Great managers know their people

Great managers know their people, know how to treat them, know how to keep them and know how to move them forward.

Were you truly trained to be a manager? To manage your friends?

One of our greatest challenges in any business is improper training and no one suffers from that more than the position of Manager.
I was recently speaking to a group of managers and several asked similar question. They all revolved around them being promoted within their department to the managers position.
And I hear some of you saying, well Steve, what's wrong with that?

The answer is nothing and everything.

If you organization is as sharp as I hope they are then what probably happened was that the department manager was replaced and you were invited to step into the managers role. With that being said, I hope your company then sent you or brought in an expert on being a Great Manager (me). And that they spend several weeks training you about what being a manager means, how you need to understand people, attitudes, difficult situations. How you need to know the five emotional languages your people speak without speaking a word. I hope they taught you about the D.I.S.C. method of knowing your people so that you would recognize what each person brings to your department and how you will need to deal with them in such different ways.

And IF they promoted you to be the manager of the department you were just working in I hope your company really spent some time training you AND working with your people so that when you move from being their 'friend' and co-worker into the management position there won't be the typical awkward and often times hostile environment that occurs when you have to manage them, discipline them and reprimand them.

If your organization does not do both of those things you will be in for a huge learning curve that will undoubtedly affect morale, productivity and office relationships.

And if your organization did not set aside time to train you as a manger you will have to take your personal time to read the right books and listen to the right material so that you can optimize your newly acquired position.
If you don't do your due diligence in these areas you are facing hard times and possibly even being a failure as a manager because your people will resist you moving from their co-worker to becoming their manager.

I hope you understand these issues and ask for all the help and assistance you can get and do not let your own pride prevent you from becoming one of your companies greatest assets; a Great Manager.

I am Steve Sapato, author and trainer in Mental Prosperity the way to find your success in your future at mentalprosperityblog.com

Sell? NO!

We all need to know how to sell something... after all, we all buy everything from somebody. ~Sss

Have you ever said, I can't sell? Well like it or not we are selling something every day. I sell my kids on cleaning their room, my spouse on helping out, my coworkers on doing a great job, my employees on how they can be better. My boss on how great I am. If you area Dr. then you need to sell your patients on why the should do what you tell them to do. 

I have heard so many people say about a person, oh, they are in network marketing an they try to sell their friends. I would never sell to my friends.

Really? Isn't that what the insurance agent is told to do first thing? How about the cutlery salesperson? The car salesperson? 

We sell to each other every day because we all need to buy things every day.

Open your heart an mind to becoming a person who can SELL. Then sell yourself as the best you can be at whatever you want to be.

Need help being better at "persuasion" (shhh~ that's the secret word for selling)? Call me, I am a business coach who trains people on how invite people to use your services because you are the best!

Are you feeling valued at your job? What can you ...

What makes a great manager? According to the experts over 80% of all employees do not feel valued at their jobs.
I know what you are thinking, thank goodness I am not one of them!
Now isn't that close to what you were thinking? Oh sure it could have been 'my people feel valued' or it could have been 'I know a manager who's people don't feel valued'.
Now let's face it, what makes you think your people are not in that 80%? What makes you think you are in the top 20% of all managers in the nation?

And the trouble is ALL managers are thinking the exact same thing! If all managers are thinking that then where does that leave you? and therein lies the problem. Most of us do not see ourselves as the problem! We see ourselves as the exception.

My question is, how will you find out if you are in the top 20%? How will you truly find out and you need to know that 80% of all of the managers who read this blog will not do anything to find out because they really don't want to know. As Yoda might say, question you ask, find out you will.

If you do not take some action after reading this then you are most likely in that 80% and you will deny it until the day you are fired or embarrassed.
And the top 20% are wondering, how do I find out if I am in the top 20%? How do I find out if my people feel valued?
That is what separates the top 20% from all the rest. They take action. They want to know. They need to find out. And they understand you can't just walk up to your employees and ask, "Hey, Bob. Do I make you feel valued at your job?" "Hey Karen, do you feel valued here at work?"

They know that kind of confrontation will never yield the true results you need to know in order to find the truth.

If you as a GREAT MANAGER want to know which of your people feel valued or even better, which of your people do not feel valued than you need to find the proper methods for polling or surveying your people so you get real results and not just a stamp of approval or the "yes" person attitude you want to find.

I can offer you methods to find the truth from your people. Drop me a note and I will send you some links. Don't forget to pass this on to all of your manager friends. And don't forget to subscribe to this blog: http://greatmanagersaremadenotborn.blogspot.com/
And learn more about being better at my website www.mentalprosperityblog.com

I'm Steve Sapato and I will see you at many of the Great Manager events coming to your team soon!

Great Managers are often mistaken about this one thing....

Yes! Great Managers can be mistaken! And we love to admit it! Because we are just like other people in that we all make mistakes and what sets us apart is that we are open to admitting it because we can learn and grow from every area we live in whether it's success or mistakes.

