8 Management Best Practices

My life journey to date included working for a Fortune 50 company in supply chain management for nearly 27 years.  During that time, I worked for many different managers.  I also had the good fortune to manage people myself – from a small local team with fewer than 10 individuals all the way to a global organization with more than 125 team members.  The sum of this experience has provided me with many learning opportunities.  I’ve attempted to summarize some key lessons management best practices below.  My hope is that they will positively resonate whether you’re managing people for the first time, or are a seasoned veteran looking for solid ideas to add to your toolbox. 

A quick search for “management best practices” will likely result in advice that includes “communicate frequently” or “set team goals”.  Don’t get me wrong – these are valid and important behaviors for a manager to exhibit.  It’s just that I believe that we, as managers, can go beyond foundational practices to the benefit of our employees, customers, ourselves, and shareholders.  Organizations will often proclaim that people are their “most valuable asset”.  It then stands to reason that a manager’s primary job is to get the best out of people (that most valuable of assets) by providing them with the environment, knowledge, and resources to enable successful value creation.

I duplicated some of these management best practices from a previous post of mine that examines ways to be successful at work. I thought it was valuable to include them again here.    

1. Treat people with the dignity they deserve
2. Listen, then act
3. Withhold your feedback…if you don’t care
4. Set clear expectations
5. Seek out diversity of thought
6. Attract, retain, and develop
7. Reward value creation
8. Learn from mistakes

1.Treat people with the dignity they deserve

We’ve all been exposed to the ongoing impact of the “Great Resignation”. Wage dissatisfaction has been made out to be the primer driver in people leaving their jobs en masses. However, it may be surprising that according to a recent MIT Sloan Management Review study, the number one reason why people are leaving their jobs is due to a toxic workplace culture.  In fact, according to this study, a toxic workplace culture is more than 10 times more powerful than compensation in predicting an organization’s attrition rate, compared with its industry.

Several of the best management practices described here impact workplace culture.  It turns out that having abusive management who disrespect employees is a major influencer of company culture.  What a shocking notion.  It is often said that employees spend more time with people at work than they do with people outside of work, including their family.  None of us want to experience verbal abuse, belittling criticism, or angry interactions at work.  Least of all from the people we are counting on to provide us with the tools and knowledge we need to be successful in our jobs.

Toxic workplaces are bad for business

My experience has been that it isn’t enough to just treat the people within our own team with dignity and respect.  Toxicity still festers if people see their management treat “non-team” members with anger, abuse, or disdain.  Our team knows how we treat others at work.  It simply isn’t enough to treat our own team with dignity if we behave poorly with people in other groups.  Decency in the workplace should be reason enough to treat others with the dignity they deserve.  It is also very expensive to replace employees.  According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), it costs, on average, a company 6 to 9 months of an employee’s salary to replace them.

I’m not saying that managers should abandon performance management.  We can and must help our employees to either be successful within our team or help them transition to somewhere that they can be.  Doing so with grace and respect is imperative.

2.Listen, then act

One of the most uttered management questions has to be “what can I do to help?” If you’ve found yourself on the receiving end of this question you likely were either filled with excitement, dread, or apathy.  As to which emotion you experienced, much depended on the person doing the asking.  Did they have a history of listening to your response and following through?  Or was the question used as a threat to become involved in a project or piece of work you were responsible for?  Or did your response seem to be forgotten, and never to be acted upon?  As the old adage goes, actions speak louder than words.

As a manager, it can be easy enough to ask what you can do to help an employee.  It can be much harder to take action on the response.  We need to understand the consequences of asking the question and receiving an answer that we’re not prepared to do anything about.  Managers who follow through, even if the final outcome is not the one hoped for, are more likely to receive the opportunity to help in the future.  If we’re primarily concerned with how an employee is doing, better questions to ask might include “How are you doing?” or “Is everything OK?”  Asking if there is anything that we can help with creates an implicit contract between ourselves and the employee.  Violate that contract even a couple of times and we risk becoming a roadblock to our employee’s successful creation of value rather than an agent for removing roadblocks.

3.Withhold your feedback…if you don’t care

As a natural introvert, getting and receiving feedback was not easy for me when I first started working.  I didn’t want to talk about what I was not doing well enough; let alone what someone else was NOT doing well enough.  NOT at all!  I came to understand that when someone gave me feedback, it was because they cared enough to help me get better.  Think about it.  If providing meaningful feedback to someone is hard (and it is), why on earth would we ever do it?  Not many people enjoy having difficult conversations for the sheer enjoyment of it (notwithstanding the odd sociopath).  So, as I started to manage people, I assumed providing feedback was just part of what I needed to do…because I did care that people who worked with me were successful. 

One additional lesson learned on this topic: the way in which you provide and receive feedback matters – a lot.  Direct feedback using straightforward language is best way.  Believe it or not, yelling, or exaggerating points is not the best way (see practice #1).  Also, “over caring” by providing feedback all the time on all types of topics is not the best either.  None of us are perfect and none of us particularly want to hear all the ways in which we aren’t perfect.  Focus on the important stuff that will help you or another person.  If you don’t really care, withhold your feedback.  It is the easy thing to do.

4.Set clear expectations

“When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me.”

