Skills for Effective Staff Management: It Takes a Little Magic Patti Spear Deloitte Consulting, LLP ERICSA 50 th Annual Training Conference & Exposition ▪ May 19 – 23 ▪ Hilton Orlando Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Managing People is Hard Work! Everybody becomes a lunatic at some point! They all don’t think the same way you do. Methods of communication vary widely. Everyone has a personal agenda and its different from yours. Generational differences are overwhelming. Its performance evaluation time…..again!

Why Be a Manager? The reasons you wanted to be a manager have or will ultimately define how good a manager you are or will become. Check your real reasons for becoming a manager. If the following are your underlying reasons you may want to reconsider. – Power- Influence – More Money

Do You Have the Right Skills? Moving into management is a huge leap of faith. For many, it means giving up what you really love doing. Is that something you really want to do? Think long and hard about the skills you must have to be a good manager……do you have them already or do you have the ability to develop them?

10 Essential Management Skills Communication Welcome the Truth Empathy Persuasion Leadership Focus Obstacle Removal Heat Absorption Uncertainty Removal Administrative

Communication Includes both delivery as well as listening You have to be able to tailor your message to each staff member in a way that they “hear” and comprehend what you say. You need to take the time to listen to what others are communicating to you. If you know what you are doing and what needs to be done but can’t properly communicate it to anyone else, then you’ll never be a good manager.

Welcome the Truth You will find that the higher you are in the management hierarchy the less likely you are to be in touch with reality for one simple reason……people tend to tell managers what they think the manager wants to hear and not what the truth is. The only way you will get to the truth is if you insist on it and create a culture that does not “punish” the messenger.

Empathy This is the softer side of truth and listening. You must be able to understand HOW and WHY people feel the way they feel regardless of your personal opinion about the issue. You must understand that people are entitled to feel the way they feel. This skill will allow you to see the many sides to every issue and to make appropriate suggestions for resolutions.

Persuasion Other terms for persuasion are “encouragement,” “coaxing,” “influence” or “urging.” You will need this skill every single day of your career as a manager. Persuading staff to do more or perhaps less is a daily effort. Persuading your own management to make some change in policy.

Leadership We could spend an entire workshop talking about the Leadership Skills that a manager must have. You must have the skills to make your staff want to follow you. Those include HONESTY, INTEGRITY, FORWARD-LOOKING and VISIONARY, COMPETENT and INTELLIGENT, OPEN and CREATIVE, MAGNANIMOUS and HUMBLE.

Focus You can’t lead in a hundred different directions at once. If you do nothing will be accomplished. As a manager you must focus yourself and your team on the most important things to consider and to accomplish toward achieving your goals. This means that you must have a plan. “If you fail to plan you plan to fail”

Obstacle Removal Problems are going to occur and obstacles are going to block your staff from being successful. Your ability to solve problems that come up is critical to the ongoing success of your organization. Part of your job as a Manager is to remove the obstacles that are preventing your staff from doing their best.

Heat Absorption When things don’t go right it is your job to take the heat not your staff. More important it is your job to absorb the heat to keep it from ever reaching your staff. This does not mean that staff are to be shielded at all times what it does mean is that as the manager the “buck stops with you” As the expression goes….”If you can’t take the heat get out of the kitchen.”

Uncertainty Removal You must always manage in a consistent direction. As a manager there must be no appearance of uncertainty. If are not certain of the direction to manage in then your staff will definitely be uncertain as to what they should be doing.

Administrative Like it or not there is an administrative side to being a manager. You must be able to effectively hire, fire, reward good performance, deal with unacceptable performance and everything those activities entail. Paper work and status reports are never-ending but necessary.

Your #1 Responsibility As a manager your #1 responsibility is to bring out the best in your staff. All staff have good days and they have bad days, your job is to take steps to make sure that there are more “good” days than “bad.” Some of the things you can do………….

Treat Every Staff Person With Respect If you have praise for someone, give the praise in front of everyone. If you have criticism for someone, give it in private. If at all possible give more praise than criticism. Give credit where credit is due. As a manager your staff did all the work not you. Don’t take all the credit for their hard work.

Help Staff Achieve Their Goals Talk with each member of your staff about his or her personal goals: what they want to achieve in life as well as in their career. Help them to align their personal goals with their career goals. Use this information to the extent possible to help you make assignments that will assist staff to achieve their goals.

Provide a Productive Environment We do not always have control over the physical environment but we can make the best of most situations with a little effort. You do have control over the cultural environment. Create an environment that encourages and fosters inventiveness and continuous process improvement. Create an environment that encourages and fosters open communication and cooperation.

Don’t Forget the Magic!! Management is complicated. It requires skill and motivation. But most of all it requires a little magic and that magic is commitment. Commitment to always strive to be better tomorrow than you were today and to always continue to learn and grow in your role as a manager.