Taking a long break from work to; study, rest, raise a child, build a home, take care of someone, explore a passion? Keep these reflective questions in mind while you are away. By doing so, you will have solved half of your come back challenges.
Workplace happiness and career satisfaction have recently become a strong buzz in our streets and social circles. How do we measure what success looks like? How do we acknowledge when our jobs are becoming a real threat to our wellbeing? Over the last years, working with thousands of job seekers in recruiting and various career coaching programs, we are seeing 2 key factors that have a direct impact on both workplace happiness and career satisfaction.
Where do you stand? Read on for a brief self-diagnosis.
You know that endless uneasiness that slowly crawls into your day to day work? Do you struggle to get certain tasks started and procrastinate some until they become unbearable and you are lagging behind with your timelines? You feel unproductive and inefficient at some tasks, yet in other tasks you thrive! Only that the thriving tasks are a mere 2% of your work. So you often find yourself excited and volunteering in other people’s work. Sounds familiar? And still: You remember when you had a job you loved. You always felt like work is effortless and you would often lose track of time. This could also be experienced while doing outside the office tasks. All these are signposts that could lead you to discover your ideal job and what you should be spending most of your effort and time on.
Values are those aspects in your life you attach most importance to. Feeling apathetic in your job? A value has been touched. Feeling happy? Another has been tickled. Feeling infuriated? Take a step back, what about the actions touched your values nerves? Reconnecting with your values is easy! First, check out NVC needs list (google is your best friend) Then, take some time out to review the list and pick your 10 core values. Then, the fun begins! Cross-check these with your current realities. Which of these are you living or not in your current job? What impact is this having on you?
How about you start a one month journal? Every day you note down the type of tasks you worked on and how you felt about each. Observe the patterns of what feels effortless, fast, energizing, you are more inclined to jump into doing and the opposite. You can also seek feedback from your trusted colleagues. Somewhere in there, lies the foundation of the type of work you should be investing and growing in. You will also start to learn more about what matters for you and how that has shaped or not your career decision in the past.
Interested in a more in-depth analysis of your career satisfaction magic ingredients? Talk to us today! Email us at happycareers@edgeperformance.co.ke
Are you a leader in a fast-growing or fast-paced organization? Chasing a big idea, changing an industry, disrupting how things are done, while trying to make unit economics work?
You might be one of those managers who, between handling funders, partners, clients and trying to have a personal life, meets their team only at the coffee machine or in the lift.
One day you are hit by the realization that some of your team members have gone off in another direction, others were left behind standing at a junction a few kilometers behind scratching their heads, and another few seem to have completely forgotten why they were hired, seemingly working at their own (snail) pace.
Now it has become a performance case. You’re forced to ask yourself where you went wrong, and what you can do to salvage the situation and get the person back on the right track.
Obviously, your bookshelf and bookmark bar is full of great management literature!
You can find a gazillion tips and must-do’s on the internet about how to manage, lead and develop individuals and teams.
It sounds a bit like this: Be keen about when to lead and when to manage! Hire slowly and fire fast (but don’t get sued). Are you leveraging the six psychological conditions of performance and moving towards ongoing performance management? Define your management principles, then tailor your approach to an individual’s needs and personality types. Are you doing the right things to enable agility or are you blocking it? Be sure to brush your teeth twice a day.
All of the above are important things to consider and concepts to be aware of! We work with our clients and their managers on most of them (well, for the last one we can recommend you a good dentist)
But when you run into a snag with an employee or a whole team, consult your peers and friends and get five different views – then what will you do?
Sometimes you’ve got to go back to the basics! But what are the basics, really?
As part of our human capital engagements with fast-growing and fast-changing organizations, we’ve spoken to many many team members. The below five points are informed by what we’ve heard them ask for and sadly, often not get from their managers.
Whenever I run into a challenge around the contribution and performance of a team or team member, I take a step back and look at these 5 factors.
What your team really needs from you as their manager is:
1) Clear and specific performance expectations.
Yes, your people have titles, and maybe even a JD. But in your fast-changing organization, realities and priorities change all the freaking time!
Having a clear vision, an inspiring end goal and a strategic plan helps. But if people don’t understand their job, they can’t do it, even with the best intentions.
“What am I in charge of exactly?
And how does it fit in with what the rest are doing?
What will good look like by the end of this week/month/quarter?”
