workplace requires getting clear about the workplace you're trying to create and what kinds of jobs and people will help you to create it.

Defining core competencies is crucial for creating the workplace you envision. These are the capabilities required of every employee and define "how work gets done" in your organization. To select core competencies:

• Find exemplars: Look at people in the organization who embody the workplace you want to create
• Look for clues: Note verbal indicators of positive aspects of "how work gets done"
• Work from a list: Use a provided list of possible core competencies as a starting point

Create clear job descriptions based on responsibilities rather than tasks. This approach helps ensure you hire people who are most capable of helping you create the workplace you envision. A good job description should include:

• Key responsibilities
• Required skills and knowledge
• Core competencies

3. Hire the Right People Through Scenario-Based Interviews

Scenario-based interviewing can give you much of the information—about an employee's actual skills, knowledge, and core competencies—you need to make better, more informed hiring decisions.

The scenario-based interviewing process involves three steps:

1. Establish the scenario: Provide a verbal context for the candidate to answer "what-if" questions
2. Ask a "what-if" question: Pose a question about how the candidate would handle a specific situation
3. Stop and listen: Allow the candidate to answer without interruption or leading

This approach reveals how candidates think and act in real-world situations, providing more insight than traditional interview questions. It allows you to assess their problem-solving skills, communication abilities, and alignment with your organization's core competencies.

To take it further, create a job model simulation that allows candidates to demonstrate their understanding and experience directly. This can involve:

• Meeting with key people in the organization to discuss staffing requests
• Participating in a senior staff meeting to present findings and ask questions
• Proposing next steps for creating a staffing plan

4. Onboard Employees Effectively: Not Too Deep, Not Too Shallow

A gardener can dramatically help or hinder a plant's chances for survival, depending on whether he or she plants it too deep, too shallow, or just right. In the same way, how a manager gets an employee started can have a dramatic impact on his or her success.

Effective onboarding answers three critical questions for new employees:

1. Who do I need to know? (Key relationships and roles)
2. How do things get done around here? (Systems, procedures, and cultural norms)
3. What's expected of me? (Performance expectations and goals)

Use the LearningPath approach to provide information and skills over time in a way your employee can absorb and use. This model includes:

1. Awareness: Seeing the possibility of doing things differently
2. Motivation: Recognizing the benefit of change
3. New skills/knowledge: Acquiring the necessary capabilities
4. Behavior change: Implementing the new skills or knowledge

Avoid "planting too deep" by overwhelming employees with too much information or unrealistic initial expectations. Similarly, avoid "planting too shallow" by not providing enough information, resources, or support.

5. Cultivate a Coach's Mindset for Employee Growth

Believing in your people's potential and wanting to help them succeed.

The coach's mindset is crucial for effective people management. It involves two key aspects:

1. Believing in your employees' potential
2. Wanting to help them succeed

To develop this mindset, use the following process:

1. Recognize your initial belief about an employee
2. Question that belief
3. Gather new data about the employee's capabilities
4. Test the new data in real situations
5. Revise (or recommit to) your initial belief based on evidence

Maintaining a positive mindset requires "good mental hygiene" - reminding yourself of why you believe as you do and how it will help you and your employees. This approach creates a foundation for using management skills effectively and helps employees feel supported and motivated to grow.

6. Tailor Your Management Style to Individual Employees

The Social Style Model provides an approach to what to look for, and how to use what you see, so that you can manage each employee in the way that will be both most enjoyable and most helpful to him or her.

The Social Style Model identifies four primary styles:

1. Drivers: Task-and goal-focused, need clarity and autonomy
2. Expressives: Relationship-and forward-movement-focused, need interaction and freedom
3. Amiables: Relationship-and team-focused, need support and structure
4. Analyticals: Task-and information-focused, need emotional balance and reasonable time frames

Tailor your management approach to each style:

• Drivers: Help them look for others' perspectives
• Expressives: Encourage them to do reality checks
• Amiables: Support them in taking a stand
• Analyticals: Teach them to share their thinking

By understanding and adapting to each employee's style, you can create a more effective and harmonious work environment, leading to increased productivity and job satisfaction.

7. Make Clear Agreements and Provide Effective Feedback

Making Agreements: Clarify, Commit, Support.

