Does Your Workforce Manage Up?

In most organizations it is commonplace for management to use a top down approach for communicating to their team by pushing information and ideas downward. But this usually produces less than half the efficiency and effectiveness of a dynamic workforce. Part of building a dynamic workforce is the ability to teach (and allow) your people to "Manage Up". Managing up is a little tricky to define, so let me give you a few examples of what I mean: Here are some things your people should be doing to manage up to you: · Communicate Proactively to you · Embrace your mission and help you succeed · Understand your goals and objectives · Anticipate your needs · Report bad news as well as good news · Build a strong relationship between the two of you Keep in mind; most people need to feel empowered and safe before they will start to openly communicate with their boss. Make sure you are building an environment that is accepting to this approach. A simple start to this is to have your direct reports send you a weekly flash report. It should be no more than one page and take less than 1 hour to produce. A simple format could contain; 3 important metrics, items done this week, items to do next week, backlog of items. You must continue to reinforce their ability to be open with you for this to work. Think about them receiving bad news. You want them to get that information to you quickly. If they do not feel safe, then that will not happen. BREAKING NEWS! Upcoming Webinar: I'll be part of a webinar panel on October 7th at 2pm. We're going to cover some important topics like: · Cash flow forecasting and management · Business Planning - new opportunities · Leveraging your team through uncertain times Here's the link to sign up: https://lnkd.in/eCkEXxi