Oscar Wilde

You’ve likely heard the above quote before. In my experience, nothing creates a poor working relationship between people more than misaligned or unspoken expectations. Just as it is difficult to provide someone with feedback, it can be difficult for managers to set and manage expectations. It can feel very uncomfortable to tell another human being what you want to see happen in the relationship you have with them. And to be honest, if expectation setting is a one-way street, the recipient will probably feel resentment. Setting mutual expectations is the way to go. This includes manager-to-employee, employee-to-manager, and employee-to-employee relationships.

I’ve found that framing a conversation around “hopes and fears” can be a safe way to get the ball rolling when a new work relationship is beginning. What do you hope to accomplish? What do you fear might prevent those accomplishments? Clarity is the goal. Clear expectations enable course correction and adjustment along the way.

5.Seek out diversity of thought

I’ve learned that diversity encompasses many different aspects of people working with people.  One of the most interesting has been diversity of thought.  Obviously no two of us think or approach work in exactly the same way.  But every so often, you encounter someone with very different ideas.  If you can embrace those differences, they will often lead to surprising options (perhaps better, perhaps not) that wouldn’t have come to light if everyone working on  something comes from a fairly narrow or similar brand of thinking. 

Some teams even specifically seek out a person who can provide minority report views on a consistent basis. The person produces the minority report to ensure that a different point of view on a given topic or project is considered. Initially, it can be frustrating to work with someone who regularly disagrees with the “party line”. But in my experience, the benefits of having those diverse ideas outweigh the drawbacks.  Having some differences of opinion up until that point usually makes for a better outcome.

6.Attract, retain, and develop

I already mentioned in this post that replacing an employee is expensive.  Unsurprisingly, the cost of constantly hiring new people extends beyond the monetary impacts.  Most of us desire some consistency and reliability in our lives.  We’ve all probably experienced work environments where team members seem to come and go in a seemingly endless period of transition.  Constant change can take a toll on the people who remain and must take on additional responsibilities, including training, when attrition is high.  This can lead to burnout, anxiety, and mistrust in the management team and company that enables high turnover.

It is therefore imperative that managers identify the right prospective team members and provide an attractive work environment, so they are encouraged to join.  Management reputations are built over time.  Today’s technology means networks can be much broader than in past times.  People are able to select from a wider set of potential employers (and managers) than ever before.  Successful managers need to have every bit as impressive a resume as the people we are seeking to add to our teams.  If we buy into the premise that a manager’s primary job is to get the best out of people to enable successful value creation, then how is that accomplished?

Growth and Development Matter

The overall intent of sharing these management best practices is to provide ideas to help retain successful employees.  Employees choose to stay or leave an organization for a whole basket of reasons that are unique to each person.  One crucial reason people seek new opportunities is because of a perceived lack of opportunity to grow and develop.  Meaningful development does not always mean promotion.  Growth and development often come from taking on new or increased responsibility within current jobs.  The critical factor for employees is that they can recognize and believe that opportunities, whether through advancement or lateral growth, are possible for their careers.  Managers, as stewards of the most valuable workplace assets, should spend a lot of energy helping their employees develop and grow.

7.Reward value creation

We may see a version of this management best practice as some version of “reward results”.  I think it is more than a semantical difference to suggest that managers should instead reward value creation.  The difficulty in rewarding results is that it can lend itself to adopting an “ends justify the means” mentality.  A result can be achieved in the near-term without acknowledging the sustainability of the methods used to achieve it.  By focusing on the value achieved, we more readily open the door to conversations about the repeatability and transferability of the accomplishment.  When a result can be achieved over and over again, and by people across the team, it is certainly more valuable than one that can’t.

I firmly believe that we get the behaviors we reward.  Reward and recognition takes place in both private and public settings.  Mangers can demonstrate a commitment to rewarding value in team meetings, highlighting results that provide value and are accomplished in a positive way.  Employees should also receive rewards during performance reviews and assessments.  Managers should help their employees recognize and appreciate the value they are bringing to the team.  People can frame their achievements in terms of the positive impact they had on the organization while describing the role they played in bringing the value to fruition.  The most favorable work environment still won’t be enough to keep the best people if they don’t feel like their valuable contributions are being rewarded.

8.Learn from mistakes

All of us make mistakes.  There is no way around the fact that we will all fail at some endeavors in life.  However, these failures bring the gift of experience and an opportunity to learn.  I once read that the best thing that could happen to a young person would be for them to be fired from a job.  I suppose I was never that “lucky”.  Likely I came close on at least a couple of occasions.  Legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden once said “Failure isn’t fatal, but failure to change might be”. 

I participated in multiple post-failure learning sessions during my career. As long as these sessions were truly aimed at changing for the better (and not as a punitive instrument), they lead to individual and organizational improvement faster than any other process I have experienced.

Managers make mistakes just like everybody else.  When we do, it is an opportunity to demonstrate vulnerability.  Teams are more likely to be open to learning from mistakes when everyone, including the manager, is open and honest about things that don’t go according to plan.  We establish trust when this happens. Managers create mistrust when behaviors like hiding mistakes or pushing blame to other parts of the organization occur.  Vulnerability as a strength is showing up more frequently on lists of management best practices, and this is a good thing.  Who would you rather work for, someone who acknowledges their mistakes and learns from them, or someone who hides errors and therefore learns nothing?

Managing people is tough and yet fulfilling 

It can be stressful and rewarding.  Managers should keep in mind the responsibility we have to care for and cultivate our organization’s most valuable asset.  This is an awesome responsibility, one we should all feel privileged to take on successfully.

Written by: A. Reed Reviewed by: B. Holman