Give feedback in a way that feels really good — for you and your team members.

Ever sat through a presentation that was so sinfully dull you couldn’t help but make your grocery list for your weekly meal plan, just for something to do…but when the presenter asked you whether you enjoyed it, you said, “oh yeah, it was great. Really enjoyed it.”

I can almost see you nodding right now — because most of us just aren’t that great at giving feedback.

Giving feedback truly is one of the hardest parts of leadership. 

Knowing how to phrase criticism in a way that’s constructive, that won’t send your perfectionist-leaning employees into a total spin, and that won’t make you feel like a jerk in the process is a skill that takes time and effort to master.

But the consequences of not putting in that time and effort can be huge.

Without appropriate feedback, tiny problems can quickly escalate into big, unfixable issues, individual performance will suffer, and you’ll struggle to hit your organizational goals. Above all, while it might feel like you’re being kind by avoiding negative feedback, ultimately you’re denying people that chance to work at their very best — and reach their full potential.

So, how do you give feedback in a way that feels good for everyone involved?

Well, I’ve recently discovered a new favorite strategy for giving feedback — and it’s a truly incredible way to ensure your criticism lands in a way that feels good for both you and the person on the receiving end while also making it easy for people to take advice and improve performance.

It’s part of a 2-step formula (step 1 of which might just come as a surprise!)

Step 1: Create a culture of feedback in your organization.

Okay, I know you were hoping I’d just give you a super useful script here and send you on your way. 

Well, the script is coming. But there’s one thing I’d invite you to do first that will make any feedback script you use 100% more effective:

Regularly requesting feedback.

Yes, scripts or formulas you can adopt and adapt are a great way to improve your feedback skills. What many leaders actually need to work on first, however, is developing an organizational culture that embraces feedback — and that culture should always start from the top.

Of course, this requires a little reorientation because no one actively enjoys asking for feedback. Doing so makes us feel vulnerable.

But when you, as a manager, regularly ask for feedback you open up a feedback cycle that offers multiple benefits:

1. Feedback begins to feel like just another facet of working life rather than something that only ever happens when someone screws up. As such, your employees won’t panic when the time comes for them to be on the receiving end — they’ll be less likely to go into defensive mode and be more open to what you’re saying. The added bonus: it’ll feel less like a huge deal to you too, so you’ll have less anxiety around the whole process.

2. Because you’re regularly inviting feedback, you’ll know how it feels to face potential criticism. You’ll experience different types of delivery and will learn what type of feedback pushes you towards change and which, at times, hurts your feelings. This will increase your empathy for your team members and help you deliver feedback in ways that are more sensitive and constructive.

3. When you model an ability to embrace feedback and use it to improve your own performance, your people will learn to do likewise.

4. Looking beyond the benefits of creating this feedback loop, learning what you’re getting right as a leader and what you’re getting wrong will be enormously helpful for your own development. You’ll learn about tiny problems before they escalate and you’ll be able to avoid all sorts of issues, from de-motivated employees to inefficiencies in your processes.

Here’s how to make it work:

Ask your team, “How am I doing as a manager? What’s one thing I’m doing well for you right now and what’s one thing that could go better?”

Do this regularly (during a weekly 1:1 is ideal if you can manage it) and remember to accept the feedback with good grace and with a willingness to act on the things you could be doing better.

Step 2: I like. I wish. I wonder.

So you’ve reoriented a little and understand the importance of modeling how to receive feedback; now is the time to bring in a script. And one feedback formula that I really love is this:

I like. I wish. I wonder.

Say you’ve had someone write an organizational report and you need to give feedback. Mention one thing you really like about the report. For example, “You’ve structured this beautifully”. Move on to one thing you wish they’d done differently: “I wish it was a little more concise.” And finish with the “I wonder” part: “I wonder if it would be more impactful if you included a section on X?”

This is incredibly subtle — but incredibly effective too. In fact, it’s so good, you don’t have to save it for your team; it can work just as well on your kids, your in-laws, or even your annoying neighbor!

