Team Building Tips

You know you need a managerial makeover when...

Employees walk the opposite way at the sight of you

There are 'meetings' after your meetings

'Doing it right' requires your personal attention

Your team's idea of problem solving is their index finger

Your mantra is 'It's hard to find good help'

'Information Sharing' is bickering and backstabbing between breaks

Your first thought was 'MY manager needs to read this!'

Oh, I wouldn't expect anyone to admit to needing an overhaul of their management skills. Although, the first sign you need a managerial makeover is DENIAL!! You can see it clearly in any management interview:

Jim:                 What are your results like?

Manager:        Good...considering.

Jim:                 Considering what?

Manager:       Apparently you haven't interviewed my slack team members, my indecisive boss, my misguided co-managers & my demanding customers!

This is called managerial masking. It's when a manager hides their sub-par results behind any available target but themselves.

Nobody wants to believe they need a managerial makeover but most of us could use one. The reason is because of the way we promote our managers. A manager doesn't get their first management position because they have a vast amount of managerial experience. They get it because they were knowledgeable, committed, hardworking employees. Our organizations translate these qualities into management capability so they hand out a promotion and some on-the-job training. Now you have a high-performance employee trying to manage and lead a group of people. The problem is that the skills it takes to perform as an individual are quite different from those needed to lead a group of individuals to perform. The result is mismanagement and a host of employee performance issues.

A managerial makeover requires more than a mirror. It requires an MRI: Managerial Reconstructive Investigation. It's a painful picture but you need to scrutinize the inside to get the results on the outside. If you desire peak performance from your team, you better step into the MRI booth. It's a tight squeeze so you might want to leave your ego at the door!

To change your results, an MRI requires that you honestly answer a critical question: to what extent am I creating the problems I don't want? Admitting that you may be the source of the problem is the start to resolving the issues within your workplace. If you can't see minimal results and poor performance as a product of your management approach, your name will blend into a long list under the heading of 'management mediocrity.'

Some of our poor management tactics are acquired through osmosis. We tend to assume certain tactics are acceptable by observing the management skills of others. A client once shared a story with me about one of his managers that locked the door at the start of a meeting to teach a latecomer a lesson. This forced the latecomer to knock on the door and disrupt the entire meeting. Needless to say this person was never late again. My client felt this tactic was acceptable since it produced the desired result. The problem is that the underlying message to the entire team is that if you do something the manager doesn't like, you too will be humiliated into compliance. Just because an action appears to produce an immediate desired result doesn't mean it's the best and/or only course of action.

The managers you worked for while making your way through the ranks may not be the role models you want to follow. Scrutinize your actions. What does the x-ray say? Do your actions build confidence -- exude professionalism -- build relationships -- create trust -- portray leadership?

Remove the roadblocks that impede your team from performing. Use the MRI approach to reassess your management skills and lead your team to peak performance.

Jim Vasconcellos is founder of Boomerang Concepts. He works with organizations to improve their productivity and profitability by bringing accountability for performance improvement back into their managerial leadership. In the end, success, failure or mediocrity BOOMERANGS - It All Comes Back To You! For more information or to book Jim V. at your next speaking event, go to http://www.BoomerangConcepts.com