Twisting the role of a Manager
A manager’s job is to connect the goal of the company with the people who are hired to get the company closer to that goal. The question is, how?
When you Google the word “Manager” you get a dry definition and when you look at the Image search result, you can see the same thing. One person wearing a suit and is surrounded by people looking happy.
In my opinion, a lot of times people look at the company’s goal and try to figure out how to get there with the help of their team. This is great and I think it is important, but not as important as to make sure your team’s goal is met.
When you know your team’s (and individual team members’) goals you can find ways how to give them what they want and/or need and still meet the company’s goal or meet the company’s goal because of that. Because you have taken care of your people.
In my experience, the people in a team usually do not care about the company’s goal. People don’t work for companies but for people. Every business’s main goal is to make more profit, so I think the easier way is to see what your team wants to achieve and turn that into a productive way that supports the company’s goals.
People are not washing machines, they are human beings with different needs, personalities, interests and goals.
Years ago, when I started in a London-based cocktail bar I used to work with young people, mostly immigrants from all around the world, whose most important need was to find a community, a home far away from home. My first manager (who later became my mentor and then a close friend) focused heavily on two things. Everyone is a respected individual with a different personality that is cherished and no “blame culture” whatsoever. He used to say,
“ If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.”
It needed some time to sink in, but I understood after a while. Having a safe environment and getting our job done takes ownership from each member of the team. It doesn’t matter what went wrong, we need to find a solution. And if we could not figure it out on our own, he expected us to go to him and he guided us through and let us do it. And if we did not succeed (and created a bigger mess), he would always be there to have our back.
With these two rules as a base, he always succeeded in managing our team well and that meant, that we took care of each other, the workplace and our customers which brought more money to the company.
And the company only cared about that, and we only cared about having our safe space.
I know, in the hospitality industry we have more leniency as a manager as we need to be more hands-on and our personality is a plus, not something that we had to tone down, but I think looking at teams from a different perspective and mostly focus on people is a great way to manage people.
I would be interested to see, how this view could be interpreted by different industries.
Feedback is always welcomed and appreciated.
Feel free to write me a comment with criticism, ideas or questions.
