10 PRACTICAL WAYS TO HELP YOUR TEAM THRIVE

by: Remie Longbrake | published: September 24, 2023

One single skilled manager can do an immense amount of good for an organization. They can unlock his or her team’s full potential and serve as a conduit to the rest of the organization, causing a halo effect that improves everyone’s performance. But by the same token, one not-so-good manager can infect and weaken large groups of people. They can demoralize his direct subordinates, push away A-players, cause chaos with peers, and fail to communicate critical information up the chain of command.

A recent Gallup headline describes the ripple effect that managers have on their employees: “Managers Account for 70% of Variance in Employee Engagement.” More anecdotally, we’ve all heard the very true statement that people most often leave their boss rather than their job.

If you’re a CEO or executive, how would you rate your managers as a whole? Do you have a strong, self-reinforcing network of managers—or are a few bad nodes crippling performance downstream? If you’re a manager, how do you think you’re doing? Are you empowering your direct reports and helping them do their best work?

Follow these steps to learn about ways to help your team.

1. Explain company and team priorites

In the olden days, when workers simply executed predetermined processes over and over, employees didn’t really need to understand the big picture aims of the company. Henry Ford’s workforce did their jobs well without thinking much about the subtle interactions between their roles and what the organization was trying to achieve.

This is not true in today’s workplace. Today, employees crave a sense of purpose in their work, and you need them to make decisions that align with top-level strategy.

Here are two steps to support them:

Share the company’s stated priorities: Hopefully your CEO sets and shares objectives for the organization on a regular basis and communicates about which opportunities are true priorities. Be sure to share this information with every member of your team. (If company priorities are unclear to you, seek out guidance from someone up the chain of command.)
Translate company priorities into team objectives: Now, put company priorities in the context of your team: what handful of objectives need to be completed this quarter for the team to be successful? Write them down, make sure they are measurable and attainable, and explain how they tie in to the broader aims of the business.

2. Set expectations

One of the most common complaints employees have about their managers is unclear expectations—they don’t have a set of specific, mutually agreed-upon goals. According to Gallup, only 12 percent of employees strongly agree that their manager helps them set performance goals. The other 88 percent are less than clear on what their boss expects of them—and they’re a lot likelier to be disengaged.

The second practice of an effective manager is, thus, to help the employee establish a specific set of goals for each quarter. Three to five goals per person is a good number to aim for.

Two options to consider:

Give the employee the first opportunity: Let the employee draft a set of goals first. If they understand company and team priorities, they will almost always come up with an effective set of performance goals for themselves—and may even come up with something you never would have thought of.
Tie goals to the bigger picture: Talk with the employee about the specific ways their goals will enable the team and company to succeed; this is the “line of sight” that goal-setting gurus often talk about. Also discuss any horizontal dependencies: which colleagues rely on this employee to perform well?

3. Reinforce commitments

The worst fear of many managers is earning the label of micromanager. Nevertheless, effective managers must ensure that their employees stay focused on the commitments made during the goal-setting process.

It’s very possible to reinforce employee commitments without breathing down anyone’s neck or being a helicopter-type boss. Try the following approach:

Document the employee’s goals: This means doing more than writing them on a sheet of paper. Set up a system for keeping goals front and center. Software can help, or you can simply print them out and have employees post them near their working spaces. Having the goals recorded and visible keeps the employee reminded of them and can also reduce employee stress—they don’t have the feeling that they’re forgetting something important.
Check in at least monthly: Briefly check in with each employee and revisit each goal. You don’t have to say, “Okay, tell me where you’re at with everything you’re doing.” Instead, briefly touch on each goal and ask, “Are we still on track to meet this goal on time?” If the answer is “No” or “I’m not sure,” ask about what has changed and whether support or resources from you or other colleagues could get the goal back on track.

4. Ask for insight

The people on your team hold a trove of insights about the business. If you make the all-too-common mistake of bottling up their ideas, perspectives, and knowledge, you open yourself up to a lot of missed opportunities—and a lot of nasty last-minute surprises.

As a manager, you often can’t see the same opportunities or issues that your employee sees, even though these insights may be of material value to the business.

Try these steps to gain insight from your team:

Don’t just put out a suggestion box: Instead of hoping people come to you, be proactive and ask specific questions such as “What challenges are you facing currently?” or “In your opinion, what could you are the employee or us as the management be doing differently?”
Ask about the future, less about the past: Each of your employees has a unique vantage point on the organization, and they may have gems of insight about where things are headed. The check-in process is the perfect time to open the door for future-focused insight. If the employee has a hunch one of her goals won’t be completed as expected, you need to be in the know.
Show that you are listening: There’s nothing worse than management who shuts down ideas from employees. Take the time to assess what you hear from the team and act on it accordingly. If you decide not to act on something, follow up the team or the employee to let you know that you do value them and appreciate the insight, however you’re going a different direction.

5. Encourage employees to share the issues they see

You’ve probably never outright said, “Don’t bring me a problem without a solution!” to your team. But if you’re implying it—acting annoyed, frustrated, or dismissive when an employee brings up an issue or asks for support—you can stifle many of the insights from coming in the first place.

Getting employees comfortable with raising their hand when they see a roadblock will take ongoing reinforcement from you. No one likes admitting that one of their goals is falling off track (maybe a project is way behind schedule due to a change in scope) or pointing out an organizational dynamic that is impeding success (maybe the marketing team is struggling to equip sales with useful collateral).

