“I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.”
Abraham Maslow
While it may seem obvious that non-profit directors require a set of skills to perform their duties, elections or appointments to these roles rarely involve scrutiny of the skill profiles or levels of individual candidates, or indeed the mix of skills across the board.
Associations are frequently bound by their constitutions to elect only members, with no guarantee that the members who succeed at the ballot possess any of the skills that might be objectively described as ‘sufficient’. To that extent, they can be at risk of being governed by boards that view everything through the relatively narrow lens of members’ business needs. These constraints don’t apply to commercial boards, which are obliged to appoint directors with the range and depth of skills required to effectively govern their organisation.
Charities more often tend to appoint or elect directors with an eye to their qualifications and skills (beyond being interested in the cause, or being a donor). From my observations, they are usually more careful than associations, despite which the ACNC reports of poor governance in various charities provide evidence that director skills were often lacking.
As noted in Part 1 of this series on the ‘Duty of care, skill and diligence‘, common law (determined by courts) dictates that in performing the ‘duty of care and diligence’, a reasonable person will exercise a level of skill or expertise commensurate with their responsibilities.
Competency frameworks
While various competency frameworks have been devised to describe the skills required of directors (see links below), I found the governance capability framework for community organisations developed by the Victorian Department of Health and Human Services offered the most relevant reference for the non-profits I deal with.
This framework is supported by resource materials which help explain the skills required for effective governance, and ways they may be utilised.
The header image above blends this governance capability framework with the prism of clinical competence developed by Dr G. E. Miller (slightly modified by me to separate ‘attitudes’ into ‘attitudes and beliefs’). Under Miller’s model, it is only in the ‘Does’ triangle that the doctor truly performs, and of course, that is just as true for non-profit directors.
The framework referenced by the AICD was devised by Prof. Geoffrey Kiel et al, and highlighted in their valuable reference Directors at Work. In that model, the key areas of competence are listed as: • Industry: Experience in and knowledge of the industry in which the organisation operates. • Technical: Technical/professional skills and specialist knowledge to assist with ongoing aspects of the board’s role. • Governance: The essential governance knowledge and understanding all directors should possess or develop if they are to be effective board members. Includes some specific technical competencies as applied at board level. • Behavioural: The attributes and competencies enabling individual board members to use their knowledge and skills to function well as team members and to interact with key stakeholders.
Kiel G, Nicholson G, Tunny J A, Beck J, Directors at Work: A Practical Guide for Boards, Thomson Reuters Australia, 2012, p 203-4
Director development policy
A board comprised of directors who only possessed ‘industry’ skill sets would be like a tradesman with only a hammer at his disposal – everything would look like a nail. Decisions made by such a board would be more likely to serve ‘narrow sectional interests‘ than to take broader compliance, social and environmental considerations into account. Such a board may therefore be at risk if it failed to develop the directors’ skills in the other key domains.
Director development is therefore an essential aspect of good governance. Recognising that non-profit directors will have a range of governance experience and expertise, the developmental programs you offer your directors will desirably be calibrated to their individual needs. When framing your Director Development Policy, as well as outlining the competency framework applicable in your organisation, you may want to consider where each of your directors sits on the scale from novice to expert, and choose programs likely to promote skills beyond the foundation level for those with some experience. (As an aside – in my opinion, some of the competency frameworks promoted in the marketplace are designed as much to promote revenue generation from recommended course fees as they are an objective analysis of skills required for effective governance).
The ‘sledgehammer‘ of novice-level skills will not help your board to make complex strategic and risk management decisions, which require the ‘scalpel‘ of high level judgment and governance insight.
Empathy is one of the featured qualities of effective leaders in much of the leadership literature.
Henry Mintzberg lists the collaborative mindset, requiring empathy and insight into a network of relationships, as one of The Five Minds of a Manager. Managing self: the reflective mind-set Managing organizations: the analytic mind-set Managing context: the worldly mind-set Managing relationships: the collaborative mind-set Managing change: the action mind-set
Daniel Goleman identifies empathy as one of the five elements that define emotional intelligence, required by all effective leaders, and describes it as: “the ability to identify with and understand the wants, needs, and viewpoints of those around you. Empathetic people avoid stereotyping and judging too quickly, and they live their lives in an open, honest way”.