The truth is, feedback isn’t about criticism — it’s about caring. After all, you didn’t get to where you are now without someone caring about you enough to provide feedback on how you could learn and improve. So creating a culture of feedback in your organization is a great way to pay that forward: when you feel comfortable enough to share and your people feel comfortable enough to listen, you’ll all be able to make greater progress towards your professional goals.

Want to learn more about how to deliver feedback in a way that feels really great for all parties? Take a deeper dive with my How to Give Feedback workshop where we’ll explore the “I like. I wish. I wonder” formula as well as some other easy-to-adapt feedback scripts, like the SBI feedback model from the Center for Creative Leadership, and the Eight-Step Feedback Formula from Candid Culture.

Sign up for The Feedback Workshop! Click here for details on how to join.

The last few years have been a lot to handle. 

Many of us have been fueled by sheer adrenaline and, as that adrenaline starts to dissipate, we’re realizing that our mental health maybe isn’t where we’d like it to be.

Of course, logically knowing that mental health issues are on the rise and that at least some of your people are likely to face periods of struggle is one thing — suddenly realizing that one of your employees is in the bathroom crying or having a panic attack is a whole other thing.

Even if it’s something less dramatic, like an employee who seems really disengaged or distracted, or whose work isn’t hitting their usual standard, it can be incredibly hard to know what to do in the moment to help someone experiencing a mental health crisis. 

Maybe it’s a new experience for you. Maybe you’re feeling a little shaky yourself. Maybe you’ve just never thought about how you’d handle something like this.

So think of what I’m about to share as a mental health form of CPR — you hope you never need to use it, but you’re glad to have it in your toolbox, just in case.

What to do in an emergency.

First up, let’s look at what to do if an employee is in crisis and it seems like a true emergency situation.

If it feels like your employee’s life or physical safety is in imminent danger or the safety of other people is in question, you’re going to want to make that 911 call. Another option is to call 988, the new Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (the updated version of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline), and follow the expert advice provided by the call handler.

What to do in a non-emergency situation.

If your employee is clearly experiencing a mental health crisis (or even if you just suspect they might be) but it doesn’t feel like they’re in imminent danger, you have a few different options.

Primarily, you’ll want to conduct a welfare check with your employee — a meaningful conversation that helps you gauge their well-being.

You wouldn’t want to wade in here with a “hey, you look depressed, what’s up?” This is most definitely a time to tread carefully. 

Think leading with curiosity rather than accusations. 

Try something like, “I’m concerned about you, you don’t seem as engaged in our team meetings. How’s everything going?” You’ll also want to reassure them that you’re there to listen without judgment and that you’ll do whatever you can to help.

Of course, those are not easy conversations to instigate or navigate, so it’s okay if you need a little guidance. That would be a great time to call your Employee Assistance Program for help, talk to your HR director, or even seek the support of an HR consultant.

The most important thing, though, is that you’re willing and able to listen to what your employee has to say. If it turns out that they’re feeling overwhelmed about their workload, if they’re struggling because of an issue in their personal life, or if they’re navigating a physical or mental health issue, you’ll want to be ready to brainstorm possible accommodations that would be reasonable for your workplace that will help them through this difficult period.

For example, maybe they need to leave an hour early every Thursday to attend a therapy appointment. Or you might consider an alternative workload distribution if someone has been taking on more tasks than they should.

Preventing mental health crises.

Naturally, many of the potential drivers of an employee’s mental health crisis will be far beyond your control.

However, for those experiencing ill health or personal problems, working in a nurturing environment can help prevent them from reaching that crisis tipping point. So what can you do to play a part in helping your team members avoid a crisis?

Two words:  choice and connectedness.

Giving your employees choices, versus telling them what to do, gives them more control over their situation. That might look like letting employees choose remote working a few days a week, offering alternative start and finish times, and providing more opportunities for career development and progression. It might even be the best choice you can offer is the choice to leave if someone is very unhappy in their position but doesn’t have the tools or ability to communicate their need to leave. Helping people transition to a new position or even a new company can be a great relief for those employees.

And connectedness…

Employees who feel like they’re just an unappreciated cog in a machine that would happily spit them out is a huge issue in many organizations. But when teams feel a real sense of connection, people feel more valued, more motivated, and happier both in and out of the workplace.

