Letting Go for Leaders E-Book

Markus Jotzo

• Herausgeber: tredition
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Seitenzahl: 344

Beschreibung

Markus Jotzo: Letting Go for Leaders. Independent and creative employees who practically run the company on their own while the boss withdraws from the operative business and concentrates fully on his management tasks? That's every manager's dream. But how exactly does this work? If you want to win the game, you have to play ball. This is a principle that applies not just to team sports, but even more so to leadership. Here is the formula: - Let go - Trust people to do great things - Delegate - Have a clear head - Achieve top performance Because you can only get the best out of your employees if you challenge them and let them do their job. This benefits not only you, but also the company. Markus Jotzo knows from his own experience how employees become co-entrepreneurs. In his book Letting Go for Leaders, he shows you that employee responsibility does not have to remain a pipe dream. Step by step, he explains how to hold your people accountable and thereby create freedom for yourself. You receive tangible tools and proven strategies that you can directly implement day after day. Keep the tips in mind and you will be less and less concerned with dealing with emergencies and more and more focused on the long-term important things.

Leseprobe

Markus Jotzo

Letting Go for Leaders

Markus Jotzo

Letting Go for Leaders

More Responsibility for Employees

© 2018 Markus Jotzo

Cover: tredition GmbH

Layout: Adina Cucicov

Translation + editing: Laura Davies

Publisher: tredition GmbH, Hamburg

ISBN

Hardcover

978-3-7469-6892-6

eBook

978-3-7469-6893-3

All rights reserved

For my father, my mother and my grandmother,who have always seen great potential in me.

Table of Contents

I should have done it myself

Part I    One more minute to play …

1 A Leadership Job or a Leading Role in the Job? – What Your Actual Task Is

Being indispensable

First: Exiting the daily business

Second: Passing the ball to the employees

Third: Tackling your core tasks

In brief

2 Is Everyone a Moron? – Why Your Employees Can Do More

The downward spiral

First: Each of your employees can grow

Second: Present your employees with real challenges

Third: Always provide your employees with the necessary support

In brief

3 Who Sharpens the Saw While I Am Sawing? – The Basic Problem of Leadership

The keep-it-coming syndrome

First: Recognize that the saw is blunt

Second: Stop sawing and sharpen the saw

Third: Maintain the saw in anticipation

In brief

Part II    … Free Throw! …

4 Are We Driven or Do We Drive? – How to Ensure That Your Employees Are Acting Instead of Reacting

Meetings, e-mails, and other ricochets

First: Make goals visible

Second: Aid in the planning

Third: Teach employees to say no

Fourth: Celebrate success

In brief

5 Many Hands Make Quick Work – How to Free Up Time to Take Care of Your Employees

The driven

First: Stop doing unimportant things

Second: Delegate responsibility

Third: Take your job seriously

In brief

6 Another Meeting! – How to Improve the Quality of Your Communication

The daily marathon

First: Downsize meetings

Second: Intensify alternative communication channels

Third: Boost the flow of information

In brief

Part III    … It’s delivered! …

7 What Are We Doing Here? – How to Reveal the Meaning of the Work to Your Employees

Frustration at work due to a loss of meaning

First: Assign tasks in a dialogue

Second: Clarify the relevance of subtasks

Third: Establish a culture of questioning

Fourth: Make the company’s sense tangible

In brief

8 Who Can Do What? – How You Assess the Potential of Your Employees and Distribute Roles

In the blind spot

First: Unearth hidden treasures

Second: Close gaps with onboard resources

Third: Pay attention to potential and personality when recruiting new staff

In brief

9 How Do You See It? – How to Put Your Ego on Hold

The ego trap

First: Break free from perfectionism

Second: Stop offering an emergency service

Third: Make the team’s success your success

Fourth: Avoid bad results

In brief

Part IV    … Goal!

