6 Responsibilities Of A Manager

A no-nonsense management model:
1. Choose people carefully
2. Set expectations
3. Remove obstacles
4. Motivate your people
5. Develop your people
6. Improve it next time

Choose People Carefully
It often makes sense to hire for talent and adaptability than for experience. Over time, the best employees are ones that can adapt to changing circumstances and roles. A fast-learning, hungry hire can make up a reasonable lack of experience in 6-12 months, and then surpass more-experienced peers. My best performing sales person in 2004 had never held a sales role before he joined our team. If you have a great candidate but are concerned about their experience, consider creating a “started” role to test them in for 6 months.

Set Expectations
Don’t define the role in terms of activities – define it in results as much as possible. If you lay out a too-inflexible process to achieve results, you 1) prevent individuals from being creative in improving the process, and 2) risk that the process won’t connect with some individuals, and they’ll underperform. Tell them where on the map they need to get to, give them advice and guidance, but then let them find their way.

Remove Obstacles
Managers also have to act like a professional sports commission that sets and enforces rules, defines the playing field, the referee system, etc., and then stands to let the teams play. If the playing field, rules or refereeing isn’t clear and fair, games grind to a halt with uncertainty, arguments and confusion. Likewise in sales, if territories, holdouts and rules of engagement, comp plans and sales processes are undetermind or confusing, it creates pure “friction”: wasted time and effort with zero benefit. To create a frictionless environment for your salespeople, set up and update (on time) clear territories, comp plans and holdout/transition rules.

Simplicity, clarity = productivity
Uncertainty, ambiguity = waste

Motivate your people
Motivation is not cheerleading. It’s understanding what helps your team and its individuals find the energy to work hard to achieve their full potential. Compensation structure is part of it, but just as important are regular complements on good work, in both private and public. Opportunities for career advancement, the opportunity to learn or achieve particular goals, and many other factors can affect motivation (or lack thereof). Toyota has a valuable and logical perspective on how to manage motivation…a subject for a future posting.

“Pitbull” management personalities can unfortunately be glorified in media (ever seen Glengarry Glen Ross?) and in some aggressive organizations. These managers are terrible for long-term individual and company productivity. The good people who have options will just leave, leaving your company with all the people who can’t get other jobs. Don’t be a pushover either. Balance positive encouragement with discipline, or “kick ass and then hug them” (to paraphrase Jack Welch). Too much of one or the other is poor management.

Develop your people
How satisfied would you be in your job if there was no opportunity to learn, grow or be promoted? Does your own manager take the time to help develop you? Your people want the same things. Take time to proactively understand their individual life/career goals, then work to help them achieve those goals. Help each person find their right fit and path in the company rather than automatically getting them to the next rung on the promotion ladder.

Improve it next time
What would you do differently next time with any of the above 5 steps?