So don’t dismiss the importance of things like regular team meetings, team lunches, and even (non-cringey) team-building sessions. All too often managers claim they don’t have time for these things — but fail to think about how many hours they might lose to employees who are burnt out, stressed, and calling in sick.

Another great tip for building connection within your teams is a specific team check-in, devised by Brené Brown, where you start each meeting by inviting everyone present to name two emotions they’re currently feeling. Not only does this help people feel like you view them as actual humans and not just machine cogs, but it also allows you to assess where your team members are emotionally so you can figure out who is struggling and might need a little extra help.

Admittedly, times are hard for many people right now and as a leader, there’s only so much you can do to shore up your employees’ mental health. That said, work is such as huge part of our lives, that anything you can do to help your people feel valued and connected in the workplace will definitely go a long way to mitigating at least some of the challenges they’re experiencing.

If you found this helpful, you’ll love my Manager Training Series where I teach leaders like you how to develop a strong foundation of leadership skills. Click here for the details.

Many of us work in a hurried, reactive environment. We tactically respond to what's coming at us each week, each day, even by the hour, like the game of Whack-a-Mole. The pace is not sustainable. This approach is causing exhaustion for managers and even for our most engaged team members. 

I hear from managers about the disorder that happens in the workplaces. They are tired, bewildered, and don’t know how to fix the system that they created or in some cases inherited. While doing the great work of delivering client projects, helping earn new business we sometimes forget the critical work of developing a team and sustainable systems to make the work and workplace thrive. So, we live in this place of antiquated systems, tools, processes and wonder how to unravel this ball of yarn, but then another client deliverable is due and the job of working on the team is set aside.

I know the place that you’re in, and the feeling of overwhelm. 

You might be managing from a reactive stance if some of these situations sound familiar;

• News among the team, and the company, often travels through the grapevine and rarely comes from management.

• Some people are in the know about important company info, while others, who are equally qualified, remain unaware. This causes discontent but let me point out that it also causes equity and proximity issues. 

• The team is not aligned on priorities.

• Team members may struggle with loneliness or lack of connection individually or with each other.

• The work feels transactional, and employees feel like a cog in the wheel of a big production with little personal benefit.

In an impulsive environment, we can fail to communicate important details with our team. This leaves employees, managers, directors, and even senior leaders occasionally in a confused dark space and often leads to frustration at its best, and active employee disengagement at its worst. If you’re familiar with the eNPS score, actively disengaged team members are considered “detractors”. They are actively not promoting your workplace. In fact, usually, they are actively complaining about it to their friends, neighbors, in line at the coffee shop, and those complaints are like poison to coworkers. Very few companies can withstand a trend of actively disengaged employees.

Here’s the bad news: the outside world might not get any less chaotic any time soon.

But the good news is that you can create a calm, stable work environment anyway by proactively leading your team. Sounds great ... but who has the time for that?

I get it, making this kind of change to move away from chaos can feel like one more overwhelming thing in a long list of overwhelming things. And I’m not going to lie, this kind of change does take a lot of effort upfront. But it pays off in stability, consistency, innovation, and performance.

(And just in case that’s not convincing enough for you, if you don’t make these changes, you’re creating an unsustainable future for your team and risk employee dissatisfaction, productivity, and regrettable turnover.)

The key to success? Consistency.

I’ve noticed in two decades as an HR professional that the teams and leaders who harness a methodical, intentional approach to communicating and leading a team have stability in their workforce. Consistency is the key. Identify how you want to lead and manage your team and stick with it.

And if you do nothing else, host a regular team meeting.

It’s not that this will magically solve your problems overnight, but you have to start somewhere, and I recommend implementing an effective team meeting. If you're not already hosting a team meeting, start with a consistent and dependable one. Or, if you have one but it feels stale or fruitless, reinvent it.

The benefits of a healthy, transparent, and dependable team meeting are palpable, here are a few from my experience working with mid-sized businesses:

• Connections thrive among the whole team  

• Team members develop a strong level of trust in their manager that they are knowledgeable about the happenings in the business

• Together, teams can solve problems, it’s not just for the manager and the individual who has the problem

• Brainstorming power multiplies in team meetings   

• Employees report feeling a sense of belonging

• Crosstraining and employee development thrive  

Above all: do not cancel your team meeting! 