10 My Crew Can Do It! – How to Let Go

The control freak

First: Give your employees your trust and confidence

Second: Give power to your employees

Third: Create an open error climate

In brief

11 Wanting, Knowing, Mastering – the Growth Loop of Leadership

The development artists

First: Facilitate your employees’ desire for personal growth

Second: Let the employees grow

Third: Make yourself replaceable

In brief

12 Suddenly They Have Ideas! – How Your Employees Show What They Are Made of

Bores to order

First: Adopt an expectant attitude 215 Second: Let the employee implement their solution – even if it is not perfect 220

Third: Give recognition

In brief

Part V Extra time

13 Letting Go for Employees – Clear the Way for Your Real Tasks

If no one has time …

First: Full desk – so what?

Second: Letting go as the boss’s message

Third: Letting go for employees

Fourth: Letting go as a habit

In brief

Finally, Superfluous

References

About the Author

I should have done it myself …

The stack of files on the desk resembles the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the calendar is full for the next three weeks, and there are a record 582 unread e-mails in the inbox. Key account manager Michael Henderson sighs and pushes his chair backwards. He also needs to prepare for tomorrow’s meeting, but how is he going to find the time to do that as well?

“I really must delegate something, otherwise I’ll miss the deadline for the major project,” he thinks. “But what?” It must be something that can be done quickly. Something simple, so that Henderson can pass it on to one of his people without much explanation and still get good results.

“I got it!” He picks up the phone and dials Alex Randall’s internal number. A quarter of an hour later, the employee stands in Henderson’s office.

“Please gather the sales figures we have achieved over the last three years with our twelve A-list corporate customers and get a potential analysis done by noon tomorrow. I need to see the results an hour before the meeting. This is extremely important, but I simply can’t fit it in myself.”

Randall swallows. He hesitates for a moment and then says: “Okay, boss. I also have to prepare a presentation and I still have four telephone appointments on my list today, but if it’s that urgent, I’ll squeeze it in.” The next day, 55 minutes before the meeting, Randall sends the e-mail with the results presented in an Excel spreadsheet. Henderson takes a look at it – and despairs.

“He hasn’t understood what it was all about!” Randall has carefully selected the sales figures of the A-list customers from the last three years. However, it appears that he hasn’t realized what the real task was. He has given the total turnover of each company over the last three years instead of listing the different product sectors for each company. Furthermore, there is something that is crystal clear to key account manager Henderson, and yet Randall hasn’t even put it on the spreadsheet, namely determining possible further fields for cooperation with customers.

These possibilities immediately catch the eye of the more experienced Henderson. There is, for example, the company Brinker & Sondner. Every year they have been buying more virgin vegetable oils and aloe vera products and less complex liposomes, apparently expanding their line of natural cosmetics in the light of a possible shrinking of the medical skin care products sector.

This, Henderson knows, could be a starting point to offer this company new organically farmed products. Randall, on the other hand, has only noticed the broader picture, namely that sales with Brinker & Sondner have been stagnating. He recommends focusing on other business customers that generate more revenue. In short, his analysis is completely useless for Henderson’s purposes. Frustrated, the key account manager slaps his desk.

“Well, now I have to go over everything again! Why didn’t I do it myself in the first place?”

Part IOne more minute to play …

1 A Leadership Job or a Leading Role in the Job? – What Your Actual Task Is

“… prepare the presentation for Dr. Clark from the management board for tomorrow, check the contract for the new customer, plan the budget for the next quarter, go through the travel expenses with the assistant and … wasn’t there something else?”

Sales manager Harold Stewart is just coming from a meeting with marketing. As he rushes through the hallway, he mentally runs through the tasks he still needs to do. Like a slight toothache, he is plagued by the feeling that something important is missing. “Surely,” he says to himself. “There must have been something else.” Yet he can’t figure it out.

“Oh, Mr. Stewart, it’s good to see you here,” a voice draws him out of his thoughts: The project manager is standing beside the photocopier in the corridor and has seen the sales manager passing by – a good time to address his superior.