Show the team that you value the hard discussions by doing the following:

Thank employees when they do speak up: If one of your employees has the courage to point out an issue, thank them for bringing it to you. It’s hard to speak up and rewarding that behavior will signal to the employee that you care more about understanding the team’s reality than about not rocking the boat.
Follow up on what you hear: As with any insight you get from an employee, your follow-through is critical. Paraphrase what you’re hearing back to the employee, and give your thoughts on the issue.

6. Meet when it’s needed

Don’t lose your team’s goodwill and performance by running meetings that are bad, too long, too numerous, or all the above. Here’s a few pointers to consider when running a successful meeting:

Set the purpose: Before each meeting you schedule, make sure you have communicated exactly what the purpose of the meeting is and what you hope to accomplish. If you struggle to articulate the objective, consider whether it needs to be a meeting at all.
Give a hard stop: Realistically estimate the time needed and keep the meeting to that window. Shorter is often better, as returns tend to diminish in the second and third hours of sitting around a meeting table.
Record key points: As you make decisions in the meeting, write down (or assign someone to write down) what has been agreed upon, what actions need to happen next, and who is responsible for them.

7. Share updates

Do you keep your staff updated on how things are going—for the company and for the team?

You hear a lot about “transparency” these days, but for all the hype, many managers aren’t up front with people about whether the company and team are meeting their goals. They don’t communicate successes or challenges consistently, leaving their employees feeling cut off and out of the loop—like they’re playing a game but have no idea what the score is.

Instead, help your employees feel included and empowered by sharing the following:

Company performance: If possible, share the company’s top priorities and give regular updates on how the company is performing. Are we meeting our revenue goal? Is the new product still slated to ship on time? Are delays to do expected? Share what you can, and you’ll find employees more engaged.
Team performance: Similarly, give regular updates on how the team you lead is performing against its own goals. Celebrate wins, but be honest on any issues you see, explaining how you plan to address them and who can help with it.

8. Give feedback

Do your employees feel like they’re working in a vacuum, with little indication, good or bad, of how they are performing? Does the only real feedback they get come in an annual performance review that covers the previous 12 months? Don’t let that be the case on your team. Here’s what you can do:

Jump in: When you see an opportunity for feedback, give it right then. The impact will be greater if your observation comes to the employee soon after their action.
Praise in both public and private: If you see something that warrants a shout-out, don’t hold back. Depending on the employee’s preference, call out the employee’s action in a team meeting or team email, or pull them aside and let them know they did a good job.
Correct when needed: Many managers tend to push formal employee feedback to the positive side of the spectrum, fearing they will disengage the employee by criticizing their work. To the contrary: research has found that 57% employees actually prefer corrective feedback and feel it helps them do their job better. It’s uncomfortable to give negative feedback, but it’s a necessary counterpart.

9. Quarterly debrief

Regarding those annual performance reviews I mentioned, they’re notorious for being not only awkward but also generally unhelpful for everyone involved. You simply can’t expect an employee to remember what happened 6+ months ago, if not a whole year.

Here’s a way to take a bloated traditional review into a productive debrief that delivers actual value to employees and to the business:

Tie it to goals and give examples: Subjectivity and unfairness in manager feedback is one of the things that frequently irks employees. Sidestep this pitfall by structuring the discussion around how they performed against agreed-upon goals and provide concrete examples to illustrate any points,
Point ahead: Your goal in this discussion isn’t to rehash the past. For every point you make, extrapolate what this means for the future. Give the employee pointers on how they can improve their performance, whether it’s further pursuing a strength or mitigating a weakness. And the more you can individualize coaching to their personal working style, the better.

10. Help employees grow

As you know, each one of your employees is a complex human with his or her own unique set of interests and ambitions in life. As a manager, you’ll be most effective if you can find common ground between the employee’s longer-term goals and the team’s objectives—and do what you can to support your employee down the professional path that interests them most.

Here’s what you can do to help:

Nurture their goals: Whether during performance discussions or casual chats, find out what makes your employees tick. What’s her favorite aspect of their current role? Where do they see themselves a year or two down the road? Bring this up more than once a year; specifically, during quarterly debriefs as this is a great time to catch up.
Give them the chance to lead: Ask what their interest are and how the company can support them. This applies to both in the office and out. Help them tie this to their goals and then follow up on how things are going. Allow the employee to lead a small group, could be directly business related or not. If not, offer the group a space to meet or help pay for fees incurred.
Give them the chance to learn: Additionally, by asking their interests you can further this by helping your employees educated themselves further. Ideally, this would be to help them gain skills to advance their career. Could be a certain certification, a degree, or could be something like cooking classes to better themselves and their experiences.
Reward obtained goals with opportunities: The right employees crave learning and development opportunities, and these are generally a better long-term motivator than monetary rewards. Show your performers your appreciation by investing more in them as they have done for you.

In closing

In the business world, it’s either growth or lack thereof, the ladder doesn’t present itself with success. Managers at every level are crucial to the overall success of the company. Underperformance doesn’t always mean a bad manager or employee, but maybe the right steps aren’t being done.

Fortunately, as long as the manager has the will to learn, the fundamentals can be learned and coached. Really there’s no magic formula or charisma required. What is required is effort and directives, which will lead to success and a better bottom line.