The meeting can only work if you actually have the meeting!

Even if your agenda feels light, and you simply come together to bond, and follow through on your promise of hosting a team meeting, that’s a win. Don’t be the manager who cancels the meeting at the last very last second, or shows up and says, “Well, we don’t really have anything on the agenda this week, so...” Set a proactive agenda to effectively communicate important information with your team. It’s a simple, wide-reaching, and effective way to infuse stability and tip your culture in a positive direction.

Not sure whether your team meetings are worth the time? (Or maybe you’re pretty sure they are not?)

I’m here to help.

Check out my on-demand course, Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting. It’ll set you up for success with a downloadable course agenda and the exact components to include in your regular team meeting agenda.

Running the Manager Training Series is one of my very favorite things to do ... but I’m not going to lie, this cohort last year had me at the brink.

We were talking about department meetings in general, and they had sooooo many questions.

• ​What would I include and not include?

• Who should run the meeting?

• Should they have a prepared agenda?

• Should the manager hosting the meeting be the only one talking?

• Is a team builder or icebreaker even necessary for an established team?

• What about notes or minutes, if yes, who should take them?

• And, on and on...

This line of questioning went on into delirium. But it did make me ponder their dilemma. Learning about the higher-level stuff was great. But they also wanted to know precisely how I would structure a departmental meeting if I were hosting one.

By the end of the line of questions, it was clear that they wanted my EXACT FORMULA for an effective team meeting. And, friends, this is how The Ideal Team Meeting​ formula was incubated. 

Later that day, I scratched out my ideas and added them to our private LinkedIn group. You know what? It worked! 

The next week a participant said, ​"​Hey Amy​,​ I tried your ideal team meeting format and it worked! Starting with that team builder that you recommended the format worked for my team.​"​ 

Thanks to this cohort, I’ve been deliberating on making more guides like this for SIX MONTHS. Over winter break, I recorded an on-demand that answers the question of exactly what you should include, how, and why. This also led me to plan a series of related classes that will support your curiosity in taking a deeper dive into some management tactics that we talk about at a high level during the ​M​anager ​T​raining ​S​eries.

And now, I’m very pleased to announce that Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting is ready and available for you to make your meetings that much better.

I’ve tested this with a few clients, and here is what one of them had to say:

"The Building Blocks to an Effective Team Meeting course hit the spot in terms of giving both conceptual and actionable guidance to address my current needs. I'm adopting The Ideal Team Meeting Agenda and adapting it to meet the needs of my senior leader meeting."

— David Weiner, CEO, Social Studies School Service

So if you’ve ever been in a meeting that’s less than great (or run one yourself!) check it out!

A Leaders Guide to Survive Election Day in your Office

McGeachy Consulting, LLC

How to Survive Election Day in Your Office

In the workplace, you cannot tell team members or employees how to think but you can set boundaries to tell people how to behave. As we approach election day 2022, it’s good to set expectations of how to behave in the workplace regarding elections, politics, or other divisive topics.

These tactics might help your small or mid-sized company fair better this election season.

Send this email

Happy Election Day/Season! It’s your awesome right to vote. You are free to discuss politics with your coworkers so long as it does not disrupt our intense focus on (our clients/our project/our customers). A discussion is just that, a friendly dialog among coworkers. Please notice that if your heart begins to pound, your voice gets loud, you might be debating politics and that is strictly off-limits. Debates are meant to find a winner and a loser and there is no place for that in our workplace. Today and in the weeks ahead, tread lightly, be kind, and assume that your coworkers have the best intentions.

You are equally free to refrain from talking politics, elections, etc. This is 100% your choice. If you prefer not to talk about with coworkers about these delicate topics, speak up and simply tell them. If a co-worker is unruly about the election or politics, please tell a manager.

Managing unruly teammates

Q. If an employee becomes unruly, boisterous, or is debating everyone in the workplace, what should I do?

A. As their manager, you should send them home. Not as a punishment but as a win-win for the employee who is obviously unhappy at work and for the coworkers who are tired of hearing the political rhetoric from their teammate.