“Friday is the deadline for the new field service concept,” says the project manager, outlining his own particular problem. “We must be ready by then; in fact, we’ve already sped up our operations to finish it a week before. Now all we need is the approval of Dr. Clark, but I have no idea how to get a hold of him these days.”

“Oh, Dr. Clark!” Stewart is immediately present for he knows there is no way for a project manager to get an appointment with the managing director at such short notice. “I cannot possibly watch the whole project being delayed for such a stupid reason,” he thinks to himself – and immediately has a solution: “I have a meeting with the management tomorrow morning, Dr. Clark will also be there,” he reassures his project manager. “Send me your elaborated concept by e-mail and I’ll clear it with him tomorrow.”

That evening, Stewart quickly reads his employee’s e-mail and makes an observation. “The attachment is 27 pages long! And there are serious mistakes even on the first page!” He runs to the project manager’s office, but he’s long gone. He swears and slams the door shut. Normally, he would immediately ask his employee to check the whole file again. But as he wants to clarify the matter with Dr. Clark tomorrow, he has no choice but to revise the concept himself.

Two hours later, Stewart switches off the lights in the office and clocks off. Home time at last! He breathes deeply and starts to relax, but then a thought hits him like a thunderbolt, because now he suddenly remembers what didn’t come to him earlier that afternoon when the project manager spoke to him in the corridor: Today is his wedding anniversary!

“Damn it, where on earth am I supposed to get a bouquet of flowers at this time of night?”

Being indispensable

In theory, every manager knows perfectly well: If you want to have time and peace of mind for your work, you need responsible employees who act independently. Employees only act in a responsible, independent manner if the boss gives them room to assume responsibility and develop independence. This includes not interfering with the details and certainly not doing the work of others themselves! That’s the theory; however, in practice it is often quite different.

Many bosses know the problem: Although they have a management job, they often find themselves in situations that make their involvement in the operative arm of the business appear absolutely necessary. This is despite the clear division of roles between management and employees: The manager is in charge of the management and the employees are responsible for the execution of his instructions. Yet, when poor project management puts the workflow at risk, it is often the boss himself who steps into the breach. After all, he is responsible for the results of the whole team or even the department. Indeed, because he doesn’t want to deliver half measures, in addition to his management duties he is also doing voluntary overtime to save his employees’ projects. The result is an awful lot of extra hours.

The only question is this: When is there time for relaxation? And what about private commitments? After all, the next day is going be another stressful one. The job may be fun … but like this? And then there is the classical argument of, “I myself decided to become a manager. I knew from the beginning what I was getting into … well, somewhat like this”. Such things are often said by overburdened managers when calming themselves down. And then, perhaps after a brief whine on one of their colleague’s shoulders, they sit down again at the desk – and continue just as before.

Many executives believe that being in charge means a lot of work and overtime and accept the high workload as a necessary evil. However, in many cases, part of their suffering is homemade: In addition to their management duties, many bosses also have operational responsibilities. Without even noticing, they are mercilessly overburdening themselves through their interference in day-to-day business, leading them to neglect their actual tasks. The more often the boss steps in to help, the less time he has for reflection and strategic planning, at which point you have to wonder, where are the ideas supposed to come from? How can he get to grips with the excessive workload? A vicious circle indeed!

If the team says “The meeting has been rescheduled. The boss is on holiday and desperately wants to attend” or “The boss has been ill for five days and no one else can make decisions”, then this is a clear sign that this boss has made far too many things solely a matter for himself.

Of course, the boss is responsible for his team. Nevertheless, does this mean that he has to be involved in every decision and has to be informed about every piece of news that arises in a project? No, of course not. The boss does not work on the various projects he is responsible for; therefore, project-specific decisions are always the responsibility of his employees, and yet many bosses interfere in the project work of their teams. Sometimes more so, sometimes less, but always with the serious consequence that their actual tasks are neglected.

