Terrific managers do what others don’t or won’t, so keeping the business moving forward, says Dr William Holden, chairman of Sewells, in his latest installment of Sewells’ series with AM-online, providing monthly insights into people and performance management to help automotive retail leaders to inspire, motivate and guide their dealership teams more effectively.
Let’s face it, managers, and particularly middle managers, are the organisation ‘engines’ and ‘gearboxes’ (no pun intended) that turn strategic intentions into performance and results.
However, somewhat alarmingly, we’re finding many middle managers have lost the ability to be effective at making decisions, becoming masterful at creative problem solving, or planning and prioritising in a way that turns ideas into action and spectacular results.
The above are the basics of management; if we can’t master these, we’ll never be able to master the job of managing.
When we get them right, we will have maximum impact by being a terrific manager.
So how do we get it right then? Here are 5 key things to consider:
1) Terrific managers do what others don’t or won’t. How fast and smoothly the ‘engine’ runs depends on the deliberate and proactive choices they make each day, many times a day.
Have conversations others put off and don’t let busy work get in the way of truly important tasks. Focus on “the vital few”, not “the trivial many”.
2) Management is a social act. Therefore, conversations are a manager’s currency to generate excellent, trusting relationships that bring out the best in others. If we erode relationships, we erode results. 
We need to become a low-tech communicator, switch off our mobiles, unplug our PC/laptop and have more face-to-face time with our team.
3) We need to improve the business by building talent and partnerships. Selling – to internal or external customers – is often a push process, but the most powerful way to expand our opportunities and impact is through creating pull.
Pull is much more powerful … and sustainable.
4) Great managers know that time is precious and expensive. We need to make every conversation, every meeting, every internal memorandum and every email engaging, exciting even.
Enliven and explain. We should take every opportunity to be highly visible and responsive to questions, ideas, suggestions etc from the team. “You said, we did” always works well.
5) We need to weed out those who can’t or won’t perform. There’s nothing worse than good team members seeing perpetually poorly performing people “getting away with it.”
When we apply these, watch productivity go through the roof as our work relationships become deeper and stronger.
Let us know how you get on.
Author: Dr Will Holden, chairman, Sewells