Goleman also draws attention to the work of Paul Ekman in distinguishing between three forms of empathy:
Cognitive empathy – knowing how the other person feels and what they might be thinking. Sometimes called ‘perspective-taking’, which can help in a negotiation or in motivating people Emotional empathy – when you feel physically along with the other person, as though their emotions were contagious; depending largely on the mirror neuron system Compassionate empathy – also called “empathic concern” – in which we not only understand a person’s predicament and feel with them, but are moved to help, if needed (or not, if ‘tough love’ is required).
These three types of empathy can be seen as a reflection of the three types of mind described in mindfulness literature, as illustrated in the header image above.
This in turn can also be considered in relation to Aristotle’s Virtue Continuum, in which the balanced middle ground between a deficit and excess (vices) in a given quality defines the ‘virtuous’ state we should aspire to.
‘Ruinous empathy’ features alongside ‘radical candour‘ in Kim Scott’s analysis of what makes a great boss. She suggests that (emotional) empathy mishandled could be the single largest source of mistakes made by managers in dealing with their teams.
‘Empathy mapping‘ is a key tool employed in design thinking in which user requirements are considered in the light of what a persona sees, thinks, does, feels, and hears, along with their pain versus gain points with regard to the product or service being developed or refined.
In need of empathy?
The need for effective empathy has been a recurring theme in discussions with various of my non-profit clients in recent months, and it has arisen in quite different circumstances, including: – a CEO dealing with resistance to cultural changes required in the organisation – a manager dealing with a director seemingly undermining her work – a team leader meeting reluctance by some team members to help share the load of carrying out new procedures necessitated by COVID-19 – a recently appointed manager charged with implementing a substantial ‘improvement’ program facing resistance by a long-serving team member (with connections on the governing board) to changing ‘the way we do things around here’
The differences in physical and cultural settings, personalities, reporting relationships, history and other dimensions make it impossible to suggest a single solution that would meet all needs, however some common elements can be discerned. There are communication blockages happening in these challenging relationships, and as with all communications – it takes two. Gaps in understanding and alignment are leading to frustration and reduced or poor productivity. Without resolution, conflict may escalate.
No external actor can fix such problems, and besides, my role is rightly limited to facilitating and supporting reflective practice and action decisions by my clients.
Empathy mapping adaptation
To aid them in that endeavour, one of the tools I suggested might be helpful in improving their understanding of and insight into the perspective of the other party is an adaptation of the empathy map mentioned above. The template below was offered as a reflective tool, to aid them in thinking through the areas in which they were experiencing friction or resistance in their relationship with their colleague, team member, or manager.
Notes completed in such a template may only be sketchy, but they can help you to look at the situation from the other’s perspective, and to promote greater alignment. Gaining empathy by itself is not sufficient of course, and implementing a course of action based on your insights is a necessary next step.
“Empathy represents the foundation skill for all the social competencies important for work” Daniel Goleman
[If the other party is a sociopath however (and they do exist out there), then an empathy map is unlikely to be of great value. Consult specialist HR advice if you believe your problem is that extreme.]
I will make some further observations on the ‘change resistance’ client issues listed above in a future post.
Other empathy mapping applications
The adaptation of a tool originally created for use in product or service design illustrates the potential for empathy mapping to be adapted to other purposes and situations that would benefit from insight into another party’s perspective. Try using it for other activities as varied as advocacy work, stakeholder relations, contract negotiations, counselling, coaching and mentoring.
Being mindful in this way will help in every human relationship you have, both at work and beyond.
There are four main duties of Australian directors, all of which apply whether they are members of commercial or not-for-profit boards. As illustrated in the header image above, these are the:
Duty to act with reasonable care, skill and diligence
Duty to act in good faith in the best interests of the organisation and for a proper purpose
Duty not to improperly use information or position
Duty to disclose and manage conflicts of interest.
The focus of this reflection is the first of these duties. While the three elements of care, skill and diligence are really aspects of one duty, before thinking about them in combination, there is nonetheless some benefit in reflecting on each of them separately.
Starting with the concept of ‘reasonable care’ highlights the widely used notion of organisations and responsible persons having a ‘duty of care‘.
This notion can be confusing for non-lawyers in the non-profit sector (of which I am one). The other two aspects of this first duty, relating to ‘skill’ and ‘diligence’, will be explored in later posts.
Duty of care
Those working in childcare, disability care, education, aged care and healthcare, all recognise their primary obligation to place the welfare of their clients above their own, and this is mainly expressed as an obligation to avoid them being harmed.