The strongest intervention in the process takes place when the boss intervenes proactively; for example, by taking on a subtask of an employee on the grounds that this will be faster, better and more efficient. He may think that he is supporting his team through his actions, clearing up obstacles and creating the right conditions for the project to continue working properly. In reality, however, he is doing a task that clearly belongs to the employee.

Other interventions are more subtle. When employees come to their boss, because they have a problem they don’t know how to deal with, many bosses simply throw out their solution without even challenging the employees to come up with their own solutions. In this way, the boss has already been involved in the operative work – and has worked on it. Yet, this often happens unconsciously.

It is only human for executives to fall into these traps again and again, even when they are aware that the actual business operations are not their task. Ultimately, all manner of positive intentions lie behind this particular behavior.

Managers become managers because their characters imbue such features as initiative, hard work, an awareness of quality, and an eye for detail, and there are plenty of reasons to get involved through positive impulses. After all, every boss wants to ensure the success of his department. Some people think that they can do their jobs faster than their employees. Others assume that it is their job to make all decisions and take on operational tasks. Maybe he learned it that way and he can’t imagine it being any different. Yet another person may be convinced that he is simply the best at solving certain tasks.

A classic example are conversations with important customers that the boss conducts personally. A customer meeting is anything but a management topic – it belongs to operations and therefore lies strictly in the hands of an employee. If bosses allow customers to view him as the only person to whom they can talk, this is an unmistakable sign that something is wrong.

Trying to take over the reins is not an aid but an encroachment. Regardless of whether the boss wants to work faster or better – or whether he hasn’t learnt it differently – it is a fact that this makes him an indispensable employee in the business operations.

Employees quickly get used to the boss solving their problems for them or even completing parts of their tasks. They will learn that the boss will take over their responsibilities and, therefore, will of course more and more frequently take him up on this generous offer.

They hand over responsibility and independent thinking to a gatekeeper, because that’s what the boss is there for. He, in turn, invests a lot of time in coping with these additional tasks. At some point he feels as if he is working around the clock. No wonder then that he loses track of his actual task, the leadership of his employees, and his focus on the long-term goals. However, without a clear focus, the department firstly will be less able to support the company’s goals and secondly will find it more difficult to refuse tasks that do not or only weakly contribute to achieving company goals. The entire effort put in by the boss is therefore counterproductive.

Thus, make this clear to yourself: Leading does not mean being the best employee or making a name for yourself as an expert in the team, not even if you do this out of the best possible intentions. Instead, use your knowledge and skills to inspire and guide your employees in the right direction. You are in the comfortable situation of merely having to hold the reins in your hand while others pull the carriage for you. This will, however, only happen if you allow it to. Ask yourself the question: Do I work on my department or in my department?

Free yourself from the burden. Achieve significantly better results with less sweat.

How can you do that?

First: Stop interfering in the day-to-day business and leave it to the employees who are responsible for it.

Second: Don’t let your employees force you into the role of the decision maker, but rather pass the ball back into their court.

Third: Do your homework and concentrate on your core task, namely leading your employees.

First: Exiting the daily business

Many managers have their hands in the day-to-day business not only in crisis situations but also during normal operations. If you are thinking about the details while your employees are working on precisely these, you will actually be working at full capacity – and running the risk of jeopardizing the process. Such as the following boss, who doesn’t suspect that anything bad is happening:

“Yes, that works out. We’ve even got a certain time buffer in there.” Project manager Theo Fisher is satisfied. The news that one of the necessary components will be delivered ten days later than originally planned, with another one arriving a week earlier, initially caused a great deal of confusion in the project planning. After some tweaking, Fisher has now found a solution for the new deadlines and sets the revised schedule. Then he reckons its time to get some coffee. Cup in hand, he meets his boss on the way back.

“Well, Mr. Fisher, how’s the project going?”

“Very well. The external programmers are delivering later than originally planned, but we have found a good solution. In fact, this even improves the final result, because we can incorporate the findings from the first test run into our briefing.”

“Yes, but you also have to get people used to keeping promises. Be sure to let them know that we won’t do every project with this service provider!”

