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Building Workplace Relationships By Overcoming Prejudices

We need to create effective relationships in our organizations to make sure we get the best from all of our people.

Managers will always have the opportunity to interact with their people, yet sometimes, there are times to step back and see what might be getting in the way.

It’s inevitable.

We ‘get on’ with some people better than others. Those who we seem to create a rapport with easily, are always most likely to be those we turn to when we want some form of interaction.

Our natural characteristics are formed through our lives and are such that we have peculiarities that create our own very personal natures.

When we are living our informal lives (away from the workplace), we can afford to pick and choose who we spend our time with. Naturally, where we can, we like to enjoy the company we get most pleasure from, so, on that basis, we decide who to be with and when.

In the workplace, it isn’t so easy. Of course we can recruit people who we are more likely to get on well with - those who we have an immediate liking for - and that’s a natural way to be.

When we have people in our teams where we find they are quite different to us in some way or other, or they don’t resonate with us in some way, there is a natural tendency to be more distant with them, because there is less of that natural rapport.

This is all quite logical and can go a long way to explain why there are differences in our behaviors around some people rather than others.

When we manage others and we seek to build workplace relationships, we need to be a bit smarter than this.

Our natural tendencies are all well and good when we socialize outside work, but we need to have everyone on board when we are developing a team that will generate results for us.

It’s important therefore, when we manage and lead others, to have the capacity to stand back and be dispassionate about those we work closely with.

Taking the time to recognize the real value everyone brings to the party is vital - and that means there will be some in the team who you aren’t that similar to. Some whose character is less aligned to you than you are with others.

The natural prejudice you show to gather people around you who you get on well with is understandable and indeed is psychologically designed to protect you from harm. Guided by experiences you’ve had in your life at some time, you push away from some people who have similarities to those with whom you perhaps had a difficult experience.

In work, by acknowledging and working through such internal prejudices (which are often going unnoticed by you), you are likely draw into your team people (and develop those already there) who have much to offer, thus creating a whole new set of resources that you might otherwise have missed out on.

They won’t harm you. They will bring new perspectives into the team which, if you let them, will significantly add value.

By overcoming your personal prejudices and going out of your way to build useful relationships with individuals you might have spent less time with in the past, you are making your team much more effective and that is a vital component on the road to success.

Using Team Operating Charters To Create Effective Teams

Effective teams are the most effective and even the only way to make organizations work. Managers cannot deliver the whole job - it’s just not possible.

That said, teams need to have some ground rules to be effective too…

Team building is a vital component of anything you need to do in business, unless you are a one-man band cobbler or something, with no-one else working with you. The team is vital to make what you want to happen, happen effectively and efficiently, all the time.

For most managers, there will be a bunch of people upon whom you depend to get the job done, because, as we’ve come across before, you cannot do it all yourself. Leveraging their own particular skills is the way to create successful outcomes for all you want.

So, you need a bunch of people who are going to gel; work well together; synergize and deliver outstanding results - right? A group of like-minded people who will contribute for the greater good of all, to outcomes that contribute to the needs of the team at organizational level.

They need to ensure that they support each other whilst using their own individual skills to use for the length of the business need or project. Benefiting from their own peculiar talents, a team will generate more successfully because of the debate and collaboration through their individualities.

What better way to build your team than on the job?

There is a space for going building rafts and bonding socially. Truth is, the real work is where your team pull together in achieving the goals you need to work on together.

To start up, it’s always worth creating some ground rules about the ways that you will work together. This will mean that you all agree on the boundaries you set between you all, so that what you do work on will be collaborative, and not fall foul of dispute, frustration and competition.

A great way to do this is to create a specific exercise for all what an operating charter is drawn up, with everyone contributing and, once agreed, signed up to. By setting aside time in the early phases of working together, you will be making an investment that will be well worth while for the team as a whole, as well as the results you achieve too.

By creating a way of working together, clearly stating goals and objectives as well as how you are going to go about it, you will stand a far greater chance of collaborative success for everyone, apportion activities and then be able to apply timelines that everyone signs up to.

Not to mention that there will be a team spirit and bonding engendered by the exercise too.

Team Building - The Hidden Gold That’s Out There!

Managing teams in your organization is a challenging experience. Finding the right people for the roles you have can be a tricky proposition, yet when you take the time to get to know your people, you might be surprised what you find.

We all want the best people in our team. The demands placed on us to deliver results from our role as managers are unremitting as must our search for the best people.

