\u201cTrain people well enough so they can leave; treat them well enough so they don\u2019t want to.
\n\u2014RICHARD BRANSON <\/em><\/p>\n

In a two-year study on team performance recently covered by Laura Delizonna, Ph.D., in Harvard Business Review,<\/em> Google revealed that the highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety, or the belief that you won\u2019t be punished if you make a mistake. As Paul Santagata, head of Industry at Google, put it, \u201cOur success hinges on the ability to take risks and be vulnerable in front of peers.\u201d This data is particularly valuable because, well, if there is anything Google does well, it\u2019s data.<\/p>\n

Santagata posits six steps to bolster a safe atmosphere:<\/p>\n

\n
1. Approach conflict as a collaborator, not an adversary.<\/li>\n
2. Speak human to human.<\/li>\n
3. Anticipate reactions and plan countermoves.<\/li>\n
4. Replace blame with curiosity.<\/li>\n
5. Ask for feedback on delivery.<\/li>\n
6. Measure for safety.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

   Step #6 is germane to our vision of 360\u00b0 Management. For our money, great management and the sense of safety it can engender is a corporation\u2019s greatest invisible asset.<\/p>\n

   However, a sense of safety is not what people usually think of when they think of management.<\/p>\n

   Betterworks recently ran a piece called \u201cPeople Hate Being Managed\u2014What Organizations (And Managers) Need to Do Instead,\u201d in which author Deborah Holstein points out that only 1 in 7 employees believe performance reviews inspire them to improve. \u201cNewsflash,\u201d she writes, \u201cNo one WANTS to be managed. Even the term, \u2018manage,\u2019 evokes feelings of control and manipulation.\u201d<\/p>\n

   Holstein astutely recognizes that the roadblock to good management usually is found in a lack of bespoke practices. \u201cIf an employee receives feedback from their manager who\u2019s been only loosely involved in their development,\u201d she explains, \u201cthey\u2019re far more likely to reject any constructive criticism they receive. It\u2019s only natural. If they don\u2019t feel their manager truly knows them, their work, and their strengths, why would they believe their manager has a good grasp on where they need to improve? Many employees who find themselves in this situation will question whether their manager is even qualified to be giving them feedback. And when the review process is closely tied to earning a bonus, raise, or promotion, employees can\u2019t afford to be open to feedback, both figuratively and literally.\u201d<\/p>\n

   Great bespoke management is hard to find, but what would the workplace look like with no management at all? In a curious and telling counter-example on the importance of good management, Tony Hsieh, the late CEO Amazon-owned Zappos, tried to abolish traditional managerial roles by implementing a system called Holacracy. According to Business Insider, this self-management program is the creation of Brian Robertson, a former software developer and entrepreneur turned management guru. Through Holacracy, Hsieh and Robertson advocated a workflow that allows engineers to develop ideas utterly without the direction of a manager.<\/p>\n

   On the surface, it sounds great. Work is processed through \u201croles\u201d that are always subject to change. For instance, an employee who isn\u2019t a marketer can take on the marketing role, in addition to whatever other roles they hold down, should they get the urge. In lieu of management, Holacracy implements what Robertson calls \u201clead links\u201d\u2014people who assign roles and represent \u201ctheir circle,\u201d but with one key difference: These \u201clinks\u201d are in no way responsible for the individuals they oversee.<\/p>\n

   It is not a surprise to us that Hsieh\u2019s noble experiment has had some serious casualties. When Hsieh\u2019s e-mail call for Holacracy hit the company server, the organization divided three ways, between believers, nonbelievers, and those who \u201cdecided to remain out of convenience, despite their reservations.\u201d All official titles were abolished, and 14 percent of the company\u2014a whopping 210 employees\u2014voluntarily hit the road.<\/p>\n

   As one disgruntled employee put it, with the move toward Holacracy, \u201cEmployees are in constant fear of losing their jobs for saying or doing something that proves to management that they aren\u2019t a \u2018culture fit.\u2019\u201c Another employee described the change as a gear-shift toward a \u201cdisruptive atmosphere\u201d that included \u201cbothersome social experiments.\u201d One beleaguered employee gave the company a two-star rating and bemoaned the fact that top brass would allow so many strong employees to leave just to bolster an ideology.<\/p>\n

   To us, this story has a plain and simple lesson: No management is definitely not the answer. Less management is frequently not the answer either. What the modern company needs is a game changing program of 360\u00b0 Management for everyone\u2014flexible, agile, human centered, and fear-free.<\/p>\n