If these aren’t answered, not much relevant work will get done.
Defining the softer and qualitative pieces is very important: How should our customers feel when interacting with us? What guides us in difficult decisions? How do we reason and act differently than peers in our industry? What behaviours are not acceptable here, no matter what storm hits us? Sure, putting it in document form is crucial (Values, SLAs, Code of Conduct etc). More importantly have constant conversations about these, in your weekly forums, monthly or quarterly reviews. Keep finding new ways to talk about these in the team!
2) Freedom to implement and clarity where the freedom ends
If you’ve hired the right people, they love autonomy, making decisions and creating solutions in uncharted territory. Yet, few people comfortably direct from a clean slate with no rules. Therefore, consciously defining authority and freedom is important for two reasons:
Firstly, working in a start-up or fast-changing company is already very uncertain. So provide as much clarity as you can about what people are allowed to do and decide. This often requires a bit of thinking by the manager. Explicitly give room and permission for trying out new things, but also clearly state where approvals or your involvement need to be sought. (This could mean a request to “Run x by me every y days/weeks”, or “Do what you think is best but talk to me when z kind of situation arises”).
Secondly, constant interference is demotivating, and overtime limits creativity and initiative. If you feel the need to tell people HOW to do their job, please ask yourself why (or even better 5 WHYs, a good old root cause analysis has never created any harm!) and find ways of addressing the challenges that do not resemble micromanagement.
A few examples of how this self-reflection could go: If the reason you jump in is that the person isn’t very creative, then you might suggest team ideation meetings. If you realize that you worry about the person making bad judgment calls, your solution could involve forums for skill-building or experience sharing where your team grows the right muscles. Or if you conclude that it’s your ego more than anything else, consider what it’ll take for your company to grow and outlast you.
3) Feedback, skills and knowledge
Most bosses think that they give a lot of feedback, and most employees say that they want more feedback. So where is the disconnect?
It is often in how and when feedback is given and whether people are taking note of what was said. And also in what areas feedback is provided on!
Good feedback includes talking about work approach and underlying thought process just as much as about work results and how neat the document looks like!
Tell people where they did well, made the right decision or where they are acting skillfully. No buts.
Keep in mind that people rarely know what they don’t know, and therefore it’s important to point out knowledge and skill gaps when you see them. HOW you do it matters a lot, of course. Use language and create situations that make it easy for someone to hear your intention and message! Doing it in passing will most likely not stick.
Where gaps are concerned, define learning goals together. Then take an extra step and make sure people know HOW to develop the desired new skills. (You don’t have to do all the work and planning here, your team members can look for their own learning resources and run them by you for input.)
Show that you’re also learning: Keep receiving, soliciting and implementing feedback yourself!
4) Encouragement and attention
Many bosses forget that their employees are more than that: Each of your team members has dreams for their life and career and experiences ups and downs in their personal life. Working in this company certainly is an emotional rollercoaster to them, as well!
Encouragement and attention can come in many forms and shapes: Surprise snacks in the office, a 10-minute chat in the kitchen, a lunch in a small intimate circle, Friday forums where people share their successes and failures, awards, rewards, recognition, you name it. We’ve talked about the importance of leave days in another article.
Don’t fake it though, find your own genuine style. The objective here is to show “I see you. I see your effort and struggle. I’m impressed. I hope you will keep going with the rest of us. I want you to succeed! We’ll get there! Or maybe somewhere else.”
In moments of growth and change, it’s important to slow down sometimes. When you take a break from the grind, you can digest what’s going on better, and make changes to the direction and the strategies. Make time for the right people to listen to each other. Are you listening to those on the front line of your business?
5) Knowing who has to go
You’re building a movement and are planning to create impact in a big way, and the team needs to be ready to run a marathon, not just a sprint.
Who’s dragging the rest behind, emotionally or practically? You probably already know what I mean by that, but if not: Who talks more behind backs than putting issues on the table in a transparent and productive manner? Who’s constantly needing everyone’s support and time to get their work done? Who’s just not improving in attitude despite so many conversations?
Obviously, there are legal questions to consider here! Being committed to the above four points, and documenting them will help you stay fair and level-headed in performance situations.
To take these five to action, we’ve created a short Manager’s Checklist:
Can you answer these questions for each of your direct reports?
And if you realize that you’re not happy with your answers to these questions – we’re here to help!