Surprisingly, there are individuals around who might offer more than you think. Employees that you already have in place can often carry talents that are hidden away, for a variety of reasons, so there are tactics a manager can adopt to ensure that all potential is realized.

Here are a few to get you started…

1. Keep your ears and eyes open - and engage in conversations that are curious about people.

Whatever happens, even if there are few gold nuggets out there, the worst thing is that people see you are interested in them.

There’s a zillion managers out there who aren’t at all interested in their people much at all, so you will immediately get brownie points at the very least!

2. Know that there’s talent out there - that you can bring out.

People have all sorts of skills, experiences and histories that might be of value, if only you knew about it.

You can’t find that out unless you get amongst them and find out!

3. Your people will hide their aspirations - because they think you aren’t that interested in them.

Sad but true, work experience isn’t the best place for people to see the generous nature of managers.

Far from it. In fact their experience will tell them that a manager may well not even care to know their name.

4. You can make it happen for them - when you know about it.

When you do find out about what they are looking for, it’s a real big help to you, for them and you and your business.

Your role can be enabling for them, by kick-starting new careers that their capabilities could support.

5. Management is often about joining the dots – that you’ve discovered.

See where this is going?

As a manager, your prime role is to lead and facilitate the people in your team, not to do everything yourself.

When you are that link, with what you find out, then there’s a whole new bunch of opportunities out there.

Listening to your people, letting them spill their hidden talents as well as their hopes for the future, can be a true win-win.

6. Management is about people - not doing stuff, however attractive that might be.

No-one minds a manager giving a hand now and then, it’s a choice, not to be depended on. But the role is about people, managing them is the headline, yet it’s so much more.

Great managers are there to make the best business decisions and these can easily be the best people decisions too.

In fact, when there is a coming together of business needs matched with individual’s possibilities, there can be no better way forward.

Your people are chock-full of potential. Releasing it will help you, help them, to make your team much more successful.

(c) 2010 Martin Haworth. This is a short excerpt from one of 52 lessons in management development at Super Successful Manager!, an easy to use, step-by-step weekly development program for managers of EVERY skill level. Find out more at http://www.SuperSuccessfulManager.com.

10 Ways Easy for Managers to Empower

There are many, many ways that a manager can empower those in their team. The value comes from enlightened individuals freed up to express themselves through the release of their potential.

And you are the one to do it…

Almost any situation where you let an individual express themselves freely, through the contribution they themselves make, is through helping them to be empowered.

Empowerment unleashes many opportunities for individuals to develop, grow and come to fruition, bring a host of new resources to the team, organization and the results they produce.

Here are some of the ways that you can offer the gift of empowerment to your people. Remember, you are limited only by your ability to be creative in what you offer your people as ways to build them up.

1.Delegation

If you’ve been keeping up with the lessons, you will know that delegation is one of the best ways to empower employees.

Through giving up tasks of your own to others, with support at first, you will build confidence; develop skills as well as free up your own time too.

2.Say No

When asked to do something that you know they could do just as well, finding ways to say ‘no’ and support them to be able to do the task will make them feel able to do more in the future.

3.Say Yes

As your people try more on and develop themselves, be prepared to take risks on them.  Whilst they will need to understand that you will be generous when things go wrong, that should not put you off saying ‘yes’ to them when they want to try something new.

4.Ignore Them!

A favorite tactic! When you work closely with people, ignore them sometimes when they get frustrated or get things wrong. Rushing to their assistance is often the least effective way for them to succeed for themselves.

5.Coach

By asking questions, hearing answers and facilitating their own ability to find solutions for themselves, you will go a long way to empower. Remember, empowerment is about them building confidence. Nothing does this more than when they are helped to find their own solutions.

6.Let Go of How

Now, when you do give them the freedom to do your stuff sometimes, you have to be able to let go of telling them everything about the way they are to reach the solution. By letting go of your own ‘how’ yo9u give them the opportunity to find their own.

7.Praise and Thank

It’s sometimes difficult to have a sense of how you are doing, so it’s important for you to tell people that are doing well. By reinforcing their belief that they are being successful, you will encourage them, which is, after all, empowering in itself.

8.Seek Opportunities

And you can get creative with people to empower them! Take your role as one where you spend some time each day coming up with ideas to grow your people’s view of themselves. It’s a worthy activity for you - after all, your role is to manage and develop your people.