Q. What if the employee is not in the office and this is coming across via Zoom, email, and group chats?

A. It’s time for a one-to-one conversation with the employee. The conversation could go something like this, “I’d like to talk to you about your need to debate politics (divisive topics) with your coworkers. I’ve noticed that many team members have opted out of projects, skip Zoom meetings where you will be participating, and they have even shared that they are simply tired of your ongoing political discussions and slights. The impact for you is that you’re missing out on opportunities to work with some of our best designers on projects. I’m worried this will have a long-term impact on your career and promotional status.’ Ask the employee their perception of the situation and then be ready to make a suggestion.

‘Would you be willing to halt your divisive discussions at work to prevent further damage to your reputation?’

Then build agreements and accountability to ensure that the employee sticks to their plan. 

If the team member objects to a change in behavior, you may need to move to a disciplinary mode but let’s hope that they care more about their own career than their need to talk politics at work.

*This dialog format is from Candid Culture’s Eight-Step Feedback Formula.

Coloring helps with stress and anxiety (share these!)

Coloring helps with stress and anxiety. Perhaps share these coloring pages with your team to help calm the workplace...Van Gogh Starry Night, a mandala, dutch landscape, or this pop culture piece. A nice coloring contest might help shift the focus this week to a friendly interoffice competition.

Collaboratively Set Ground Rules

As a team, develop clear ground rules for this season. Once these are set, share them and hold each other accountable to these rules.

To set ground rules, start by brainstorming with the team. They truly has the best answers for what they think will establish a healthy culture. Then let the team vote on the top 3 or 5 rules so that they are narrowed down. This also helps the team gain alignment with the rules. I strongly suggest the manager maintains control over the final ground rules. To do this, during this meeting the team develops a draft, and the manager will finalize the rules and share (after the meeting).

In person, this looks like drafting the rules during a brainstorm on a flip chart, then letting each individual team member vote for their top, say, 3. The rules with the most votes, the most favored, would be the rules the manager will use as their draft. 

Via Zoom, you can brainstorm rules using a collaborative Google Doc. Then either vote using a Poll in Zoom, or have individuals add their name to the end of the 3 rules they are voting for. A Zoom Poll is anonymous whereas the Google Doc option is nonanonymous. Your choice.

Remember your why

In your business, you are here to provide the most amazing ___________ (fill in the blank with your thing). Politics, religion, social movements, nor pandemics can stop you from focusing 100% on being the best agency, financial planning firm, nonprofit, publisher, restaurant, etc. Get back to your WHY, remind employees why you’re in business, and let the previously mentioned hot topics shed from the conversation. Let all of your collective energy flow into the why.

Thinking of small and mid-sized businesses everywhere, and especially my clients, and hoping for calm, zen, and kindness in your workplaces today, and in the weeks to come. Good luck!

SHARE IN THE COMMENTS HOW YOU ARE SURVIVING. WHAT TACTICS HAVE WORKED FOR YOU AND YOUR WORKPLACE?

A practical guide to more empathetic management

McGeachy Consulting, LLC

Have you noticed that people are a bit more ... edgy in the workplace these days? From your direct report being moved to tears by well-meaning constructive feedback or that one person everyone tip toes around because they never know what might set them off, the world of work has definitely changed.

Organizational Development leaders have been talking about empathy and connection as qualities of inspiring leaders for some time but now, in this post-COVID era, when people are returning to the office, working hybrid, feeling overwhelmed, possibly even burnt out, pulled in many directions, empathy and connection seem vital to positive relationships at work.

But does it really make a difference? And how do you make it happen?

Short answer: yes, and practice.

The Center for Creative Leadership has found that “Empathy in the Workplace is positively related to job performance.” That's relevant to everyone, managers and individual contributors. Also they noted that managers experience two boosts to their performance by practicing empathy. First, they were viewed as a better supervisor to their direct reports. And, "Managers who practiced empathetic leadership toward direct reports were viewed as better performers by their bosses."

