When you want to help your teams: 4 small things to start doing
Last week, we looked at personal happiness as being in alignment and at peace with your choices, your work, and your life in many areas. I had a few people reach out to me saying that they were thinking about alignment and appreciated being reminded of how to look at their lives objectively.
So often, we have things we can be grateful for that we forget. I know I have been in that situation many times. Stopping to think about what we are grateful for is an excellent way to get out of a rut or misaligned mindset.
If you are a people manager, can you help your teams be happy? Is this your responsibility? Doesn't happiness come from within?
The answers are mixed. Are you responsible for your people's happiness? No. Do you have some influence on it? You bet. As I said last week, happiness is a tricky thing. It isn't some goal to achieve necessarily or something you can obtain. It is a result of feeling in sync with your life and all of its components. So, how on earth can a manager at work have anything to do with something this big?
I feel compelled to tell a story about the influence a manager can have on a person's life. Several years ago, as I mentioned in my previous post, I filed for divorce. It wasn't a decision I took lightly, but felt my happiness and well-being were at stake. When I made the decision, I had a hard time with it. I needed to take time off just for myself.
At the time, I had a senior leader as my manager. She did not understand my request as it came right after the end-of-year holidays. I had taken almost two weeks off and now I was asking for another week. This was unusual, and I know I was asking a lot. I chose not to disclose why I was asking for time off. I simply said I needed some personal time. Perhaps I should have said why, but I just wasn't ready to say anything and I thought I would open myself up to criticism.
While she wasn't sure what was going on, she did two things. 1) She did not pry. She did not insist on why I needed extra time when we were moving in January and the new year. 2) She said yes. These two items had an amazing impact on my life and my career. I spent the extra week getting my head around what to do and how to move through such a difficult experience.
I had another situation where I needed time off to attend the funeral of a friend. My manager at the time pressed to know why I needed time off. I was told I could not take bereavement time if the person were not a family member. OK. Then, I won't take bereavement time. The trouble was, I burned through my vacation time and didn't have more time off to take except for sick or bereavement. I spent several emails and then a phone call to talk about the time off I needed, which was a single day. I ended up short-cutting the day to attend a couple of meetings in the morning and then attend the wake later in the day. This experience left such a sour taste in my mouth.
These simple examples of time off requests demonstrate one way a manager shows up in someone's life. There are, of course, many other meaningful ways they can as well.
So, how can a manager help their team make good decisions and focus on what matters to them? Here are 4 ways a manager can show up and help their teams be in alignment and happy.
Stay connected.
This may go without saying, but I am still alarmed by how many people tell me they don't connect with their manager very often. Staying connected professionally and even personally on what is going on is critical to having a trusted relationship that leads to productivity, loyalty, and alignment. 20-30 minutes every week is good enough and shows how much you value the relationship.
Allow things to be private.
As in the case of my divorce, my manager did not pry. She did not ask uncomfortable questions. She did not insist on receiving an acceptable answer. She trusted me to request only what I needed. I have known managers in the past that insist on knowing how you are spending your time, including time off. Honestly, does it matter? An innocent question about where are you going on vacation is fine, but if someone says they need personal time, ask if everything is okay. If the person doesn't engage, don't push it. There is a reason someone wants to keep something private.
Learn what matters to them.
Everyone is different. We are all motivated by different factors and have different values. Take the time to learn what matters to your people. Have your team work on a values project -- list what they value and what they don't. Talk about how these values align with their job, the team, and the organization. Tell stories about they live their values. This exercise can build trust among the team and help you, as the manager, know, where they should be aligned.
Remove obstacles.
One of the main jobs of a manager is to break down barriers and try to remove obstacles that get in the way of your team's success. How do you do this? Ask them. Ask your team what is getting in their way. Maybe nothing, but maybe something. People need permission to talk about what isn't going right. Give them that. Maybe it is a personality, which you can coach them on how to handle. Maybe it is budget, which you can see what can be done. Maybe it is a process that is broken, which can lead to a nice process improvement project they can help lead. As a manager, I always thought I was tuned in, but until I started asking about obstacles, I didn't know what was getting in the way until they told me.
So many little things you do and demonstrate as a manager can have a huge impact on your team's state of mind. Staying connected, learning about their specific needs and values, removing obstacles, and allowing some privacy can help build trust and help your team be aligned and at peace.
This is such an important topic, next week's post will be part two about what managers can do. This post focused on the small things; next week’s post will be focused on some of the bigger things.