It’s a science with well-defined skills and knowledge that should be taught
For the last two years, the Loyalty Group has been working to raise the calibre of its management talent.
It started with a new competency framework that sets out the skills and abilities the Toronto-based company — known for its Air Miles reward program — expects managers to demonstrate and now every manager with one or more reports must participate in the active leadership program.
The three-day program walks attendees through a model of effective management, explained Sandra Karpas, associate director of HR. They learn how to delegate work, how to assess if the employee has the capability and motivation to do the job and what management style will be the most effective.
The three days are scattered over three months so that the trainees can take what they learn, try it out in the workplace and get feedback from peers and employees.
HR also worked with employee groups to create a performance appraisal process to ensure managers are demonstrating the management capabilities set out in the framework.
The firm embarked on a systematic approach to management development because they recognized it would be necessary if they wanted to continue to improve performance, said Karpas. “At the end of the day, if you have managers who can’t manage effectively, employees will leave.”
By now everyone in HR knows the line — it’s recited like a mantra: people don’t leave companies, they leave their managers. So finding good managers is an essential component of staffing strategies, an integral part of the quest to become an employer of choice.
But management experts still contend that while employers may in fact be looking for good managers, they often aren’t looking in the right places. Why? Because there is a basic misunderstanding about what a good manager looks like.
There are still many cases where an employee is rewarded for great performance with a promotion into management, said Brendan Nagle, who teaches management development at colleges and universities.
Sometimes the company gets lucky and the new manager thrives. But too often the employee is completely unsuited for management. Not only does the company take a great employee away from where he was doing great work, it also puts him in a position that impedes the performance of other employees as well.
“Management is a learned skill but what happens too often is that nobody actually gets the opportunity to learn it,” he said. Instead people are promoted and left on their own to find their way. Some develop metaphors to interpret their situation, he said; they think of the office as a home, their employees are family members and the second in command a partner. That’s not helpful to anyone, he said, because it leaves managers treating employees like children. There is a technology to managing that involves collecting numbers and communicating expectations. Almost anyone can do it but they have to be taught.
Much of what it takes to be a great manager can be taught, agreed Norm Trainor, CEO of the training company, The Covenant Group. But first, it takes a certain kind of person with a unique set of personal values. In most instances, HR looks for things like integrity, honesty and a proclivity for teamwork. These are important, he said, but to be successful, a manager has to value the development and success of employees.
“In a management role you often have to subordinate your own ego and put your people at the centre,” he said.
In some cases, those values are absent in star employees. In sales, for example, success often stems from a high ego drive and the need for recognition. These types of people will not make good managers because, for the most part, people don’t change their values, he said.
Good managers take pleasure in seeing other people grow and shine. That can’t be taught, he said. But once that is there, anyone can be trained to be a good manager — though it often isn’t taught right.
Trainor also said management is a discipline with skills and a body of knowledge as well-defined as any science. “By an large most organizations don’t view it as a science, they view it as an art.”
That basic misunderstanding explains many organizational performance problems, he said. Often when employee’s performance disappointing, the employee is blamed, but more often than not, it’s a management issue.
For example, a fundamental manager responsibility is the assignment of work. But many managers don’t know the correct way to assign work, said Trainor. They give an employee a job to do, but don’t establish the context so that first, the employee knows why he has to do it but also the employee has to be clear on what is expected of him and that he has the resources to do it. Without that, the employee doesn’t have what he needs to do the job, said Trainor.
Nagle agreed that communication between manager and employee is critical for success.
“Managers aren’t bad managers because they want to be bad managers. They are bad managers because they expect people to be able to read their minds,” he said.
In many cases, managers have an idea of what it will take for the employee to do a good job, but they never tell them what it is.
Managers not only have to be taught how, but what to communicate. The key is to turn employee data on performance into constructive feedback, Nagle said.
“The only way you can give a manager something to say is to give them a way to collect data on employees. They have to be able to describe what they want employees to do, and give them training and feedback on performance.”
