It’s a people business: how managers can produce top-notch performance by developing their people.

If someone asked if you could distil the job of a manager down to its very essence, what would you say it is?  

The answer is already in the job title: to manage the company’s people. The purpose of any company is to produce profitable results, but those results depend entirely on the efforts of the people who work for it.  

This makes a company's people the most valuable asset that a company can own. As for the manager’s job? It's to be the conduit between profits and people and to concentrate on maximising the people's potential for maximum profits. And this can be a tricky position to be in. 

Unfortunately, this ideal does not seem to be reflected in practice in most companies. Many news articles** attest to this: a lot of managers don't appreciate or don't know the connection between their people and economic results, which is why they mostly live in two opposite camps of their role description, care and brashness. 

On one hand, some managers care greatly about the well-being of their people and will choose to sacrifice the company’s performance to keep their people content. Perhaps some of these types of managers would not dare point out an employee's wrongdoings, and would rather take on all of the work themselves. In the long run, however, this type of conflict avoidance ends in disaster.  

On the other hand, some harsher managers may only seem to care about the company's performance and are inclined to override any consideration for their people in their pursuit of improved profit margins. When these managers continuously express dissatisfaction to their employees, saying that they are not doing enough and need to improve, this kills employee motivation and leads to high staff turnover.  

Given these two extremes, the sweet spot is to find the goldilocks zone between these two types of managers. It's where employees feel good about working for the company, but also deliver high-quality results driven by genuine motivation. And it hinges on the manager's ability to connect the employee's goals with the company's goals.  

So how can your company get there?  

For example, let’s say you want to define a goal for someone on your sales staff. You could say that for the next quarter, the employee’s goal is to increase sales by five per cent. This is an easy goal to monitor. But we need to ask the ultimate question: What's in it for the employee? What need of the employee is being met by achieving this goal, and how does this allow them to tap into their A-game?  

What is a need? To most psychologists, a need is a psychological feature that evokes action toward a goal, giving purpose and direction to behaviour. The most widely known and used model of needs was proposed by psychologist Abraham Maslow, in 1943. He proposed that people have a hierarchy of psychological needs, which range from basic physiological or lower order needs such as food, water and safety through to higher order needs such as self-actualisation. People tend to spend most of their resources (time, energy and finances) attempting to satisfy these needs. Maslow's needs approach is a model for understanding human motivations. **

So why do these needs-goals work? Because needs are what motivate people from within.  

In many companies, people measure their performance through their manager’s feedback and KPIs. If you happen to have a fussy manager, this feedback may be negative if their approach is to focus on mistakes with the intent of guilting employees to improve performance. It's often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

So how do we reorient this to work in the employee's favour? By identifying the need of the person: the employees can include concrete personal targets to strive for within the framework of the task, and they can monitor for themselves how well they’re doing by how close they are to getting their needs met. For example, let's say the employee has a need to feel accomplished and a sense of independence and ownership of their work. Understanding to let the person 'do their thing' autonomously will meet their needs. Whereas an employee that thrives on belonging, communication and feedback may require more engagement with the manager. Knowing and catering to those individual needs allow the employee to feel seen, heard and appreciated. ** 

Hence, by identifying the need of the person, the employees can include concrete personal targets to strive for within the framework of the task, and they can monitor for themselves how well they’re doing by how close they are to getting their needs met. This will boost their motivation since now the goal lies within the personal frame not just in the external form of the company. 

 
 The motivational booster of giving positive feedback for great work by making people feel seen and heard. 
  

Some employees, they may find that they get more negative than positive feedback - especially if their managers mostly notice what’s happening when they’ve done something wrong. After all, when things are going swimmingly, there is nothing new to report other than things are the way they "should be". This can be frustrating and can deplete employee motivation, as they often feel they can never meet the manager's expectations. 
  
To avoid this, you can get into the habit of giving praise where you express your satisfaction with something the employee has done. I used to work with a company that practised what they called "Appreciation Hour" every Friday. Every employee gave thanks or praised someone else in the company and shared how it helped them in their job this week.   
  
For example, you might say something like, “Johnny, you gave an excellent presentation on Wednesday, you came across as really confident and calm. It was amazingly detailed and well delivered! It made me feel thankful to have someone like you on the team!” 
 
If you as a manager, knew that Johnny's need was to be calm and confident during the presentation, you can point this out explicitly, as in the example just mentioned. And share with Johnny that he indeed met his need by your observations, and this will elevate Johnny's perception of himself and will open a pathway to a more meaningful conversation with you down the track. It will also let Johnny know that you care about him and have his needs in mind (and not just about the company's profits). This will help pave the way for Johnny to feel valued at work, and be more motivated working as a result. 

  
Praise and needs awareness show the employees that they are valued and appreciated, and it displays the level of expectations you have for them. When you do express praise, or needs awareness, or gratitude, make sure it is done authentically.*** 
 
When people see that someone cares about their work and their needs in doing the work, this encourages them to try even harder next time - and will likely lead to more peak performances. 
 
Ask yourself; do I know the needs of my employees? Do I have a system in place to allow for praise to happen? If not, then this is something to add to your do-to list today to create a better tomorrow. 
  
 
 References: 

* A great breakdown of human needs was done by Saul Mcleod who is a qualified Psychology teacher with over 17 years' experience of working in further and higher education. He has recently worked as a psychology teaching assistant for The University of Manchester, Division of Neuroscience & Experimental Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html 

**  One example is this article by Kerry Roberts Gibson, Kate O'Leary, and Joseph R. Weintraub in the Harvard Business Review notes that in the authors' years of working to improve organisations, they observed that many managers struggle to make their employees feel noticed and valued: https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-little-things-that-make-employees-feel-appreciated 

*** The same article in the Harvard Business Review (https://hbr.org/2020/01/the-little-things-that-make-employees-feel-appreciated) notes that "While employees were enthusiastic about the variety of ways in which gratitude can be expressed, they were not moved by empty or offhanded gestures... Meaningful expressions of appreciation were often described as timely, relevant, and sincere, and expressions that come off as hollow may actually be worse than no thanks at all. Managers also need to tread carefully when recognizing everyone on a team. Sometimes a group’s performance is not a reflection of equal contributions from all its members, and you run the risk of alienating high performers if everyone receives the same recognition."