Response Magic 
When you look around you
can divide managers into several categories.
You find some who truly
adhere to the definition of leaders, have the vision for the team, are business
people, with clear understanding of what needs to be done and doing it even
when it is unpopular.
Then you have those who
abuse the management position, the jerks, who go after their personal goals
regardless the costs.
Finally, you have the
people pleasers. Managers and leaders who subscribe to the notion that their
main task is to make their teams happy because that will produce results, and
make the manager popular.
What's wrong with pleasing people
Happy people are
productive people. That is probably true.
Various studies has shown
that happy people are more likely to be more productive than unhappy people.
However, happiness is not
the only path to strong company culture and high performing teams. In fact, I
would argue that there are better ways to achieve great results than focusing
on keeping people happy.
Happy people won’t leave.
That is to some extent also true. Until the moment they stop being happy.
The problem is with
keeping people in the company by trying to make them happy with various perks,
fancy office space, or not telling them the hard truth.
This approach leads to
creating a culture of entitlement. You are building no resiliency. The moment
business doesn’t go as planned, and you need to do something that will make
people unhappy (being it cutting the perks, giving no bonuses, or even reducing
number of employees) you are pretty much done. These things are difficult even
in cultures with resilient people and they will destroy the productivity of the
team and atmosphere in culture of entitlement for months or even years to come.
I’m not advocating that
you should keep your team miserable. Far from it. Numerous studies has shown
that positive emotions invigorate people and lead to higher productivity.
What I’m questioning is
how you elicit these positive emotions. It is not by trying to please people.
With pleasing people and
the culture of entitlement, you are only a step away from doing something that
will displease them, elicit negative emotions, and the productivity plummets.
How to be a leader and not a people pleaser
So if trying to please
your team is not the right strategy to leadership, what is? Well, it is not
about keeping your team happy, it is about making them feel valuable,
respected, engaged and energized.
How do you do that? How do
you build a high-performing team of resilient people who don’t need to be
constantly pleased by the world around them?
By following couple of
simple practices:
Show direction –
one of the key expectations from any leader is providing a vision. You need to
be able to clearly state where is the organization heading and outline steps
how you expect that it gets there. The best way of showing direction is not
just by talking, but by leading the way. Leading by example is a must if you
expect others to follow.
Explain “why” –
not only you need to explain direction, you also need to be constantly
reminding people “why”. Only if the team understands where you want to go and
why, they can help you to get there. Only by understanding “why” people can
make sound decisions, and if they run into obstacles, they can overcome them
the right way that gets the organization closer to fulfilling the vision.
Keep the focus –
help the team to keep focused on what matters. Too often managers instead of
focusing their team on the top goals, create more and more distractions just
for the sake of doing something. Yes, you could do these twenty things, but
your job as a manager is to distil it down to just a couple with the highest
impact, and then guard it with your life.
Say “no” –
learn to say “no” to things that are either not aligned with the ultimate goal,
the business model, the organizational culture, or that maybe are aligned, but
are not a priority. Saying and owning the no is one of the most important things you
as a manager can do since it builds your credibility, it grows your influence,
and it helps your team to be focused on the right things.
Build ownership –
you don't need to give people equity in the company to create a sense of
ownership. In fact, chances are that won't work anyway since the stake in the
company will be negligible for each individual. What you can give them is
psychological ownership. They need to "feel" they "own"
something, regardless whether it is true in the legal sense of the word. You
can increase psychological ownership in couple of ways. Invest time and effort
in training your team so they have the capability to own a piece of work,
explain how their work contributes to the vision, state who owns
what so you create clear responsibility and accountability lines, and finally
don't direct people but rather provide guidance and suggestions without
enforcing your way of doing things.
Treat them like adults – way too often we tend to treat our people like
5 years old kids. We spend lots of effort hiring the best and the brightest and
then micromanage them in every single thing they do, or try to shield them from unpleasant truths. Treating people with
respect is one of the key skills you need to have as a leader.
Provide feedback – provide a clear, candid, well meant feedback. You as a manager have a moral
responsibility to make sure your team knows where they stand. Every single
individual on your team should understand when he is doing well, when not, and
what they need to work on to get better and grow.
Help them grow – and I don’t mean giving your team some professional training. The one
thing you can do is to identify what skills your team needs to develop to be
better at their current and more importantly at their next job. By providing
feedback, stretch goals, and building up their confidence and interest in learning you are not only helping them to do
a better job but you are helping them to be a better human beings as a side
effect.
Promote hardship Рnothing worthwhile doing is easy. This might be a clich̩ but it
still rings true. If you want your team to feel great, they need to work on
something hard. Setting the bar high, giving the team challenges that stretch their skills and abilities, and
expecting hard work will ultimately lead to huge feeling of accomplishment and
pride once the work is done. If someone on the team is underutilized, either by
not tapping their abilities or by not using all their time, these people will
be dissatisfied, will focus on the nonsense, complain about every small unimportant
thing, work on stuff that is not important and ultimately leave the company at
best, or destroy the team morale at worst.
Make them proud –
celebrating successes is a great way to show to the team that their work has a
meaning. I don’t necessarily mean giving a big party. It is much more important
to stop regularly, look back at what was accomplished, what the results of the
hardship are, and make it clear that it is the team that made it happen. It is
the team that changed lives of other people through delivering a product or
providing a service. By doing this you make your team proud, they will feel a
sense of purpose and ultimately increase a sense of ownership and focus on
continuing to do a great job.
That’s it. It says nothing
about making the team happy, pleasing them, or fulfilling all their wishes.
Simple right? Simple, but obviously not easy.
It is much easier to
please than to lead. A good manager and a leader is able to build a culture
where happiness is a by-product of doing a great work. You don’t need fancy
office space, you don’t need free meals, cars, or other perks.
The only thing you need so
to make your team feel valued, respected and proud of their accomplishments.