For teachers, the concept of being ‘in loco parentis‘, requiring equivalent vigilance and responsibility to that of a parent guarding their child’s safety, is a foundational one in their training.
In healthcare, the aphorism ‘no-one cares how much you know until they know how much you care‘ may be a little cliched, but it illustrates use of the word ‘care’ to convey the two distinct concepts of interest or concern on behalf of patients, and beneficence on behalf of the practitioner.
Legal and other definitions
Words which have common usage meanings can have quite different emphasis when they appear in legislation governing the conduct of not-for-profit entities and corporations. ‘Care’ is a word with a multitude of meanings in common usage (as illustrated in the whimsical header image of an earlier post). As it happens, this is also true to some extent in various legislative instruments.
In civil law, “(A) duty of care is a legal obligation to avoid acts or omissions that could foreseeably lead to harm to another person. A breach of a duty of care that leads to harm to someone amounts to the tort of negligence.“
Established duty of care relationships include:
Teacher to student;
Employer to employee;
Parent to child;
Occupier of premises to entrants;
Road user to other road users;
Manufacturer to consumer.
Directors and officers will also be seen to have a ‘duty of care’ which shares the objective of avoiding harm, however in the governance context, the harms to be avoided go well beyond those inflicted on “another person”. Compliance with laws and regulations is a foundation of good governance, however, so too is compliance with standards of care for the community, the environment, and third party commercial entities, and also with ethical codes.
A balancing act
The Victorian Department of Health acknowledges that when seeking to avoid or limit harm, workers in the health sector are performing a balancing act:
“There are several aspects to duty of care: Legal – What does the law suggest we do? Professional/ethical – What do other workers expect us to do? Organisational – What does our organisation, and its funding body, say we should do? Community – What do the parents of our clients and other community members expect us to do? Personal – What do our own beliefs and values suggest we do.“
In offering advice to youth workers, they note:
“We need to balance the safety of the young person against other concerns such as: the safety of other people/our personal safety other rights of young people (e.g. the right to privacy) the aims of the service (e.g. to empower young people) the limits of our organisation (e.g. money and other resources)“
Similar trade-offs are involved when directors are making governance decisions, and if an adverse outcome occurs, they will be judged according to the court’s application of the Business Judgment Rule (otherwise referred to as the ‘reasonable person test’). See also my earlier posts about cost/risk/benefit trade-offs here and here.
Standard of care
Professionals are familiar with the Law of Negligence (as opposed to the ‘diligence’ referred to in the first director duty) and legal liability. Section 18 of the Law of Negligence and Limitation of Liability Act 2008 addresses the standard of care expected of persons holding themselves out as possessing a particular skill as follows:
“In a case involving an allegation of negligence against a person (the defendant) who holds himself or herself out as possessing a particular skill, the standard to be applied by a court in determining whether the defendant acted with due care is, subject to this Division, to be determined by reference to— (a) what could reasonably be expected of a person possessing that skill; and (b) the relevant circumstances as at the date of the alleged negligence and not a later date.“
Directors’ duty of reasonable care and diligence
For directors, the most obvious implication of this legislation is that diligence is required to avoid an accusation of negligence. In their role as a board member, that diligence will chiefly consist of instituting a system of controls (i.e. good governance) by which risks are managed and compliance obligations are met, whilst advancing the constitutional and strategic objectives of the organisation. Relevant standards of care will also be applied to assess whether a director or officer was diligent or negligent in performing their duties.
“Duty of care and diligence (1) An office holder of an incorporated association must exercise his or her powers and discharge his or her duties with the degree of care and diligence that a reasonable person would if that person—
(a) were an office holder of the association in the circumstances applying at the time of the exercise of the power or the discharge of the duty; and(b) occupied the office held by, and had the same responsibilities within the association as, the office holder.“
Section 180 of the Corporations Act 2001 defines the duty of care and diligence required of Australian company directors and officers (such as the CEO and company secretary), including non-profit entities registered as companies limited by guarantee.
“CORPORATIONS ACT 2001 – SECT 180 Care and diligence–civil obligation only Care and diligence–directors and other officers
(1) A director or other officer of a corporation must exercise their powers and discharge their duties with the degree of care and diligence that a reasonable person would exercise if they: (a) were a director or officer of a corporation in the corporation’s circumstances; and (b) occupied the office held by, and had the same responsibilities within the corporation as, the director or officer.
