-- Hiring a person is like hiring a fixed set of predictable patterns of emotion, learning, memory and behavior. Changing these will take tremendous effort if you do not like them, hence it will serve you will to take extreme care when inviting a new person onto your team.
--Time finding the right person is nonnegotiable. You will spend the time on the front end looking or on the back end desperately trying to transform the person who you wished he was in the first place.
--Know the talents you are looking for: competitive or altruistic, focused or entrepeneurial, creative or analytical?
--Spontaneous responses to open-ended questions reveal the persons
Basics of Good Management
1) Select good people - know their frequent past behavior well to predict future behavior
-- ask open ended questions looking for specific examples, "how have you organized your life to make it more efficient?" "What is the best day you've had at work and why?" ". . The worst day you've had at work and why?" "What boss have you gotten along with well and why?"
2) Define clear expectations. Managers do this constantly or not at all -- and requires they meet often with their people (4-5x per year). Ask, "What do you think you get paid to do?" and then continue to refine expectations in virtually every meeting.
3) Praise and recognition - most positive rewards for behavior are certain, positive, and immediate.
4) show care for your people: warm and fuzzy. Humans are herd animals, caring is what we do. After we bond good things happen, we feel secure, share more confidences, more trusting, more willing to take risks, and support one another. A good manager makes bonds on his or her own, and wants these good things to happen. Caring for people requires one to intervene early when not performing and a visceral reaction when someone fails.
Doing these 4 things makes you unlikely to fail but doing two more things helps guarantee success.
1) Good managers play chess. -- They discover what is unique about each type of person and capitalize on it. They don't mold their personalities, the match their skills to a job. It is often worth shuffling the organization for a persons idiosyncracies if they are making a significant contribution to the company. If they are not, then it is not. Individualization of employees skills can help to produce more with the same number of employees. The point is to help anyone contribute their utmost, if they're not move them out.
gut-check your own interest and talent as a manager by asking yourself:
-what is the best way to motivate an employee?
-how often should you check in with an employee?
-what is the best way to praise an employee?
-what is the best way to teach an employee?
If your answer is, "It depends on the employee . . . " that is a good sign.
The 3 Levers to understanding your Employee
- learn his strengths & weaknesses
- learn his triggers
- learn his unique style of learning
Managing Strengths:
Key here is that self-assurance is the real driver of performance, not self-awareness - contrary to many peoples convention. Improving performance means building someone up on their strengths! . . and building up the importance and size of their task which you know they have the special talents to do! :) On overoptimistic view of oneself will actually drive someone to possess the skills they imagine they have! This is repeated over and over in kids born in the slum against impossible odds, etc. You've got to get people to believe the tasks they are doing are challenging if you are ever going to get them to knuckle down and do real work. Once you've built up the impossibility of the job before them, gotten the best out of them, and they succeed, praise their unique strengths to continue their self-assurance spiral upward (as opposed to praising their hard work). Failure is always due to "a lack of effort" as this will avoid the pit of self-doubt. And if they repeatedly fail? Assess if this is due to lack of knowledge or skills - and provide them to the person. If they improve, problem solved. If not, then it might be talent which you won't be able to fix easily - you'll have to manage around this weakness and neutralize it. Find him a partner with complementary strengths, "the secret of the successful" not the crutch of the imperfect. If skills-training, a partner, and no nifty trick is found then you'll rearrange roles and neutralize it. If he won't try the new role, he should start looking for other opportunities.
Triggers:
People respond to voice and relationship as a main source of their trigger. Others might like being checked on often, or not at all, or work at night, or work with friends, or be numbers oriented, or whatever - but find their trigger and squeeze it right because otherwise they might turn off if you keep pulling a trigger they don't like. Some people like to set their own goals, some like it when you think they can't achieve the goal and they prove you wrong. Some like the analytical approach and they will take themselves in the right direction.
The recognition trigger is one of the most powerful. HSBC gives out their employees Dream Awards. Their top performers receive what they request for their great performance and are given a lucite trophy and their dream - college tuition for their child, a Harley, etc. Because its their dream, the impact is tremendous!
Unique Style of Learning: Analyzers vs Doers vs Watchers.
Doers learn the fastest when they are thrown into things, but make some mistakes as they figure things out on the fly. Analyzers try to prevent mistakes the most and are the most careful up front. Watchers take the longest to blossom and ultimately can perform well when coached alot up front.
How can you learn these Levers? (Strengths, Triggers, and Learning Style) Interview Q's:
Strengths
1. What was the best day you've had at work the last 3 months?
- what were you doing? - why did you enjoy it so much?
Weaknesses
2. What was the worst day you've had at work the last 3 months? Why did it grate on you so much?
Triggers:
3. What was the best relationship you've ever had with a manager? What made it work so well?
4. What was the best praise or recognition you've ever received? What made it so good?
Unique Style of Learning:
5. When in your career do you think you were learning the most? Why? What's the best way for you to learn?
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