The boss disappears into his office, leaving behind an insecure project manager who is quite concerned. “Why does the boss keep asking me how things are going? And why is he giving me this trivial piece of advice? Does he think I can’t do this alone?”

Of course, control is an important management task. You want to ensure that budgets are adhered to and that both timing and quality are right in the end. The question is, how do you structure your control? If you just want to spontaneously check how things are going, you are not doing your actual job but are actively interfering in the business operations. You confuse employees and endanger the team spirit, because your employees will suddenly feel that you don’t fully trust them.

The only form of control in which you can actually remain a leader is by using a planned glance over the shoulder: At the beginning of the project, define specific times at which your employees will inform you of the current project status. In this way, you can avoid any disruptive, overcontrolling interference and ensure that your employees are working in a motivated manner.

What if you do want to inform yourself out of the blue? In this case, don’t simply drop in; make an appointment with your employees at short notice and – most importantly – justify your request for information. A short conversation is enough: “Do you have a moment to update me at 2 pm today? The managing director has asked me to explain our current status to him at our meeting at 4 pm. I want him to know that our project is going well and I need some information about it.” The employee will be pleased that his project is being discussed in a positive light with the management and will gladly take the time to inform his boss. Picking up a short status report from your people once in a while is fine. If you justify it, then it isn’t interference but completely justified self-informing.

So, keep your hands off the work of your employees. You won’t achieve your goal any faster if you keep weaving in-between or even relieving your employees of their tasks – quite the contrary!

Second: Passing the ball to the employees

Most employees enjoy taking responsibility and helping to shape things. Sometimes, however, they seem to try with all their might to return the responsibility delegated to them to their superiors. Nevertheless, this process should not alarm managers for there is no laziness behind it, but rather habit: Some people have not learned to take responsibility. This makes it all the more important to make sure that employees are clear in their roles. Because if the boss doesn’t counteract this attitude, he is going to have a problem.

Key account manager Ella Kerr vehemently knocks on her boss’s office door.

“Yes?”

“Hi, Mr. Latimer, I’m sorry to bother you, but I’ve had a problem with the new key account for days, and I’m starting to run out of ideas on how to proceed.”

The boss looks at the watch. “All right, explain to me briefly what it’s all about.”

“We’ve been talking about the summer collection since last week, as you’ll surely have noticed. After the terms of delivery were incorrectly listed in our offer, I revised the offer last Friday as agreed with the customer and sent it to the person responsible. The order confirmation was announced for Monday. It’s already Wednesday now and production is waiting to start, but my contact’s assistant keeps putting me off …”

“Okay, I get it,” says Mr. Latimer. “The best thing you can do now is be confident. The customer is in a hurry and needs us – we have got it all set up, production is ready to go. Get in touch with your contact’s assistant and explain to her that other customers also want to work with us and that we are on a tight time schedule. If the customer wants to keep the delivery option, they must confirm with us today by 4 pm. Otherwise, we will not be able to meet the delivery dates. Because their products are supposed to be in stores by the next quarter, our customers simply cannot afford a delay. And with us, both price and quality are right!”

On her way to her office, the key account manager thinks, “Why didn’t I think of it myself? The boss always has such good ideas. It’s always good to ask him for advice.”

There’s your problem! You are stressed, under a lot of time pressure, and then a desperate employee comes along, one who can’t make any progress without your help … What do you do? Naturally, you’ll see how you can get rid of the obstacles for the employee as quickly as possible, and so you share your answers, you advice, and your views as quickly as possible. After all, you want to get back to your own work with the least amount of time wasted. Yet that’s the snag: If you keep solving your employees’ problems, then you’re not doing your own work but rather that of your employees.

Even if the employees interpret this as support, by answering their questions, you have become the solution provider, indeed the decision maker! You take the steering wheel and work with them, just for a moment, but you can’t get rid of the real problem, namely the fact that your employees keep coming back to you with their problems instead of solving them themselves.

