Planets Apart…

“I think the challenge for some managers is not to bring out the best in their employees, instead, they ought to stop bringing out the worst in them.”

The speaker left those words hanging in the air, waiting for a reaction. As he did so, I looked at the faces of one or two around me. This latest onslaught, in what had been an overtly confrontational talk, wasn’t going down at all well with a couple of the assembled managers in the room. But the speaker wasn’t finished.

“If some managers cared half as much about people as they did about numbers, then work life would be a hell of a lot better for all concerned. For Heaven’s sake, I even heard one of you say ‘headcount’ earlier today when referring to your people. Headcount…? That’s the language of the farmyard, not the modern workplace.”, he continued.

At that point, a man in the front row seemed to have had enough and he was quickly joined in the ‘discussion’ by a few more red-faced participants. Things got a little heated to say the least.

This incident happened at a seminar I once attended, and while the speaker was trying to make a valid point – that being how some managers need to pay more attention to the relationship they have with their employees – his in-your-face style didn’t work for some in attendance, and as such the message was mostly lost on them. Still, the event set me thinking about the importance of the manager–employee relationship in general and how, as with any relationship, there can be a whole host of misunderstandings and differing perspectives which can cause problems.

It should come as no shock that the relationship between you and your staff is an important one, but just how vital it is can often be overlooked. A study led by Brad Gilbreath, an Associate Professor at Indiana University-Purdue University and reported in Psychology Today [1] emphasised just how important the manager-employee relationship actually is. He found that:

“A worker’s relationship with the boss was almost equal to his relationship with his spouse when it comes to the impact on his well-being. A rewarding job or even good relationships with co-workers cannot compensate for a negative relationship with the boss.” [2]

 Surprised? You shouldn’t be when you consider that you directly influence the pattern of your team members’ lives for over 2,000 hours in any given year. At least they get to choose their partners; they’re landed with you!

1. Differing Perspectives

Given the significance of the relationship, the way in which managers and employees view various aspects of work-life really does matter, and there is plenty of research available to show that perceptions are often very different. I have seen countless examples of these opposing views in action over the years, and one particular case sticks in my mind due to the sheer scale of the perceptions gap.

The company in question was a big player in the aviation sector with global operations but one that had a history of poor ‘industrial relations’, as was the favoured term at the time. I was part of a team drafted in to examine the issues and propose solutions. One of the first tasks we undertook was to have managers and employees complete a short organisation climate survey which was based on important issues such as communication, trust, common purpose, etc. The results were truly astounding. The collated findings from the management team, when compared against those of the employees were, for the most part, entirely conflicting. Whereas managers, perhaps unsurprisingly, rated things like the quality of communication as being good, employees saw it as extremely poor. The only area where the ratings matched was that all believed trust was non-existent, which was indeed accurate.

When we brought the two ‘sides’ together (another telling phrase they used in the company) and showed them the results for the first time, the room erupted into laughter as the realisation dawned on all concerned just how different their respective views really were. Resolving the issues took many years but the shock behind the laughter in the room that day was undoubtedly a turning point.

Sure, this may have been an extreme case, but my experience tells me that in all businesses there are at times significant differences in perceptions, to the extent that you would be forgiven for thinking that some managers and employees come from different planets.

2. Misunderstanding the Motivators

This mismatch in management–employee viewpoints is particularly concerning when it relates to specific work issues such as motivation. A study by two researchers from Harvard [3] showed just how different perceptions can be on the issue of motivation. They surveyed more than 600 managers from a variety of companies asking them to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant:

• Interpersonal support

• Recognition

• Incentives

• Support for making progress

• Clear goals

‘Recognition’ topped the list of the surveyed managers when asked what they felt most motivated their people. While that makes sense, they were wide of the mark as it turned out. The researchers also tracked the day-to-day motivation levels of hundreds of employees and they found that their top motivator was actually ‘Making Progress’ (which incidentally was the lowest ranked issue by the managers). The study showed that three-quarters of employees felt most highly motivated, not when they were recognised, but on days when they felt they were making progress.

Now, whether you agree or disagree with these specific findings is not the key point here. The real issue is that with such differing perspectives on what actually motivates employees, you might be doing things in your business that you believe will make a difference when in fact such issues may not be all that important for your people. Or, maybe you are doing the right things, just not enough of them.

Here’s a non-scientific example of how good intentions can go awry.

I was recently chatting to the owner of a business with about 20 employees. Like everyone else, they have had a tough few years, but some time back the company won a number of contracts that more or less secured the medium-term future. As a reward for their hard work and to thank them for their contribution, the owner explained how he and his management team decided to hold a night out for staff. The event, however, caused a fair few unexpected problems. For starters, it was ‘employees only’, with no partners or spouses allowed, and this led to complaints. It was held on a week night, which meant that the younger crowd loved it but the older, married types felt it was an imposition on their evening and family time. As he recounted the general unhappiness surrounding the event, the owner was clearly frustrated that his efforts to do the right thing had resulted in more hassle and grief than had he done nothing at all. In fact, he told me that one older employee had even said to him after the event: “Who wants to go out on a Thursday night and be reminded what it was like to be young?”