How to be empathetic in the workplace:

A lot of it comes down to how you interact in conversation with the people around you. Something as simple as using empathetic statements can really make a difference. For instance, when someone...

• shares bad news with you

• expresses a complaint (even if it's about you!)

• discloses their feelings or fears

...consider saying something like,

• I’m so sorry, I don't even know what to say right now, but I'm glad you shared this with me

• It makes sense that you feel ___________.

• It sounds like you've done everything you could

• I'm sorry you're experiencing this right now

• I understand how you feel

Empathy vs. sympathy

It’s also important to note that we’re talking about empathetic here, not sympathetic.

Empathy is digging into your painful past, pulling up your own feelings similar to what the person just shared with you, and responding. I know I'm in empathy with someone when I physically feel it in my chest. When someone shares that their family dog has passed, my body immediately pulls up those aching feelings, and I goes straight to empathy. “I'm so sorry to hear that. I don't even know what to say, but I'm glad you told me.” And then I usually say something like, “Let the ugly tears flow”, because I know from my own experience that it's healthier to let them out than hold them in. 

By noteworthy contrast, a sympathetic response would be something like; “At least it was only your dog and not a family member” (Ouch!”, or worse, “That will save you a bunch of money on dog food and vet appointments (double ouch)”. You know you have defaulted to using sympathy when the words at least are included in your response. 

Here are a couple of real-life examples to help you really integrate the difference:

Empathy in the Workplace, McGeachy Consulting, LLC

If you take away one thing from this blog, put a sticky note on your desk, reminding you not to use the words "at least" if you intend to be empathetic. And, watch yourself when you try and one-up someone’s situation when a dose of empathy would be beneficial instead.

I'm practicing using empathy to build better connections with people, I hope you will too. Our workplaces, and the world, need it.  

And, of course, if you’d like help in developing your managerial skills for this new world of work, I’m here to help. See how we can work together here.

4 ways to implement recognition practices at your small to mid-sized business

Amid the tail end (maybe, please let it be!) of COVID and the current inflation, and gas prices that soared to nearly $6.00 per gallon, I hear daily from employees who just feel ... hopeless. 

While, yes, it’s important to recognize your role as a manager or employer –– let’s be honest, you’re not going to solve the gas crisis –– infusing hope and appreciation for who and what is occurring at your workplace is your job. Period.

Too many people take on the role of “manager” but forget to dedicate time in their week to perform the functions of a manager. It’s not for the faint of heart, and neither is it for someone who considered it one of many things on their list. The best managers make managing a top priority. A huge part of that is recognition and gratitude of your team members.

Why is gratitude important?

Karl Sun shares in his Forbes article that “Gratitude is a basic human requirement — and since we spend most of our waking hours at the office, giving and receiving thanks at work becomes pretty important.” 

Think about this, when someone gives you authentic gratitude for the work that you do, the person you are, the qualities that you uniquely bring to the team, doesn’t it reaffirm that you are in unequivocally in the right job? “Thanks for being you”, or “We appreciate you for what you bring to our team”. It snaps alignment and employee engagement into place.

In fact, WorkHuman tells us that when employees feel authentically recognized at work they are 73% less likely to feel burned out, 4 times as likely to be engaged at work, and 5 times more likely to be engaged with the culture! 

Here are 4 ways you can implement recognition for your team:

1. Start a weekly gratitude practice of appreciating the people on your team. Make a habit of sending emails weekly to people on your team who you appreciate. If you have a larger team, ask your direct reports who on their team deserves recognition. This looks like, “Estelle, your manager Clara told me about the big speaking engagement you had last week. It sounds like you were brilliant at the convention breakout session and gathered several viable connections. I knew you would shine on stage. Well done!”

Gratitude formula: 

Send gratitude via email, Slack, or through a system like Officevibe’s “Good Vibes” tool. Be specific and timely about what you appreciate about the team member.

2. Make gratitude part of your weekly team meeting. Kick off the beginning of your all-staff or all-team meeting with a collective sharing of recognition. Spend 5-8 minutes at the beginning of your in-person or virtual meeting sharing recognition. As a leader, you want to be prepared with 1-2 to kick it off, then turn it other to others to join in.