Managers who solve the problems of their employees can unconsciously be pushed into the role of the decision maker. Also, managers often assume the responsibility that lies with their employees. The major flaw is that the employees become accustomed to this state of affairs and increasingly begin to demand more of it. Ultimately, as soon as they become uncomfortable with the responsibility for a particular task, they come to the boss, depressed and seemingly helpless. Thus, in the end all problem cases end up on your desk.

Another effect can emerge if you as the boss always provide the answers: Your employees no longer need to seek creative solutions themselves. If the employees don’t use their creativity, they become dull. Furthermore, when the ideas always come from the boss, employees have less of a reason to be proud of their performance and the department’s successes. It’s a motivation killer, one that means you will lose valuable potential.

Assigning responsibility to employees

1. If your employees are stuck on a question and can’t get anywhere, they are likely to turn to you for help. At this point, it’s important to get them back into the game.

2. Ask your employee to offer you at least two possible solutions. If she does not have these ready immediately, you can meet your employee a second time as soon as she has worked out the two solutions. Make it clear to her that you are always at her disposal; not as a solution finder, but as a competent supporter.

3. Let your employee speak for 75 to 90% of the time and hold back. If you find yourself giving barely enough space for the employee to say a word, you are probably in the process of completing tasks that are not your responsibility.

4. Support the employee in an interview by asking specific questions to identify the advantages and disadvantages of the solutions he is considering.

5. Ask your staff about the most important decision criteria for selecting a solution.

6. If necessary, give your employees advice at the end of a conversation or point out an important aspect they may be missing.

7. Let your employee make the decision. Either in conversation with you or on her own and if you are convinced that she will take the relevant decision criteria into account.

If your employees are pushing you into the role of the decision maker, it is urgent that you clarify the responsibilities. Do this explicitly at the first instance: “Of course, Mr. Vosper, I could tell you my solution, but I would like you to work it out and suggest a way forward. You’re the project manager and more profoundly knowledgeable in the subject than I am.” If your employees have understood the logic behind it, it is enough to simply return the ball without a great deal of explanation. Your people will notice that you are putting the responsibility back where it belongs.

If you get your employees used to the fact that they won’t receive solutions from you, but will merely get support in finding the solutions themselves, then they will be unable to avoid solution-oriented thinking, accepting responsibility, and ultimately making their own decisions.

Leave the responsibility with your employees. This gives them room for personal development. The solution is always found by the employee himself. It’s your job to lead.

Third: Tackling your core tasks

For most executives, this is and remains a challenge: Meeting all project requirements and maintaining or even increasing employee productivity without neglecting the spontaneous ideas of your own boss. In addition, because the willingness to take on additional tasks without asking too many questions is evidence for their commitment and motivation, many bosses stuff more tasks into an already tight schedule. After all, it is important to keep your superiors happy. However, those who feel responsible for everything and accept one task after another quickly lose sight of the essentials. Many bosses dance at so many weddings at the same time that they have no other choice than to rush to do what seems to be their day-to-day priority.

As a result, the boss is permanently overburdened; the team is running at high revs, but the results do not correspond to the enormous efforts of the employees and managers. Dissatisfaction spreads. The boss is frustrated because she doesn’t know how to pack more hours into the day. What’s more, because the results are getting increasingly worse, this will eventually reach the top management levels, at which point it is no longer simply a management error but rather a crisis for the entire company.

If you have the feeling that you are burning through your employees and are still achieving poor results, check whether what you are doing is really important and, above all, whether it is your job in the first place. If so, then free up some time to take a few steps back and think about what the priorities will be beyond that particular day. Because that is what this is all about: Even in tense and difficult phases, one must consciously distance oneself from the business operations. This is the only way to keep an eye on your destination and not become lost in the bushes along the roadside.

Leadership doesn’t mean working things out. Especially not by yourself. Leadership means setting the course, and you can only do that if you stand firm. Therefore, take yourself seriously and say goodbye to business operations once and for all.

