The Effective Manager

by Mark Horstman

Usually, I will not tell you “how to be” or “what to reflect on” or “what attitude to have.” There's a part of me, after 25 years of coaching managers, that doesn't really care what kind of attitude you have, because all the attitude in the world isn't going to change the results.

I used to hate it when the manager training I received, or the books I read, basically were filled with someone's opinions, or they proffered an idea and then used a few anecdotes to support the person's position.

All of our content at Manager Tools—all of the audio guidance in podcasts and all the “show notes”—use a nearly perfect balance of male and female examples. (If you're a male, and it seems as if there are a lot of female examples, that says more about your biases than our examples.)

If you can't list your goals almost off the top of your head, make a note somewhere to go to your boss in the near future. Ask her: “What results do you expect of me?”

A focus only on results far too often leads to abuse of workers.

People and their behaviors are what deliver results to your organization. (Not systems, not processes, not computers, not machines.)

the binding and distinctive element of teams that outperform others is the amount of trust that they build and engender among their members.

He won't ask for input, won't collaborate, and won't share drafts of his work. He will just come up with a solution.

We can't teach “personality,” and we can't teach “I don't know.”

Lower-level workers weren't hearing about changes until they were forced to deal with them.

It was a disaster. Within three months, we stopped the effort.

the managers who schedule their O3s outperform (against results and retention) the unscheduled managers by significant margins (as much as three to four times).

And, there's a difference in how important you think they are, and how important they think you think they are.

You're using e-mail too much, so you're having a lot of miscommunications.

Our data show that 30 minutes is the magic number for scheduling time for O3s.

(and, yes, CEOs have a role managing their directs and need One On Ones, too)

insist on your subordinate managers doing One On Ones with their directs.

If you're not taking notes, it's not a Manager Tools One On One.

We suggest that you get either one larger notebook with tabs separating the notes for each direct,

If an initiative is important to you, it's worth thinking through the possible rejoinders and being prepared to address them.

First, let's be clear about pushback in general. Don't ever be surprised by it.

Quite the contrary: when you change how you manage, then fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) about the change are always part of the response.

Never tolerate from your directs what you would not do to your boss.

a direct who wishes for virtually no managerial oversight is a liability risk.

either that he is afraid of oversight, which legally is scary, or that he is above it, which is a level of arrogance that could tear apart your team.

One On Ones are not unreasonable, and the reason they're not is that they basically are a new form of communication that eliminates several other less efficient and less effective forms of communication, such as waiting in line to see the boss, 10 three-minute conversations versus one 15-minute conversation about 10 different things,

The idea that 1/100th of a direct's time cannot be spent in work-related meetings with his boss because it would be too intrusive is laughable.

But, if we allowed every new idea to be compared to everyone's current schedule, almost no one would introduce new ideas to change or improve performance, behavior, quality, quantity, or efficiency.

That's why, when we announce that we're going to start doing One On Ones, we announce that they won't start for three weeks.

“Busyness” is one of the most frequently used defenses against manager initiatives: “I don't have time. I'm too busy. What do you want me NOT to do in order to have time to do this new thing?”

How can our busyness justify NOT changing, when they change when they're busy and still deliver results?

so few people think globally or strategically about their time and calendar/schedule.

Manager: Fair enough. I get that I haven't convinced you. That being said, every once in a while, I get to be in charge rather than be just a collaborator.

Without some basic structure to your O3s, you might as well cancel them and go back to chatting with your team members in the hallway or the breakroom.

The agenda is simple: first, 10 minutes for your direct to speak, then 10 minutes for you to speak, and then 10 minutes to talk about the future.

Whatever you do, don't ask a question you expect a real or detailed answer to.

If it's important to my team member, it's important to me. That's how you build relationships.

What to do? First, don't try to guess at your direct's attitude or intent. We'll talk more about this when we get to performance communications, but for now, try to focus only on their behavior:

If the pattern continues, we recommend that you ask three times

Plus, with a camera in your phone, you can take a picture of your handwritten notes, and now they're in your system.

If you're drawn to that, the best solutions in 2016 are to use Microsoft One Note on a tablet computer or an Apple iPad with an Apple Pencil.

If you rely on your directs to call you, you'll end up with less frequent meetings, in our experience.

Effective managers ask for more documents from their directs in advance of phone One On Ones to give themselves a better opportunity to assess the quality and quantity of their directs' work product

You Cannot Be Friends with Your Directs

You don't have to have line authority or control of directs who officially report to you to make it work.

The Key Difference Is a 15–15 Agenda versus a 10–10–10 Agenda

focusing on Horstman's Law of Project Management: WHO does WHAT by WHEN.

Team members tell us where they are, what issues they're facing, where they need help, and then we ask questions about what the status is and what their plans are to meet deliverable standards on time.

we've been in hundreds of project review meetings ourselves, and the amount of professional, helpful candor that can appear in them, as opposed to blame shifting and defensiveness, is quite small.

Family and career are the two most common topics that are less likely to be brought up.