The ONE Thing Holding your Management Team Back

As managers, it’s easy to measure our daily impact by a few factors:

• The amount of meetings we attend
• The amount of tasks we delegate
• The amount of processes we add to our workflow
• The amount of communications we send
• The amount of feedback we provide

However, there’s a disappointing reality to all factors: as managers, we’re the primary instigator. We add work to our teams and therefore, slow or prevent them from doing great things.

The ONE thing holding your management team back is an unwillingness to swallow your pride and get out of your team’s way.

Easier said than done, right? After all, a team left unmanaged is ripe for losing their direction. Management is still needed but how can we manage if we’re not “present” through meetings, task delegation, process additions, communication updates and more?

The job of your management team should be to serve the rest of the team. Your managers should tune in to the individual and collective needs of the team and figure out ways to support them. Your managers should consistently note the verbal and non-verbal cues the team is providing on frustrations with their work — and help remove them.

Managers are successful when their team doesn’t feel they are being managed, yet are still achieving the results.

By measuring the success of your managers with team feedback and achievement of results, it sets your managers free to be servants to the team, rather than “managers.” If your managers serve your team, rather than manage it, you will earn more effective and efficient results.

For managers to track accountability of their team, it requires a conscientious approach to oversight of team workload. Managers should strive to craft and maintain processes that serve the team at both an individual and team level. In order to do this, it requires that managers have a team-first mentality when structuring these workflows. Gaining transparent feedback and input from team members is key in supporting effort.

If your management team makes this shift in practice, your team will become more effective, efficient, empowered and generate better results.

At Cremalab, we’ve been practicing this approach for years, earning high remarks and results with our clients. If you’re interested in collaborating with a product development team that is focused on results, please reach out to me at info@cremalab.com or visit crema.us.

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