We often hear leaders of organisations say that “people are our greatest asset”. In your experience does this ring true? The simple test of truth is strong evidence that organisation leaders care about the capability and development of those who look after this most important asset – people managers.
In my experience, many organisations underinvest in building people leadership and management capability. This neglect can stem from overrating the individual contribution of people managers and underappreciating the important role they play in enabling the success of others.
Amplify the potential of your people
Good people management is an essential link between an organisation’s top priorities and the work people do every day. If you don’t like managing people, and are not inclined to improve, I recommend you get out of it.
I take a hard line on this because people who work for poor people managers deserve better. The people management function is key to ensuring people contribute to their potential, and this potential is amplified by digital technology.
Technology innovation provides access to more information and knowledge, and allows us to connect and share with others more than ever before. This means the potential value of people to the organisations they work for has greatly increased, but many organisation leaders fail to tap into this available resource.
Productivity and potential go to waste because we still think and act (often unconsciously) with a limiting mindset that sees people as tools to get things done, rather than as hearts and minds that can create new possibilities for organisations.
Feedback is a gift
I joined IBM many years ago as a university graduate and benefited greatly from the company’s commitment to developing people managers through formal training and on-the-job opportunities. It was a commitment to developing people leaders that I haven’t experienced elsewhere in organisations I have joined since.
In my first role as a people manager at IBM, I learned that feedback is critical to the growth and development of people leaders. It helps them become more self-aware and better at listening to and leading their people. Six months into my role, I received feedback from my team as part of a mandatory formal process for all new managers. I thought I was doing a great job but the people who worked for me considered me to be single-minded and task-oriented with no real time or concern for them. They felt I treated them like my “tools” to get things done.
The feedback jolted me and changed how I managed people. It led me to seek feedback from people outside of formal processes and encourage them to speak up and tell me honestly where I was going wrong. In the face of that feedback, I also learnt the importance of being a good listener who accepts others’ opinions as their truth. Listening is a very tangible way of showing people you care about them.
Be more ‘head coach’ than ‘star player’
Many of us are promoted to positions of people leadership because we are experts of our function or domain. As people leaders, we can’t resist getting on the playing field to demonstrate our skills to those who work for us. We overrate the value of our domain knowledge and skills and underappreciate the critical role we play in others’ success.
Learning to think and act more like a ‘head coach’ than a ‘star player’ is part of the development of a new people leader, who ultimately delivers more value to their organisation and team by setting clear priorities and driving alignment of their people with objectives, rather than just being another player on the field.
People managers are the critical nodes in the network that is your organisation, which is only ever as good as the people managers it cultivates. Lack of focus on the art of people management leads to human potential (the most important asset) going to waste every day.
At Xero, I held people leader meetings three times a year and conducted each of those meetings three times to make sure I was able to meet with all our people leaders (more than 700 of them) in their time zone. Each people leader meeting focused on business performance and on developing people leader skills in areas such as crucial conversations and career planning for their people.
To make sure people management is not a lost art in your organisation:
- Make people leadership responsibilities the number one job objective and expectation
- Ensure your people leaders get regular feedback and act on it
- Encourage and teach people leaders to think like a coach, investing time and energy to align and develop the talent around them
- Don’t allow persistently weak people leaders to stay in their role
Create a forum for meeting with your people leaders to talk about the organisation’s objectives and performance, and include topics that help build their skills l angles.