What makes a great manager and we are often mistaken about is that great managers create an atmosphere of peacefulness. Yes, we as managers do create different atmospheres at different times and when the time is right we need to create ... an atmosphere of urgency, or an atmosphere of excitement but most of the time we should be creating an atmosphere of peacefulness.

It has been proven that most people when working under stress do a less effective job, produce less effective results and are typically unhappy with their jobs. If you know and understand this then you will also understand that helping people to be assured, comfortable and at peace with their working environment will allow them to produce at an optimal level.

And we all know that if our staff is producing at an optimal level most of the time that the results we will get will be exceptional most of the time.

So while you may have been under the impression that you as a manager needed to keep the pressure on your people, keeping their "nose to the grindstone" as the saying goes will actually keep you from being the Great Manager that you would like to be and keep your from obtaining the desired results that your boss would like to see.

Now you truly understand that good managers are often mistaken about how to get the most out of their people while Great Managers not only know more because they have read and listened more but also because they not only create an atmosphere of learning and growth but they live it!

Don't get left out .. subscribe and learn how you can become a Great Manager!

www.stevesapato.com

A great manager knows one thing ...

Great Managers are few and far between and if you think you are a great manager know one thing… unless you have people asking to work for you when one of your people leave, you are not as great as you think you are. Remember, people will want to come to your department or organization because it might mean opportunity, promotion or change in their environment but if you are a great manager, people will be coming to you privately, to talk, or in an email, privately, where they will say things like, I just want you to know, that if you ever have an opening I would love to be on your team. Then you ask them why and they might say something like, I have seen …how fair you are/good you are with your team/how you treat your people/because so-and-so has told me what a great manager you are…
If you are not receiving these kinds of accolades or requests then you are probably not as good a manager as you think you are.
Being a manager is not what you thought it was going to be. Sure, you might be pretty effective in your job. Yes, you might get the results that your superiors expect from you and yes, you might even get accolades from your bosses and those are all necessary and good for your survival but…
that does not make you a great manager.
Great Managers get all of those things plus they have put together a team that works like a team, acts like a team, produces like a team and more importantly, likes coming to work! A Great Manager takes the skills their people bring to the organization and enhance those skills with the skills of others.  They find out what one person excels in and what that same person falls down in. One person might be great at details or stats or keeping you abreast of their progress but not excel at the actual design, implementation, connections, creativity that is required… while another person might excel at the creative part but not be great at the details part. A Great Manager creates a team within the team to accomplish all that both of these people excel at. A Great Manager knows their people and in that knowing creates additional gifts that the team will aspire to achieve and relate.
A Great Managers knows one thing.. and that is, they still have so much to learn and they can learn it from their team as well as their bosses.
Bring Steve in to speak and help your organization grow. www.stevesapato.com

The Five Emotional Connectors that can change your company

Great Managers don't always know what's best. Sometimes they have to rely upon their team, sometimes they have to rely upon superiors and many times they have to go out and learn more to become more.

If you are not signed up for all kinds of newsletters and information from many different sites you might miss some vital information.

One giant area that can make or break your organization is how do your people communicate? Yes Communicate! Now I ask this simple question, how long does is usually take for someone to make a judgement about a new person they are meeting. Good! Yes! Three seconds! and where did you learn that information? And how have you utilized that information within your organization.

It's not just that you have the information but it is how you, your team and your organization use the information at your disposal. What good does that information do for you if you have no idea how to make it work for you.

So imagine how much you have not been exposed to because you are not subscribed to numerous newsletters you have no idea even exist. Imagine how you probably would not subscribe to a newsletter if you felt the topic was not in your general area of information or from a different industry altogether. And if you are a good manager you probably understand that there are many things out there that you could use to improve yourself, your team and your organization.

And here comes a new idea so basic that we have ignored it for decades. The flip side of this is that we may even know it but we have no idea how to utilize it. And again, what good is information if we don't have or or if we have don't use it properly.

Imagine how absurd it would seem to be trying to cut down a tree with a rifle. Using the same tools and knowledge to fix an electric car as we used to repair a combustion engine. Trying to read using a microscope instead of reading glasses. But we do this over and over at work because there are hundreds and hundreds of concepts we have never been taught to use.

Want your organization to take a giant step into the communication concepts of this next generation? Would you like to be the guru of your team or company because you learned and brought an exceptional concept for working together as a team to your organization?

If you want to help your team or company then you must step up and learn this next evolution into team communication and structure.  How can you do this? It's easy, all you have to do open your mind to the Five Emotional Connectors that are either building or hindering your organization right now.

Five concepts so basic that we have looked right past them for a long long time and it's time that you not only learned what they are but how you can use them. Imagine how great a team can work together when some of the most basic communication has not only been ignored but misunderstood, miscommunication or worse yet used so poorly that we have already offended our co-workers and don't even know what we did. All we know is that they don't like us, we don't like them or they misunderstand who we are and how we treat them and we cannot seem to get past those barriers to re-establish the communication that is so VITAL to our teams success.