3. Focus on what’s going right. Too, too often, we get sucked into constructive feedback and fail to focus on what’s actually going right. John Gottman’s research teaches us that in workplaces, to maintain a healthy relationship, we need a 3:1 ratio of positive to constructive interactions. If all you’re dishing out is constructive feedback, you have to assume that your relationship with your direct reports and peers is not good. 

This does not mean that you ignore constructive feedback but when you find yourself doling out negative feedback repeatedly, pause and do a reset.

4. Establish a gratitude wall in your office, perhaps the entryway or break room? Supply vibrant sticky notes and Sharpies and let your team contribute to a culture of appreciation. Pro-tip: set a few rules for your Gratitude Wall, including a timeframe that the wall will be ‘up’. Also start the will with a few of your own sticky note pieces of gratitude.

In the end, fostering gratitude and recognition among your team is a key management skill of any fabulous manager --- but ironically never shows up as a “requirement” on a job description.

If you want to lean into your role as a great manager, I’m here to help. Join me for my next Manager Training Series cohort to gain the skills, tools and inspiration to thrive as a manager.

Hygiene. It’s maybe not the very first word you associate with your day-to-day management, but, just like hand-washing and flossing your teeth, it’s those simple but important tasks that keep you and your team well.

Things like ...

• One-on-one meetings with each direct report.

• Regularly providing positive and constructive feedback.

• Performance management in the form of reviews, goal setting, and check-ins.

• Checking on the mental health and well-being of your team members.

• Encouraging your team members to take their PTO and have work-life balance. 

• Regular team meetings and all company meetings.

Those things we all know we should do, and yet ... don’t always follow through on, especially when things get busy.

What happens when you ignore management hygiene

You know how it is. 

Business is good, the team is humming along, and all of a sudden that weekly team meeting seems somewhat less than a good use of everyone’s time.

But there’s a cost to skipping out on your hygiene habits, and it comes sooner than you might think.

Suddenly, you’ve got a team where everyone has different ideas about what’s actually going on. Or you find that your organization is relying solely on grapevine communication to get things done, and start to see all the stressors and mistakes that causes.

The worst part is, it all seems to happen so fast, before you even realize what’s going on.

The good news is, you can learn how to spot it before it becomes an issue if you know the signs.

Keep a lookout for things like office gossip getting out of hand, people doubling up work without meaning to, or, even worse, working on conflicting tasks.

Another sure sign of poor management hygiene is people getting burned out, or not taking their PTO. Any time you hear people starting to say things like, “I can’t take time off, there’s nobody to cover my work,” you should take a look at your hygiene practices.

Similarly, employees starting to feel disengaged is a big warning sign. Once you start hearing, “I don’t know what’s going on with XYZ project, or worse, they hear from another team member, “you didn’t know that such and such happened?” insinuating that you are out of the loop, you need to make some changes.

None of that sounds particularly great ... but it’s all completely preventable.

So what can you do to establish better management hygiene? It all comes down to three pillars:

1. Regular proactive communication with direct reports in the form of one-on-one’s with a focus on connection, results orientation, and removing barriers

2. Consistent team meetings, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, and where minutes/a recap is shared. 

   In the book Daring Greatly by Brene’ Brown, she shares that the minutes should include:

   Date

   Meeting Intention

   Attendees

   Key Decisions

   Tasks

   Ownership

3. Performance management, formal written feedback 1-2 times per year

Sounds simple -- but it helps establish communication consistency, goal orientation, team cohesion, and commitment to processes. (AKA all the things that underpin a great organization.)

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Photo credit: Dick's Sporting Good's employee, Rhya Alexis Elattrache

Things have been heavy latley for those of you managing mid-sized businesses. With the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade I wanted to provide a sample response of how one company is supporting their workforce in maintaining their women’s healthcare.

Dick's Sporting Goods once again is leading the way in guiding issues facing the workplace. According to an employee, Dick's sent this email to their workforce on Friday indicating their support for employees seeking abortion and how they will fund this healthcare service. After discussions with a few small business leaders about this very topic, I felt that this is a good model to use as you develop your own policies. Here you will find a list of other major companies supporting women.