The 2nd Thing An Effective Manager Is Responsible For.

Let’s dive into each one.

As we talk about in the Kick-Ass Manager online course included in our 16 week ‘Business Transformation Program’, there are three powers in the workplace:

By far, relationship power generates the best results from your team.

Each team member’s “discretionary effort” will be higher.

Discretionary effort just means people give more of a shit about their role, their team and the business, and will not only chip in and do more work when it’s needed, but also produce more work in the allocated work time.

They choose to work smarter (more productive and / or on more of the higher-value things), and sometimes harder (more hours) if you have a strong professional relationship with them.

How do you create and maintain a stronger professional relationship with your directs?

Communicate with them, and a lot more than you think is needed.

We recommend a weekly team email (or video) and are huge advocates for 30 minute weekly one-on-one’s, which are squarely focused on the direct, not you, the manager.

The first 10 minutes is for the direct to raise or ask anything, the second 10 minutes is for the manager to provide feedback or ask about progress in their role and the final 10 minutes is on their future - their professional development.

A Kick-Ass Manager is always developing their team - through coaching, and by assigning some time and resources to the direct, in one area they need to improve on or increase their knowledge in (and for the quarter).

At the end of each quarter, the manager and direct agree on what that one area is, and what resources the direct will consume to support their development (eg. books, a course or some coaching sessions).

A-Players want to be developed and this often ranks higher than pay, as the reason why people choose to work where they do.

Call out excellence in your weekly team meeting and email.

When a direct falls short on something, give them feedback in a professional, unemotional and structured way.

We talk about the feedback model we recommend a manager uses in the Kick’-Ass Manager’ course in our Program.

But don’t “manage by exception” and only give negative feedback, be sure to give unbalanced feedback - 9 out 10 should be positive feedback.

This is not natural for most of us so you will need to practise and build the habit.

Most managers bloat their directs JDs to 2, 3 or even more pages.

That’s an exercise in futility.

Keeping them short, punchy and to one page distils what the role is really about, what is important for the business, for the person in the role to focus on.

The areas on a One Page JD should be:

We recommend quarterly JDs, especially if the business is growing.

Priorities, and occasionally even responsibilities, will change.

An effective JD is a communication tool and should be reviewed with the direct in every weekly one-on-one, or worst case, every second one.

After you have set the quarterly plan (which falls from the annual strategic plan), a lot of projects will be thought of (aligned to the handful of goals the business currently has).

Placing at least one project for the quarter on the directs’ One Page JD not only reminds you to delegate but also gives them interesting and challenging work.

You see, A-Players want more challenging work.

Instead of being annoyed at the extra work, an A-Player will embrace it and up their ‘discretionary effort’ to make it fit.

Same with a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) - each direct should own at least one number.

It could be an important number that needs to be held steady (eg. Refunds not to exceed 2% of orders), or something that needs to improve (eg. Increase website traffic from 100 to 200 uniques a week).

The direct then has something that can be measured to work on, and will enjoy the work to hit the target.

As mentioned above, A-Players want more challenging work.

They revel in doing something hard, and impressing their manager and their team members - so start building the delegation habit.

So much so, you could change your middle name by deed poll, to ‘delegation’.

Before you take something new on, ask yourself “is there someone else on my team I can delegate this to?”.

The results we have seen business owners doing our 16 week Program from delegating like a demon, have been incredible.

It unlocks more time for the owner and managers to work on higher-value things, like more time on marketing - which is not only one of the two main growth levers I have posted about before, but also fun.

From more and better marketing comes more sales, which increases profits.

Check out our ‘Business Transformation Program’.

It includes a weekly coaching session with a Growth Guide, like me, to keep you focused on the right things, and be held accountable.

And it has three online courses that take you through our advice in a structured way - just 30 minutes a weekday:

If you want specific advice for specific resources to help you and your business grow, especially for you and your managers to increase their teams’ results, book a 20 minute Growth Chat with me and I will point you in the right direction. I always provide some books, podcasts, courses or contacts in my network to help you with your #1 growth challenge - I love talking everything small business!!

Check out the footer on our website for other great resources we have to help small business owners grow their business with ease, so they can live the lifestyle they signed up for.

Cheers,

Troy | Founder | Grow A Small Business