9.Help with Learning

Employees like to be challenged and may be reluctant to show that they don’t know the way to do things. If you can show them how they can learn, they will be encouraged to do more of it, opening the door to empower themselves.

10.Treat Mistakes/Failings Generously

Empowerment is all about building confidence - that’s its purpose, so when things don’t quite go to plan, it’s important not to ruin all the good work by reacting negatively when what’s needed is support and encouragement.

The gift of empowering others is one that is rich indeed, changing lives along the way for the good, you bring opportunities for new successes for your team too.

What could be a better win-win than that?

Delegation - An Invaluable Employee Development Tool

When using delegation as a management tool, it always pays to understand that you must be in agreement regarding the standards that you expect, in order to measure how successfully or otherwise the job has been completed.

That said, obviously the standards that you require have to be achievable, as well as realistic.

Another important aspect to properly delegating work, is understanding the need to grant some authority to the person to whom you are delegating work.

This means that the employee to whom you are entrusting the job must take ownership, overcome roadblocks and be as self-sufficient in their work as you feel comfortable with.

To delegate work and tasks successfully also requires that you provide the employee with your complete support.

To do this also requires that you identify the resources that are necessary for the employee to perform and complete the work entrusted to them.

At the same time, it also means that you must give sufficient backing by training and advising them, as well as provide all other necessary resources (such as time and materials), to ensure that as little as possible stands in the way of successful completion of the work to be delegated.

In the end, successful delegation means that you must be committed to getting the work done properly and you must also get your employee to agree to complete the work entrusted to them.

Properly done, delegating work is going to be beneficial to both a manager as well as their employee.

In fact, the best managers use delegation creatively, helping their people grow with targeted delegated tasks, specially selected for them

By keeping your expectations realistic of the employees to whom you are delegating work to start with, they will grow into delegated tasks with confidence.

Remember, the most vital part of your role is to ensure that your people understand the task requirements and expectations clearly.

Then you are much more the likely to get valuable results, with rapidly developing members of your team.

Managing Others - 9 Positive Behaviors

When we manage others, they take their lead from us. There is an onus on us therefore, to make sure that the lead we offer has every opportunity for success.

And using positive behaviors is a great start.

In the teams we lead, we find that they mimic the way we are. On a bad day, they sense that things aren’t going to plan and, where they can, perhaps they keep out of our way!

Where we show the positive side of ourselves, in the behaviors we demonstrate, they are more likely to be upbeat about it - and then, as a team, we have the opportunity to be much more successful.

Here are some key behaviors you can focus on becoming positive in. These are just the chosen few - there are many more of them - and when you are beginning along this path of positive change, these will give you a great start!

•    Respond instead of React - by taking the time to make a considered response and practicing this aspect of your management style, you are going to be more likely to give a positive response than a negative one, which may come from frustration or exasperation when initially presented with a situation.

•    Show appreciation - it’s easy to notice opportunities to show appreciation when an individual delivers what’s expected of them (or more), so building this into your style is a positive response that your people will love!

•    Remember peoples’ names accurately - whilst this might seem like a small thing, employees can feel like they are ‘just a number’ - especially in big organizations - so when you individualize and personalize them, it’s a big plus.

•    Follow things through - showing that you value people is a massive positive, so by ensuring that you always do what you say you will; follow through with your promises and report back where it’s needed, you will make a difference to their feelings about their work too.

•    Drop criticism – it’s of little value when it isn’t supported by learning, so it’s best avoided. This is a ’stop doing’ to avoid negativity perhaps rather than a positive change in behavior. Thus it has a positive impact!

•    Speak positively of others - when you even speak negatively about people, even when they aren’t present, it’s surprising just what effect that can have on everyone. By finding positive things to say about people - even when they aren’t present - you will be surprised about how quickly others pick up on this and start doing it too.

•    Encourage - amazingly positive, your personal intervention to encourage and support your people will go a long way to help build their confidence and self-belief.

•    Remind people of what they do well - It’s sometimes difficult to appreciate the gifts we all have, so we need reminding. When you tell your people about the value they bring to the team, it may well be the first time they’ve heard it, so how positive is that!

•    Manage expectations - it’s much more positive to be able to do more than expected and over-deliver than it is to over-promise and not be able to do what’s expected of you, so it’s of great value to keep expectations minimal and then do more, where you can.

Small changes in the way you work with your people can bring huge benefits to their behaviors and attitudes. You have every opportunity to choose the way you are with them and then reap the value it can create.