Note: This subsection is a civil penalty provision (see section 1317E).
Business judgment rule
(2) A director or other officer of a corporation who makes a business judgment is taken to meet the requirements of subsection (1), and their equivalent duties at common law and in equity, in respect of the judgment if they: (a) make the judgment in good faith for a proper purpose; and (b) do not have a material personal interest in the subject matter of the judgment; and (c) inform themselves about the subject matter of the judgment to the extent they reasonably believe to be appropriate; and (d) rationally believe that the judgment is in the best interests of the corporation
The director’s or officer’s belief that the judgment is in the best interests of the corporation is a rational one unless the belief is one that no reasonable person in their position would hold.
Note: This subsection only operates in relation to duties under this section and their equivalent duties at common law or in equity (including the duty of care that arises under the common law principles governing liability for negligence)–it does not operate in relation to duties under any other provision of this Act or under any other laws.
(3) In this section:
“business judgment” means any decision to take or not take action in respect of a matter relevant to the business operations of the corporation.“
Skill – a common law requirement
The sharp-eyed reader will have noted that neither the State nor the Commonwealth legislation includes the word ‘skill’ in their requirements. That additional requirement arises from common law, where courts have ruled that in performing the ‘duty of care and diligence’, a reasonable person will exercise a level of skill or expertise commensurate with their responsibilities. This in turn leads to such governance activities as preparation of a director skills matrix to inform succession planning, and implementation of director development and training programs.
In commenting on Section 180 of the Corporations Act, Dennis Martin, Director of Snedden Hall & Gallop Lawyers, highlights that while all directors need to share a basic set of skills, where a director is recognised as having a special skill, they are held to a higher standard in exercising that skill (see especially the underlined portion below):
“… requires a director to act with a degree of care and diligence that a reasonable person might be expected to show in the role. Common law places great weight on this duty with respect to approval of financial statements [Centro, 2011] and statements issued by a company [James Hardie, 2012]. Further, risky transactions without the prospect of producing a benefit, or failure to inform board members of significant issues can create a breach of this duty. The extent of this duty is dependent on a range of circumstances. These include the type of organisation, the size and nature of the business and the composition of the board [ASIC v Rich, 2009]. Also, if a particular director holds out to possess certain expertise to obtain the directorship, the director’s exercise of care and diligence will be assessed against that expertise. For example, if a director holds out that she has specialised financial knowledge and she occupies a financial role, her accountability for the organisation’s finances will be higher compared with an ordinary director [ASIC v Adler, 2002]. Moreover, non-executive directors still have a duty to acquire at least a rudimentary understanding of the business of their organisation. Even if it is practice for a non-executive director to be unaware of the organisation’s circumstances, the position of a director comes with the responsibility of a core irreducible standard [Daniels v Anderson, 1995]. There is, however, the business judgment rule which could protect a director in relation to a claim for breach of this duty. This essentially requires directors to make a judgment that they rationally believe is in the best interests of the organisation. A judgment is considered to be rational unless no reasonable person in the director’s position would consider it rational.”
Where a board considers that it does not possess the skill or knowledge required to address a matter internally, it has an obligation to obtain expert advice to aid its decision-making processes. This was illustrated in my previous post regarding the solvency question, where consideration of a potential restructure or wind up is likely to require external legal and financial advice.
A future post will offer further reflections on the skills required of directors.
“First do no harm”
We can thank Hippocrates for the ethical injunction to “First do no harm”, and this is a core commitment in all health professional codes.
Avoiding harm is also the objective of the duty of reasonable care, skill and diligence.
In achieving that objective, directors and officers are expected to be proactive in the performance of their roles, ensuring that strategic and operational activities are subject to suitable systems of control and risk management. The schematic header image above emphasises that in each of the financial, commercial and legal dimensions, directors need to adopt a risk-based approach, involving governance, technical, and behavioural competencies, and referencing standards of care.
The term ‘due diligence’ is most often used to describe a detailed appraisal of a business undertaken by a prospective buyer, with a key focus on confirming its assets and liabilities and evaluating its commercial prospects.
In the context of non-profit directorial duties however, its more generic meaning relates to reasonable steps taken by a person or board to avoid committing a tort or offence.
The antonym of ‘negligence’, ‘diligence’ can also be understood as steps taken to avoid an allegation of negligence, usually involving careful examination or inspection of the matter at hand. The attention to detail involved suggests directorial focus, mindfulness, risk aversion, and effort. (See also comments on the Law of Negligence here).
