Spending More Time Managing Your Poor-Performing Employees? Learn A Better Approach With This 5-Minute Activity!

Many managers find themselves spending the most time with their least productive people and the least time with their most productive people. Investing in your strugglers may appear smart, yet the most effective managers do the opposite.

THE 5-MINUTE ACTIVITY

If you are a manager, you may want to try this exercise.

On the left-hand side of a blank sheet of paper write down the names of the people who report to you in descending order of productivity, i.e.  the most productive at the top, the least productive at the bottom.

On the right-hand side, write down the same names, but this time in descending order of “time you spend with them,” the most time at the top, the least time at the bottom.

Now draw straight lines joining the names on the left with the appropriate names on the right.’

Do your lines cross? They often do.

However, the most effective manager see things very differently.  When they join the names, their lines are horizontal. They spend the most time with their most productive employees. They invest in their best.

HOW EFFECTIVE MANAGERS THINK DIFFERENTLY FROM THE REST?

On the surface, this would appear to be an eminently safe way for a manager to invest his time on poor performing employees. The reasoning behind this approach often is that poor performing employees need all the help you can give them. Without your support they might not only fail as individuals, they might also drag down the entire team.

This way of thinking assumes that the manager's role is either to control or to instruct. And, yes, if you see “control” as the core of the manager role, then it would certainly be productive to spend more time with your strugglers because they still need to be controlled. 

But great managers do not place a premium on either control or instruction.

For great managers, the core of their role is that of a catalyst: turning talent into performance. So when they spend time with an employee, they are not fixing or correcting or instructing. Instead, they are racking their brains, trying to figure out better and better ways to unleash that employee’s distinct talent

WHY IT WORKS?

·          Great managers strive to carve out a unique set of expectations that will stretch and focus each particular individual.

·         They try to highlight and perfect each person’s unique style. They draw his attention to it. They help him understand why it works for him and how to perfect it.

·         And they plot how they, the manager, can run interference for each employee, so that each can exercise his or her talents even more freely.

If this is how you see your role, if this is what you are doing when you spend time with your people- setting unique expectations, highlighting and perfecting individual styles, running interference, you cannot help but be drawn toward your most talented employees.

Talent is the multiplier. The more energy and attention you invest in it, the greater the yield.

The time you spend with your best is, quite simply, your most productive time.

Excerpts from the book: First, Break All The Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently - Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman

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About Myself: As a full-service global CXO/executive resume writer, career coach and job search consultant, I help my clients re-invent their career brand and re-position themselves to attract higher level, high paying executive/ CXO level roles. I also help executives stuck in sectors experiencing a business downturn effectively transition to new, high-growth areas.