Jason Buffington .com

If you’re a manager, always have something negative to say about your team members’ performance.

video transcript

If you’re a manager, always have something other than affirmation to say about your team members’ performance.

A coaching client of mine had asked his manager about how he can improve. The manager said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing — you’re doing great.”

• To a low or mid-performer, that’s fine. It’s validation and things move on.
• Telling that to a high performer can be frustrating, even demotivating because they’re not seeking affirmation or validation.  High performers continually want to improve. One way they do that is to look to their management chain to help them see what they may not see … to get better, to make more impact, etc.

The least effective manager I ever had was really chill when he was a team member; so, when he took over the team, he just told everybody “just keep doing what you’re doing” (like, for a year).  That didn’t make any of us any better on our own … it didn’t bring the team together … which means it didn’t bring out our best for the organization. It also made end-of-year reviews and raises completely subjective. That is a failure by that manager and their management.

If you’re a manager, regardless of how high or low you are in the org:

Part of your role is to unlock potential within the individuals and across the team, for the benefit of the org (as well as the people).

If you honestly don’t see anywhere where one of your team members can improve, the answer is not “just keep doing what you’re doing” — the answer might be “let me think about that and I’ll get back to you” and then go do a little leg work.

• Maybe what you’ll find is just some tweaks between good, great, and even greater.
• Maybe your peers or their peers see things that neither of you do.
• Maybe what you’ll find is not existing responsibilities where that team member needs to improve, but that there are other needs (outside what they’re currently doing) that would be even more impactful to the organization.

Any way you look at it, as a manager, part of your responsibility is to unlock incremental impact by your team members for the organization and “keep doing what you’re doing” doesn’t do that.

See you next Monday