Due diligence for a merger or acquisition (M&A) involves looking at numerous matters in each of the legal, financial and commercial dimensions of the other party’s operation. Analysis of key data looks to determine whether the entity is able to add value to the future operations of the merged organisation.
Assessment of the value proposition is of course the central focus of most board decisions – at least, it should be. The trade-off between benefits, risks, and costs needs to satisfy the directors that ‘on balance‘, adopting the recommendation under consideration will add value. Parallels can therefore be seen between director due diligence and M&A processes.
The chart below uses the three M&A dimensions (legal, financial and commercial) to catalogue some of the considerations non-profit directors will bring to their regular governance deliberations.
Diligent or Negligent?
Directors who fail to read their papers before the meeting, who neglect to ask probing questions during debate, and who defer to the loudest voice in the room because they don’t really have a view of their own, are not being diligent.
Board that spend less time on strategic issues, preferring to probe the details of low priority operational or procedural matters, can also be accused of failing to be diligent.
As with good diary management, the time budget for a meeting needs to be skewed towards strategically significant matters. The ‘Rocks, pebbles, sand‘ metaphor usually applied to personal time management can also usefully be applied to board agenda planning and ‘time governance’ during the meeting, as illustrated below.
Those familiar with this metaphor (popularised by Dr Stephen R Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Habit 3: Put first things first) recognise the importance of putting the rocks in the jar first and the sand last. If the sand is added first there won’t be sufficient room for the rocks later.
The same principle applies to the time budget for your board meeting. Don’t let procedural ‘sand’ use up valuable time required for your strategic ‘rocks’, and ensure that your operational ‘pebbles’ are also allocated their due before remaining time is provided for low priority procedural items. Scheduling more time, early on your agenda for strategic matters, recognises their high priority status, and is one way to improve the diligence of your board.
Part 3 in this series will reflect on the skills aspect of the ‘Duty of care, skill and diligence’.
Spur action to quickly run a more effective and efficient marketing organization.
In short:
Marketing teams must be strategic partners driving the company’s growth objectives in the post-COVID-19 world.
Yet, increased enterprise costs, tight marketing budgets and continued repercussions of the Great Resignation are just a few of the concerns facing CMOs as they examine their marketing organizations.
To combat these challenges, rethink your org structure, key responsibilities, talent skill sets and headcount, and goals to ensure your marketing organization’s success.
While the severe turmoil at the height of the pandemic has faded, marketing has continued to face significant disruption. Increasing enterprise costs, squeezed marketing budgets and the continued repercussions of the Great Resignation are just a few of the concerns facing CMOs as they examine their marketing organizations. Marketing leaders will need to account for these new realities in their long-term plans for the shape of the marketing function.
4 Ways to Future-Proof Your Marketing Organization
No. 1: Weigh the pros and cons of centralization
Centralization is not a new concept in marketing. However, the pace of centralization has quickened due to a host of operational excellence issues — such as prioritization, workflows and collaboration. Centralization often promises greater control and economies of scale, but it’s important to remember that each structure brings both benefits and drawbacks. First, place your organizational decisions in a strategic context: make trade-offs based on restructuring objectives, capability gaps and cultural realities.
No. 2: Identify value-added responsibilities for the marketing organization to own
Marketing’s sole responsibilities for marketing operations, marketing strategy and marketing-led innovation is increasing, while sole responsibilities for resource management, creative development, content tagging and martech management is decreasing. In the years ahead, identify the responsibilities that marketing can afford to cede and those you must fight to ensure that marketing plays an active role in future-forward enterprise value creation.
No. 3: Acquire skill sets to support evolving customer journeys
As customer journeys become more complex, you must recruit and develop new skill sets to support these journeys. All while maintaining a culture of creativity and collaboration in new hybrid work environments. With increased talent competition, and in the face of the Great Resignation, the talent challenge is amplified. Regardless, teams are growing and are significantly larger as the years progress. So, what does this mean for team size? A median of 6.3 direct reports and a median team size of 115.
No. 4: Grow the business influence of your marketing organization
It’s not just about building a more modern marketing organization but ultimately aligning marketing to overall business goals, growth and innovation. It’s critical to increase executive-level influence to include the CEO, CFO, CIO or CDO, so marketing doesn’t have to work so hard to prove its value to the business. If you’re running a tight organization that delivers on business outcomes time and time again, marketing’s value isn’t in question because it is demonstrated on a day-in and day-out basis.