The process of making clear agreements involves three steps:

1. Clarify: Provide the information needed to complete the agreement well, while engaging the employee's commitment
2. Commit: Ensure mutual understanding and agreement on specifics
3. Support: Honor commitments, offer feedback, and maintain a coach's mindset

Effective feedback should be:

• Specific: Use "camera check" to focus on observable behaviors
• Timely: Provide feedback as soon as possible after the event
• Include impact: Explain why the behavior matters and its consequences

When giving corrective feedback, follow these steps:

1. Introduce the topic
2. Invite the employee's point of view
3. Build on what you hear, making your feedback specific, timely, and including the impact
4. Agree on next steps

Remember to provide positive feedback as well, recognizing and reinforcing good performance and behaviors.

8. Master the Art of Delegation for Team Growth

Delegation means transferring to an employee the responsibility for an area of work.

The Delegation Model consists of three steps:

1. Prepare: Define the area of work and appropriate levels of autonomy
2. Discuss/Agree: Share your preparation with the employee and reach mutual understanding
3. Support: Honor commitments, offer feedback, and work to increase employee autonomy over time

To delegate effectively:

• Be clear about the scope of responsibility being transferred
• Define levels of autonomy for different aspects of the work
• Discuss and agree on how you'll work together during the transition
• Provide ongoing support and feedback
• Gradually increase the employee's autonomy as their capability grows

Effective delegation allows employees to demonstrate increasing levels of competence, freeing you to take on higher-level responsibilities. It's a powerful tool for building trust and developing your team's skills and confidence.

9. Coach Employees to Develop New Skills and Knowledge

Coaching is both helping a person decide how to acquire new skills and knowledge, and—in most cases—being a part of that learning process.

The Coaching Model involves three steps:

1. Explore: Discuss the development opportunity and how to address it
2. Commit: Ensure mutual understanding and agreement on the developmental plan
3. Develop: Complete the coaching options, stay in touch, and maintain a coach's mindset

When teaching new skills, follow these key elements:

1. Involve: Check initial levels of awareness and motivation
2. Explain: Share your understanding or knowledge
3. Practice: Offer opportunities to translate understanding into practical ability
4. Integrate: Help the employee reflect and apply the learning to real life

Remember that learning happens within the learner. Your job as a coach is to support the employee's journey along the LearningPath, guiding them through awareness, motivation, skill acquisition, and behavior change.

10. Balance Manager and Employee Responsibilities

Just as you are responsible to your employees to provide the support and direction we've discussed throughout the book, so they have basic responsibilities to you and to the company.

Responsible employees:

1. Are responsive to feedback: They listen, engage in dialogue about how to change, and make efforts to improve
2. Keep their agreements: They do what they've committed to do
3. Manage their own growth: They take primary responsibility for their own success and development
4. Are good company citizens: They consider others' needs and preferences, as well as their own

Managers should:

• Make clear agreements about these responsibilities with employees
• Use the management decision tree to address performance issues
• Avoid being "held hostage" by employees who don't fulfill their basic responsibilities

By maintaining this balance of responsibilities, managers can create a more productive and positive work environment, focusing their energy on supporting and developing employees who are committed to their own success and the success of the organization.

11. Handle Terminations with Clarity, Respect, and Professionalism

Think of this as an operation to separate the person from your team: you want everybody to live!

When terminating an employee, follow these steps:

1. Prepare Carefully:

   • Ensure you're committed to this course of action
   • Craft a clear, simple termination message
   • Consider possible employee reactions and how to handle them
   • Consult with HR on legal considerations

2. Perform Impeccably:

   • Choose an appropriate time and place
   • Deliver the message clearly and concisely
   • Avoid softening the message or engaging in dialogue
   • Handle emotional reactions professionally

3. Follow Up Properly:

   • Complete all necessary paperwork and processes
   • Avoid speaking negatively about the terminated employee
   • Communicate with your team about the change
   • Reassure remaining employees of your fairness and expectations

After the termination, focus on rebuilding trust with your team by being consistent, balanced, and transparent in your management practices. Demonstrate that success on your team comes from fulfilling employee responsibilities and contributing positively to the organization.

Last updated: November 17, 2024