   One of the most important after-effects of 360\u00b0 Management is that it often weeds out those who aren\u2019t a good cultural fit for a given organization. There have been several instances in our own careers where we had the wrong people on various projects. Sometimes these people were employees, sometimes they were clients, and in a few unfortunate cases, they were even business partners. In each of these instances, we waited far too long to take action. In fact, truth be told, we usually took no action at all. In many of these cases, we waited until someone else took action. Not only did we want to give someone endless \u201cbenefit of the doubt,\u201d we really believed in our heart of hearts that, if we made the correct moves, we could get these individuals to \u201cstraighten up and fly right\u201d (and by right, we mean the way we wanted).<\/p>\n

   Was our excessive tolerance due to an unconscious desire to be given the same latitude should we fail ourselves? Or did we merely have an aversion to the conflict we thought might ensue should we address matters directly? The answer is anyone\u2019s guess, but the long and short of it is we clung to several bad work relationships way past their sell-by date. This has been a really hard pattern for us to live through. We pride ourselves on the ability to evolve and improve quickly when presented with good information, but with this challenge, we seemed to repeat mistakes over and over and, what\u2019s more, we had to live with the negative consequences on a daily basis. These were not bottom-line problems on a spreadsheet. These were interpersonal problems that sat in our office and looked us in the eye. #painful.<\/p>\n

   Over time, by embracing and implementing 360\u00b0 Management, this state of unhealthy affairs has been mostly eradicated. With inner vision from trusted advisors, above and below and alongside us, our own weaknesses and ambivalences were exposed, and our true feelings about some difficult colleagues came out. One thing that receiving 360\u00b0 Management helped us see is this: When someone is failing in a role, you do a huge disservice to everyone involved by not addressing it. A person who is not thriving needs to be freed up to move to a place that is the right fit for them.<\/p>\n

   360\u00b0 Management cuts through the morass of baked in hierarchies and gets everyone to the truth quicker.\u201d<\/p>\n

   Michael Solomon\u00a0is the cofounder of 10x Management, a tech talent agency. 10x matches top contract technology experts, designers, and brand innovators with companies ranging from startups to the\u00a0Fortune\u00a0500. Customers include American Express, HSBC, Google, Verizon, Yelp, and more. He is a recognized expert on the freelance economy and its growing impact on business and has appeared on numerous media outlets and at conferences, including\u00a0CNBC<\/a>,\u00a0BBC<\/a>,\u00a0Bloomberg TV<\/a>, NYU, and SXSW. Solomon also leads, with his longtime business partner, Rishon Blumberg, a compensation negotiation service catering to senior tech talent, called\u00a010x Ascend<\/a>. Ascend\u2019s mission is to help senior tech talent obtain the best compensation packages possible. The two also oversee talent management and entertainment consulting company\u00a0Brick Wall Management<\/a>, whose clients include multiplatinum and Grammy award-winning recording artists, songwriters, top record producers, and filmmakers. Solomon\u00a0also co-founded\u00a0Musicians On Call,<\/a>\u00a0a nonprofit that brings live music to more than 700,000 people in healthcare facilities across the U.S. and remains an active member of its Board of Directors.<\/em><\/p>\n

   Rishon Blumberg\u00a0is co-founder of 10x Management. Blumberg\u00a0is, first and foremost, an entrepreneur. It\u2019s what he studied\u2014graduating from the Wharton School of Business with a degree in entrepreneurial management in 1994. It\u2019s what he\u2019s lived and it\u2019s what he loves. For more than 25 years, he\u2019s harnessed that spirit to create and lead successful organizations based in tech, entertainment, and the nonprofit sphere\u2014finding new solutions to long-standing and emerging challenges. Blumberg\u00a0 has presented at TEDx, been published in the\u00a0<\/em>Harvard Business Review<\/a>, and was featured on the cover of the\u00a0<\/em>Wharton Alumni of New York Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

    <\/p>\n

   The post How Much Management Is Management Enough?<\/a> appeared first on Training<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

   \u201cTrain people well enough so they can leave; treat them well enough so they don\u2019t want to. \u2014RICHARD BRANSON In a two-year study on team performance recently covered by Laura Delizonna, Ph.D., in Harvard Business Review, Google revealed that the highest-performing teams have one thing in common: psychological safety, or the belief that you won\u2019t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3975"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3976,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3975\/revisions\/3976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proactivetraining.com.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}