In business, we often seem to focus less on good management, and more on the glamorous and exciting work of leadership.
However, managers are responsible for making sure that things are done properly. And while leaders may bring us vision, inspiration and challenge, these things count for nothing without the efficient implementation brought about by good management.
To be a great manager, you must have an extensive set of skills – from planning and delegation to communication and motivation. Because the skill set is so wide, it's tempting to build skills in the areas of management that you're already comfortable with. But, for your long-term success, it's wise to analyze your skills in all areas of management – and then to challenge yourself to improve in all of these areas.
This quiz helps you to quickly identify your areas of strength and weakness, so that you can capitalize on the former and manage the latter. We then direct you to resources that you can use to develop your skills further.
How Good Are Your Management Skills?
Instructions
For each statement, click the button in the column that best describes you. Please answer questions as you actually are (rather than how you think you should be), and don't worry if some questions seem to score in the "wrong direction." When you are finished, please click the "Calculate My Total" button at the bottom of the test.
20 Statements to Answer
Not at All
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Very Often
20 Statements to Answer
Not at All
Rarely
Sometimes
Often
Very Often
1When I have a problem, I try to solve it myself before asking my boss what to do.
2When I delegate work, I give it to whoever has the most time available.
3I follow up with team members whenever I see that their behavior has a negative impact on customer service.
4I make decisions following careful analysis, rather than relying on gut instinct.
5I let my team members figure out for themselves how best to work together – teams are a work in progress!
6I wait before disciplining a team member, so that people have a chance to correct their behaviors for themselves.
7Technical skills are the most important skills that I need to be an effective manager.
8I spend time talking with my team about what's going well and what needs improving.
9In meetings, I take on the role of moderator/facilitator when necessary, and I help my team reach a better understanding of the issue or reach consensus.
10I fully understand how the business processes in my department operate, and I'm working to eliminate bottlenecks.
11When putting together a team, I consider the skills I need – and then I seek people who best fit my criteria.
12I do all that I can to avoid conflict in my team.
13I try to motivate people within my team by tailoring my approach to motivation to match each individual's needs.
14When my team makes a significant mistake, I update my boss on what has happened, and then I think of it as an important lesson learned.
15When conflict occurs within a new team, I accept it as an inevitable stage in the team development process.
16I talk to team members about their individual goals, and I link these to the goals of the entire organization.
17If I'm putting a team together, I select people with similar personalities, ages, time with the company, and other characteristics.
18I think that the statement "If you want a job done well, do it yourself" is true.
19I talk with team members as individuals to ensure that they're happy and productive.
20I brief my team members so that they know what's going on around them in the organization.
Total = 0
Score Interpretation
Score
Comment
20-46
You need to improve your management skills urgently. If you want to be effective in a leadership role, you must learn how to organize and monitor your team's work. Now is the time to start developing these skills to increase your team's success! (Read below to start.)
47-73
You're on your way to becoming a good manager. You're doing some things really well, and these are likely the things you feel comfortable with. Now it's time to work on the skills that you've been avoiding. Focus on the areas where your score is low, and figure out what you can do to make the improvements you need. (Read below to start.)
74-100
You're doing a great job managing your team. Now you should concentrate on improving your skills even further. In what areas did you score a bit low? That's where you can develop improvement goals. Also, think about how you can take advantage of these skills to reach your career goals. (Read below to start.)
Effective management requires a wide range of skills, and each of these skills complements the others. Your goal should be to develop and maintain all of these skills, so that you can help your team accomplish its objectives efficiently and effectively. Read on for ideas and resources that you can use to do this.
A Model of Effective Management
Our quiz is based on eight essential skill areas where managers should focus their efforts. By covering these basics, you'll enjoy more success as a team manager:
Understanding team dynamics and encouraging good relationships.
Selecting and developing the right people.
Delegating effectively.
Motivating people.
Managing discipline and dealing with conflict.
Communicating.
Planning, making decisions, and problem solving.
Avoiding common managerial mistakes.
We'll explore each of these in more detail.
Understanding Team Dynamics and Encouraging Good Relationships
(Questions 5, 15, 17)
Good management means understanding how teams operate. It's worth remembering that teams usually follow a certain pattern of development: forming, norming, storming, and performing. It's important to encourage and support people through this process, so that you can help your team become fully effective as quickly as possible.