What other foundations or basics of management have you encountered that work well in an ambiguous and fast-changing environment?
I would love to hear from you. Please get in touch to share thoughts and ideas!
Hiring for culture fit as you grow: Game of Thrones lessons.
For the sake of all GoT fans out there (If you are not a fan, you are probably already fed up with the unfamiliar spoilers and endless chit chats in your office lately): All factors held constant, regarding the script changes, the unlikely surprises and twists and the drama we anticipate that we are not getting, what really does it take to conceptualize and create a show that makes working professionals wake up at 4 am to stream live? Because they just can’t live with the anxiousness of not knowing? Can we take a moment of silence to admire the minds who dream of creating movements that inspire generations across the world? It’s the same spirit we see in groundbreaking movies, politicians, music artists and so on.
And yet sometimes this spirit may not always be replicable or sustainable as a show grows, as an artist evolves, as the interests of the consumers evolve. Why?
Now think about your company, what would it take to build a workplace that staff can call their 2nd home? And actually mean it? A place of shared values, enthusiasm and aspirations? A place where your staff can’t wait to do it all over again tomorrow? And how do you make sure that each and every new member of this movement adds value and aligns with the same spirit? And when things evolve you all evolve together?
Hiring for culture as your company grows is probably going to be one of the toughest team battles you’ve encountered yet. Without caution, the temptation to compromise hoping to develop the missing values in the future in exchange for rising business demands slowly becomes your daily choice. And before you know it, everyone is asking; ‘What happened to this place?’’ ‘’We used to love working here back then’’.
So what can you do to ensure every single new hire is a gem to the team?
Build a strong value based recruiting process.
Your culture is defined by the key values that need to be lived every second for business success. Do you know what these are? If not here is a cheat sheet. It’s ok if your list has 20, now narrow it down to the 5 main ones that your business needs to thrive then inculcate this in your hiring process.
Some best practices out there:
Your management team breathes and lives your values.
If you can get this right, you are halfway there. As you grow, your managers become your default employer brand ambassadors, thus staying aligned is key.
Some ideas:
Decentralize hiring – now this is CRUCIAL!
First, it’s necessary. If you are hiring frequently and in high numbers, your HR and managers are obviously overwhelmed, and right there is a significant loophole.
If your whole team including junior staff has already been having enough culture and value conversations, then they are quite accurate on what it takes to thrive in your organization.
How about you consider building an internal hiring team that truly understands your culture? They could be from any department and they fully understand your culture fit criteria. Plug them in as key players and informants in the recruiting process and watch magic happen! In addition, they also get to feel the ownership of growing with you!
Why don’t you block some weekly time in your calendar for culture? Try out some of these tips and let us know how it goes. We want to feature your success story in the next blog. And your failure story as well!
You have lousy managers
Hi there.
Take yourself on a managers evaluation date night. Buy yourself your favorite drink. Sit there quietly and ask yourself honestly: What is the experience my employees have in their day to day in their teams and with their managers? Why does no one want to stay? Do you know?
Let it sink in. What are you doing about it?
Are there skills your managers may be lacking to lead, manage and inspire their teams? Could there be personality clashes you are unaware of?
Borrow a piece of paper if you didn’t bring your notebook. Write the 10 things that define what type of managers your company needs for people to stay.
Go to office tomorrow, start inculcating these traits one by one.
And if you don’t know what to do, we have many ideas!
Your website is uninspiring…
… and lacks adequate information to inspire your ideal talent. Top talent is picky. They want to be associated with a strong brand. They want their experiences to matter. They have standards for how each experience connects to their big picture. Also, it’s 2019 and empowered job seekers have a say on who they work with.
So yes: The first place they go to is your website. They are looking for how you are telling the story of your work. How you talk about your team. Can they learn a thing or two about how it is to work with you? How much effort have you put into portraying your worth?
You simply don’t care and everyone knows
If you know Nairobi well, then you know what “Nairobi hapa” means. You cannot hide in this city. Sooner or later, your dirty workplace laundry will be out in the streets. And once it’s out there, who will apply to your company really?
On the contrary you could decide to care.
And what do we mean?
Simply see your employees as humans. The same load of personal problems you go through they do too. The same strong face you have been wearing for the last 2 years, they have been carrying it for a decade maybe.
To care means:
Do the simple stuff. Then watch what happens.