Manage, delegate, prioritize, and agree upon planned shoulder glances: Take your employees with you on the way to your goal. Let your people work, and only check how things are progressing at crucial points.

More importantly, always keep an eye on what exactly you are agreeing and disagreeing with. This also includes sorting or rejecting that which does not directly serve, or only marginally serves, the achievement of the objectives, even if the request comes from your own supervisor. Remember, you will not do him or your company any favors if your department misses the main goal because you have taken on too many tasks for yourself and your employees. If an additional project is to be carried out even though it clearly exceeds the capacities of your department, you have several alternatives: You can postpone the completion date, you can reduce the quality for less important aspects, or you can tell the management that you need more people.

What your actual task is – and what it is not:

As a leader, it is your responsibility:

• To define the priorities and the strategy for the coming years

• To develop the potential of your employees

• To check the results of your employees’ work

• To support your employees in all matters

• To be the contact person for your supervisor

It is not your job:

• To participate in business operations

• To find solutions to all of your employees’ problems

• To check all the intermediate steps and details

• To process all internal and external inquiries

So, it is not a question of working more to achieve the goal. The aim is to work more efficiently and more effectively – in line with corporate strategy and in full awareness of your goals.

Defining priorities – this is how you do your homework

In order for your team to move in the right direction, it is crucial that you are always in control – and take countermeasures if your team loses its way. To do this, you and your team need to have crystal-clear goals. Get a sense of direction by defining the content priorities for your department before the beginning of the new fiscal year. These are best derived from corporate strategy and goals, and thereby determine which topics your employees will focus on in the next fiscal year.

For example, if this year’s motto is “Excellent customer service”, one focus in sales could be “Analyzing and optimizing service quality on the phone”.

However, the focus will only become a clear guideline for you and your team once you have defined the intensity with which it is to be pursued.

Do you only focus on improving service quality or are you pursuing other priorities? If the latter is the case, how much of your time and budget do you use to pursue these priorities?

By asking yourself these questions, you can assess in advance what is feasible and what is not. Which focal points do you pursue and which ones do you put on hold for later? Which topics are only feasible with additional resources? There is enough work. The trick is not to take care of every topic “a little bit”, but rather decide what has priority next year and what should be left out.

So, to clarify the following:

1. Which topics are you focusing on?

2. How intensively do you pursue these priorities?

3. Which topics are you not taking care of this year?

4. Which topics do you deal with only marginally? How intensively do you work on these?

If you have your focal points, then you have a compass in your hand. Now you know the cardinal directions, but most importantly, you also know which points on the map you will visit and which ones you will not.

You can then derive concrete goals and measures from these priorities.

Clearly defined priorities provide orientation. With these in mind, you will always know which activities your department and your company are going to develop this year and which are not goal-oriented. These include corridor projects, spontaneous ideas from your boss, and flash-in-the-pan ideas. Armored with a range of good arguments, you will find that it is now easier and indeed more possible to say no to all the tasks that are being presented to you but are not on the list of priorities for the year.

This gives you more capacity for your important management tasks, meaning you can spend more time leading and developing your employees. You won’t be suddenly surprised by annual employee meetings knocking at your door, like when suddenly realizing that Christmas has come around again. Instead, you can take regular time for development and feedback meetings. This improves the skills, and thus the motivation, of your employees. They can develop further and work more independently, which in turn benefits your workload and, above all, the quality of your department’s results.

In brief

Give your employees the space to take responsibility and be independent

➲ Trust your employees to be able to do more.

➲ Do not perform any subtasks for your employees.

➲ Inspire your employees with your questions instead of profiling yourself as an expert.

➲ Expect your employees to always come up with at least two solutions when discussing challenges.

➲ Ask the right questions and leave it up to your employee to decide upon the further course of the project.

➲ When participating in conversations that involve a challenge for your employee, speak no more than 25% of the time.

➲ Pass the ball back to an employee if they are trying to force you into the role of the decision maker.