On occasion, managers can unintentionally demotivate employees because they assume they know what motivates them. Evidence of this mismatch between what managers think and what people want is to be found everywhere, and the negative impact it has on motivation levels is not insignificant. For example, another Harvard study[ 4] made the not-too-surprising discovery that people are generally highly enthusiastic and motivated when they start a new job. However, based on their surveys of about 1.2 million employees, the researchers also found that in about 85% of companies employee morale declined sharply after their first six months and continued to deteriorate for years afterward. And what were managers doing ‘wrong’? The authors of the study concluded that “there are several ways that management unwittingly demotivates employees and diminishes, if not outright destroys, their enthusiasm.” This included factors such as:

• Clearly, reward and recognition are always important motivators for employees, even if they are not placed on top of the list every time, and this particular study found that about half the workers felt they received little recognition or credit, and two-thirds felt they were criticised more than praised.

• Another issue raised in the study – and this is again related to the ‘Making Progress’ finding above – is how some managers inadvertently make it difficult for employees to do their jobs by imposing too many procedures or hurdles to getting things done: creating an unwieldy bureaucracy, demanding too much paperwork and cross-checking, indulging in bad communication, etc. which all lead to frustration.

• They also make the point that “Many companies treat employees as disposable. At the first sign of business difficulty, employees – who are usually routinely referred to as ‘our greatest asset’–become expendable.” [5]

 Could you inadvertently be doing things to put a damper on your employees’ motivation levels?

3. Releasing the Reins to See the Gains

Another area where the mismatch in perceptions between managers and staff can come into play is with regard to the issue of empowerment. I once conducted a comprehensive survey of Executive MBA participants at ESCP Europe in Paris, a leading European business school. Over 220 participated in the wide-ranging study, and these mid-career managers represented a broad mix of nationalities and industry fields. One section of the study asked participants to identify the things that bothered them most about the way they were managed by their superiors. The top 10 were:

1. Micromanaging

2. Not involving them in decision-making

3. Disrespecting them

4. Not providing freedom/autonomy

5. Not giving constructive feedback

6. Not recognising effort

7. Not communicating effectively

8. Not having, or communicating, an overall vision

9. Creating negativity or poor team spirit

10. Ineffective performance/failure to get things done

This list is not unusual in my experience, working with employees at all levels I see similar points cropping up time and time again. When you group these 10 concerns together by theme you find that people generally want to be involved and included, to feel valued and respected but at the same time they do not want to have their hands held too tightly. In particular, the issue of being micromanaged crops up repeatedly these days and employees, or certainly the better ones, generally crave more autonomy in their work lives and want to be empowered.

Few would argue that the idea of empowering employees has merit, yet there is often a lack of appreciation of what that actually means, and the definitions available are as varied as they are numerous. So, here is probably a good place to attempt to define it in practical terms. First, empowering people forms an integral part of your wider efforts to engage employees and, as you are probably already aware, it means that you release the reins of control to allow them a greater degree of freedom over how they do their work as well as involving them more in decision-making about matters that impact upon them. Empowerment should be seen as a progressive activity, with a spectrum of options, which at one end of the scale can involve low-level empowerment, for example when you allow your people to make on-the-spot decisions within certain parameters. This kind of empowerment is good of course, but it only represents the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the extent of options available to you to empower your team.

True empowerment means working towards a goal where employees become genuine partners in the running of your business. It involves them in decision-making and allows them to take greater ownership of the way they plan and do their work. You may never reach that loft y objective, for many reasons, but over time you should work towards achieving high-level empowerment. And this is where the mismatch of perceptions can kick in on this issue: some managers believe they have fully empowered their people but are really only doing so at a very low level.

The points covered here about the discrepancy that can exist between managers and employees generally, as well as those in relation to specific issues such as motivation and empowerment, are worth reflecting upon and you should examine what problems in these areas might be prevalent in your business or department at present because the last thing you need right now are difficulties of that sort. The potential for mismatch is not solely confined to the areas covered here, so take a broad look at this issue. As a result, and no matter how many people you are responsible for, it’s worth asking yourself some important questions in this regard:

• Do you really understand your people? Do you know what makes them tick – individually and collectively? And do they understand you?

• Are you consistently striving to deliver on those expectations in a way that is good for the employees and for the business?

• Might you unintentionally be doing things that are holding them back or serving to demotivate your people? Are there existing misperceptions that you could eradicate through better communication?

• What is the level of empowerment in your business at present? Does it run deep enough to the point that employees have real autonomy to make independent decisions on matters that relate to their jobs?

 Finally, does it feel as if you are on the same planet as your employees most of the time?

If you found the content of this article interesting, I have expanded on the topic in my book, 'The Essential Manager'. Click on the image to the left to purchase the book on Amazon, or if you'd like a signed copy you can purchase one directly on this site via our products page.

References

[1] Gilbreath and Benson, “Th e Contribution Of Supervisor Behaviour To Employee Psychological Well-Being” (2004) 18 Work & Stress, pp. 255–266.

[2] Lawson, “Good Boss, Bad Boss” Psychology Today, 01 November 2005.

[3] Amabile and Kramer, “What Really Motivates Workers” (2010) January, Harvard Business Review.

[4] Sirota, Mischkind et al., “Why Your Employees Are losing Motivation” (2006) 11 Harvard Management Update.