When forming teams, managers must create a balance so that there's a diverse set of skills, personalities, and perspectives. You may think it's easier to manage a group of people who are likely to get along, but truly effective teams invite many viewpoints and use their differences to be creative and innovative.
Here, your task is to develop the skills needed to steer those differences in a positive direction. This is why introducing a team charter and knowing how to resolve team conflict are so useful for managing your team effectively.
Selecting and Developing the Right People
(Questions 11, 17)
Finding great new team members, and developing the skills needed for your team's success is another important part of team formation.
Having the right people with the right skills isn't sufficient for a team's success. Managers must also know how to get the job done efficiently. Delegation is the key to this. Some managers, especially those who earned their positions based on their technical expertise, try to do most of the work themselves. They think that, because they're responsible for the work, they should do it themselves to make sure it's done right.
Effective managers recognize that by assigning work to the right people (not just those with the most time available), and clearly outlining expectations, teams can accomplish much more. But it's often difficult to trust others to do the job. As a manager, remember that when your team members have the right skills, training and motivation, you can usually trust them to get the work done right.
Motivating People
(Questions 13, 19)
Another necessary management skill is motivating others. It's one thing to motivate yourself, but it's quite another to motivate someone else. The key thing to remember is that motivation is personal. We're all motivated by different things, and we all have different levels of personal motivation. So, getting to know your team members on a personal level allows you to motivate your people better. Providing feedback on a regular basis is a very powerful strategy to help you stay informed about what's happening with individual team members. You can test your motivation skills with our quiz, and use your answers to develop your skills further.
Managing Discipline and Dealing With Conflict
(Questions 3, 6, 12)
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, there are problems with individual performance. As a manager, you have to deal with these promptly. If you don't discipline, you risk negative impacts on the rest of the team as well as your customers, as poor performance typically impacts customer service, and it hurts the team and everything that the team has accomplished. It's very demotivating to work beside someone who consistently fails to meet expectations, so if you tolerate it, the rest of the team will likely suffer. In our article on team management skills, we explore this issue in further detail and give you some examples.
Team performance will also suffer when differences between individual team members turn into outright conflict, and it's your job as team manager to facilitate a resolution. Read our article on Resolving Team Conflict for a three-step process for doing this. However, conflict can be positive when it highlights underlying structural problems – make sure that you recognize conflict and deal with its causes, rather than just suppressing its symptoms or avoiding it.
Communicating
(Questions 8, 9, 16, 20)
An element that's common to all of these management skills is effective communication. This is critical to any position you hold, but as a manager, it's especially important (you can test your communication skills with our quiz here). You need to let your team know what's happening and keep them informed as much as possible. Team briefing is a specific communication skill that managers should improve. Also, develop the ability to facilitate effectively, so that you can guide your team to a better understanding and serve as a moderator when necessary.
Planning, Problem Solving and Decision-Making
(Questions 4, 10)
Many managers are very comfortable with planning, problem solving and decision making, given that they're often skilled specialists who've been promoted because of their knowledge and analytical abilities. As such, one of the most important issues that managers experience is that they focus so intensely on these skills when they think about self-development that they fail to develop their people skills and team management skills. Make sure that you don't focus on these skills too much!
However, if you need to develop these skills, see our major sections on Problem Solving, Decision-Making, and Project Management. You'll find many rich skills improvement resources in these areas.
Avoiding Common Managerial Mistakes
(Questions 1, 7, 14)
Good communication helps you develop facilitation skills, and it also helps you avoid some of the most common problems for managers. Some of these common mistakes are thinking that you can rely on your technical skills alone, asking your boss to solve your problems, putting your boss in the awkward position of having to defend you, and not keeping your boss informed. Our article on Team Management Skills highlights what to do to avoid these, and other managerial problems that you should be aware of.
Key Points
You need to develop and improve your managerial skills on an ongoing basis as your career develops and as you meet new managerial challenges.
Whether you manage a department or a project team, it's important to know how to get the work done right. When you're asked to achieve something with the help of others, it's complex – and you spend much of your time managing relationships instead of doing the actual work. So, you must develop not only your technical skills, but your management skills as well.
Delegating, motivating, communicating, and understanding team dynamics are some of the key skills needed. With those skills, along with patience and a strong sense of balance, you can become a very effective manager.