It started with a new competency framework that sets out the skills and abilities the Toronto-based company — known for its Air Miles reward program — expects managers to demonstrate and now every manager with one or more reports must participate in the active leadership program.
The three-day program walks attendees through a model of effective management, explained Sandra Karpas, associate director of HR. They learn how to delegate work, how to assess if the employee has the capability and motivation to do the job and what management style will be the most effective.
The three days are scattered over three months so that the trainees can take what they learn, try it out in the workplace and get feedback from peers and employees.
HR also worked with employee groups to create a performance appraisal process to ensure managers are demonstrating the management capabilities set out in the framework.
The firm embarked on a systematic approach to management development because they recognized it would be necessary if they wanted to continue to improve performance, said Karpas. “At the end of the day, if you have managers who can’t manage effectively, employees will leave.”
By now everyone in HR knows the line — it’s recited like a mantra: people don’t leave companies, they leave their managers. So finding good managers is an essential component of staffing strategies, an integral part of the quest to become an employer of choice.
But management experts still contend that while employers may in fact be looking for good managers, they often aren’t looking in the right places. Why? Because there is a basic misunderstanding about what a good manager looks like.
There are still many cases where an employee is rewarded for great performance with a promotion into management, said Brendan Nagle, who teaches management development at colleges and universities.
Sometimes the company gets lucky and the new manager thrives. But too often the employee is completely unsuited for management. Not only does the company take a great employee away from where he was doing great work, it also puts him in a position that impedes the performance of other employees as well.
“Management is a learned skill but what happens too often is that nobody actually gets the opportunity to learn it,” he said. Instead people are promoted and left on their own to find their way. Some develop metaphors to interpret their situation, he said; they think of the office as a home, their employees are family members and the second in command a partner. That’s not helpful to anyone, he said, because it leaves managers treating employees like children. There is a technology to managing that involves collecting numbers and communicating expectations. Almost anyone can do it but they have to be taught.
Much of what it takes to be a great manager can be taught, agreed Norm Trainor, CEO of the training company, The Covenant Group. But first, it takes a certain kind of person with a unique set of personal values. In most instances, HR looks for things like integrity, honesty and a proclivity for teamwork. These are important, he said, but to be successful, a manager has to value the development and success of employees.
“In a management role you often have to subordinate your own ego and put your people at the centre,” he said.
In some cases, those values are absent in star employees. In sales, for example, success often stems from a high ego drive and the need for recognition. These types of people will not make good managers because, for the most part, people don’t change their values, he said.
Good managers take pleasure in seeing other people grow and shine. That can’t be taught, he said. But once that is there, anyone can be trained to be a good manager — though it often isn’t taught right.
Trainor also said management is a discipline with skills and a body of knowledge as well-defined as any science. “By an large most organizations don’t view it as a science, they view it as an art.”
That basic misunderstanding explains many organizational performance problems, he said. Often when employee’s performance disappointing, the employee is blamed, but more often than not, it’s a management issue.
For example, a fundamental manager responsibility is the assignment of work. But many managers don’t know the correct way to assign work, said Trainor. They give an employee a job to do, but don’t establish the context so that first, the employee knows why he has to do it but also the employee has to be clear on what is expected of him and that he has the resources to do it. Without that, the employee doesn’t have what he needs to do the job, said Trainor.
Nagle agreed that communication between manager and employee is critical for success.
“Managers aren’t bad managers because they want to be bad managers. They are bad managers because they expect people to be able to read their minds,” he said.
In many cases, managers have an idea of what it will take for the employee to do a good job, but they never tell them what it is.
Managers not only have to be taught how, but what to communicate. The key is to turn employee data on performance into constructive feedback, Nagle said.
“The only way you can give a manager something to say is to give them a way to collect data on employees. They have to be able to describe what they want employees to do, and give them training and feedback on performance.”