➲ Be informed by employees about the project status in previously planned “shoulder glance” talks.

Concentrate on your leading task

➲ Lead, challenge, and develop your employees through regular meetings.

➲ Work on your department, not in your department.

➲ Define which topics you will work on and with which intensity you will do so.

➲ Define which themes you will put on hold.

➲ Reject tasks that contradict your priorities or only marginally contribute to your goals.

➲ If you want your department to take on additional tasks, ask for reinforcement, postpone the completion of other projects, or reduce the scope of the existing tasks.

2 Is Everyone a Moron? – Why Your Employees Can Do More

“The quarterly figures are ready, and I just e-mailed you the final version of the presentation for the Executive Board,” says Mark Bolton, who is standing at his boss’s door. Richard Fox, head of controlling, looks up from his overflowing desk.

“Thank you, Mark, just in time. I’ll give you feedback as soon as possible,” Richard promises his team member.

Because his boss has already lowered his head to return to his work, Mark has no choice but to leave the office. “All right, thank you,” he mumbles.

As soon as the door is closed, Richard checks his mail and opens the PowerPoint presentation. The first chart is okay; the second one is also okay. “Great,”

Richard thinks with satisfaction. “Finally, Mark seems to be understanding what’s important.”

However, with each additional page his face begins to darken. “I don’t get it!” he says. “Mark makes the same mistakes over and over again! He’s been working here for two and a half years, and still he puts the tables in the wrong place and incorporates them incorrectly, too! Even though I’ve been telling him right from the start what he needs to pay special attention to.” Then, when Richard discovers that his employee has forgotten to include an important item in his profit calculation, his anger erupts. He gave Mark increasingly detailed feedback on the last presentation! And now this?

“What do I do to make him get it right?” Richard sighs and looks out of the window. “He probably just can’t do it. He’s just not capable of listening and following the simplest instructions.”

Richard goes to his desk, grabs the list of upcoming projects and notes down Give Mark smaller projects, coach closely.

“I thought Mark had more to offer …” Richard sighs again and puts the project list back into the folder.

The downward spiral

Employees who cause you to throw your hands up in horror exist almost everywhere. Even when the manager does everything humanly possible to lead them and briefs them comprehensively before each work assignment, the result of their work is at best moderate, at worst unusable. It is distressing: The more you explain to them, the worse their performance gets.

If the employee is still making the same mistakes even after detailed feedback, a judgement is quickly made: What a moron! The question is: How can it be that despite increasingly intensive feedback, the performance of some employees simply does not improve?

It cannot be that these employees are not teachable. They must be able to do something or they wouldn’t have been hired in the first place. Yet still, there will always be those who come along and stumble over everywhere, endangering the team result again and again. What’s going on? Could managers also be playing a part in ensuring that their employees stay at this low level? After all, they have the leadership role. And just as they lead their employees, the employees will carry out their instructions.

“… and use Verdana as the font. No more than four columns per table, otherwise this becomes too cluttered. And preferably italicize the font in the graphics; that looks better. And don’t forget to use thicker paper for the handouts!”

Those who care to take a closer look will notice this: The downward spiral generally begins at the briefing. Of course, clear specifications are an important part; however, too many requirements from the boss can act like a straightjacket, causing the employees to stop looking for their own solutions or becoming creative themselves. It is in fact not a good idea for the boss to explain the result she has in mind to the employee down to the smallest detail. The employee will try to meet these detailed expectations and deliver exactly the solution that he thinks his boss wants. He is doomed to fail in any case – after all, he is not a clone of his superior. The consequences of this behavior are much worse: The employee is now trained to no longer seek the best possible solution for the task, but rather find the one that the superior has already thought of.

If the boss tends to give her employees too many guidelines, she takes away their freedom to create. Those who explain everything down to the last detail at the very beginning are signaling to their employees that they will criticize everything that does not correspond to their precise idea of the final result. This has a demotivating effect.