Google recently studied the managers in its organization.   “The starting point was that our best managers have teams that [...]]]> It’s been said that the number one reason people leave a job is to leave their manager.  The impact managers as a collective population have on your organization’s performance and culture is often overlooked and underestimated.

Google recently studied the managers in its organization.   “The starting point was that our best managers have teams that perform better, are retained better, are happier — they do everything better,” Laszlo Bock, Google’s vice president for “people operations,” says.  “So the biggest controllable factor that we could see was the quality of the manager, and how they sort of made things happen.”  Managers also had a much greater impact on employees’ performance and how they felt about their job than any other factor, Google found.

And still, far too often, the managers are overlooked when it comes to training and development.  They are left to figure out how to drive business performance on their own with little formal training.

With most companies’  tight training budgets, consider prioritizing your managers’ development for maximum return on your training dollar.  Considering the widespread impact your managers have on your employees and your organization, improving their performance will give you the biggest bang for your training buck.

Millennials consider [...]]]> The largest generation in the U.S. right now is the Millennials, or Generation Y, making up about 28% of our population.  They currently represent 25% of the U.S. workforce, and the number of Millennials moving into leadership roles in the workplace increases every day as more and more Traditionalists and Baby Boomers retire.

Millennials consider themselves lifelong learners and have an insatiable appetite for learning and development.  The companies that are going to retain these important employees understand this and have established leadership development programs and rotational  development programs to engage Gen Y.  These companies also understand that Millennials are used to and expect feedback, coaching, and mentoring on a consistent and regular basis.  And those who know anything about Gen Y know that if you don’t find ways to engage and develop your Millennials, they will find another company who will.

I’ve [...]]]> The Peter Principle states that “in a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence”, meaning that employees tend to be promoted until they reach a position at which they cannot work competently.  It was formulated by Dr. Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull in their 1969 book The Peter Principle.

I’ve seen this happen many times in sales.  The best salespeople are promoted to the next logical step:  sales manager.  The problem is that the skill set needed to excel in a managerial role is very different from that needed to excel in a sales role.  Clearly, selling skills help if they are able to utilize those skills in coaching their employees.  But people skills are more important to a manager in building a high performance sales team.

Apparently, the same is true in the tech world.  Google was convinced that the best managers were technical experts.  However, in a recent study they conducted, they discovered that the number one skill people want from managers is for them to be a coach.  In fact, technical skills were way down the list.

Too often great employees are promoted to management positions for which they are unprepared – their level of incompetence.  To avoid the resulting disengagement, discontent, and damage to the new manager and their team, prepare them in advance of a promotion.  Pre-management training can enable potential new managers to go into their promoted position with their eyes wide open and this will minimize damage to their performance and that of the rest of their team.  In addition, a strong management development training program will insure new managers navigate the learning curve as quickly and painlessly as possible.