Now is your chance to grow and become a leader in your organization because I can teach you and your team all about The Five Emotional Connectors holding your team hostage.

Call me or write to bring me in to teach you, The Five Emotional Connectors that can change your teams and create a new atmosphere of cooperation and success!

Steve Sapato
steve@stevesapato.com

Great Managers put aside personal feelings

What makes a manager great? It is how they utilize the resources that are available to them. I like to think that managers in corporate America are just like managers of professional sports teams. Many managers come in and find themselves with established personnel and they have to make a winning team out of the people they have on their rosters.

Managers are much the same. And when you introduce yourself to your team you are going find multiple personalities and attitudes that you might not agree with or even like. And in order to make your team into a winning team you need to put aside personal feelings, put aside your likes and dislikes and evaluate your team from the perspective of a professional and find their strengths and their weaknesses. Look for a combination of team members that will make one better and make one great.

I know what you are thinking, but some of my people are not good or some of my people are lazy or some of my people I just don't like. I heard one recently, this person doesn't represent my group with the professionalism I want.

And here's what I will tell you, that doesn't matter. I will say that again, that doesn't matter. Each individual of your group usually has something to offer. Something. Not a lot sometimes. Not everything that's certain. But typically each member of your group got there for a reason. You may not recognize that reason and it is for that very reason that you need to involve the rest of your team.

GREAT Managers always invite their team to participate: if there is someone you cannot stand; someone you cannot understand; someone that seems to be everything you do not want on your team. That is when you need to involve your team. Invite your team to talk to you about what they see in their team members: Without bias. Without your input. Without your faces or your thoughts prior to their meeting with you or especially when they are meeting with you.

Here are the two scenarios: One is an employee that you cannot see is of value to your team. In your opinion this person should be traded to another team or simply set off as a free agent. Let them go. Fire them. And in your opinion this is the only thing that should happen. But what happens if you involve your team. What happens if other members of your team share with you the value that this person brings to your team. What if they really want this person and their skills on the team and tell you their value as they see it? Will you look for the greater good? Will you be able to change your opinion? Or will you keep on your path because it's your path?

The second scenario is the opposite. You see the great abilities of one of your team. You understand this could be one of your superstars. And yet your team comes to you and says this member does not fit into the team.They tell you how this person creates conflict, doesn't bring team values, doesn't represent the atmosphere that they value What do you do then? There are many opportunities to delve into how you might make this person fit in. But what it takes is complete abandon of your typical abilities and requires you to create all new scenarios.

We all know that in both of these situations you as the manager is challenged. One, you want to stand your ground and be in charge and tell your team that you are letting this person go from the team. The other is you want to stand up, tell your team to suck it up that this person is an exceptional member and you want to stand your ground and tell your team that this person is staying no matter what, so get used to it.

But both scenarios require you to think out of the box. As a Business Coach and professional I have helped many managers apply new thinking to these cases and all of them have had exceptional results.

For example, in the first scenario you might find that a few of the skills of the person you thought didn't have any  not only were highly valued by another member of your team but brought out the exceptional in them. And that when those to people were combined to work together they created a new dynamic in your team that not only raised their value but increased the team morale, value and abilities because of the energy that changed within the group.

In the second scenario nothing you could do would make the employee that came with exceptional skills fit into the group dynamics and nothing that happened with this terrific find helped the group to perform better and it actually can do more harm. Instead of the group dynamic raising it actually destroyed the group team and morale and the group foundered and in some cases the group may actually collapse.

Great managers realize that the individual abilities are not the only abilities that create a great team. Often times average or slightly above average abilities when combined with others abilities create exceptional team work and raise the team to never before achieved levels of success.

Now, if you are going to be a great manager, isn't it time you looked at your group slightly differently and helped them to become an exceptional team that will reflect you as an exceptional manager?

Without you your company would be out of control

I had an amazing experience a while back. I was driving next to a car that had virtually no shock absorbers. How did I know that? Because at ever little bump in the road the car would bounce happily up and down. The kids riding in the car were having a blast and probably contributing to the height of that bounce and they were just laughing and bouncing and bouncing and laughing.

Then a strange thing happened.. we came to a curve in the road and it went under a railroad overpass. Well you know those areas where the road dips quite suddenly? This car turned into the curve and hit that dip at the same time and suddenly the bouncing was completely out of control and for a few heart pounding moments I really thought they were going to lose control and crash into the concrete overpass.

Then they were through it but the driver was hammering his brakes... and pulled off the road and come to a complete stop... as I passed you could see the terror in their eyes because they realized how close they really did come to having a huge accident.

Well, I equate that event to you as a manager. Many managers allow their company to merely bounce along and when it hits a bumpy stretch the company and its employees are in serious trouble.

You see, a GREAT manager is like a good shock absorber. You have this massive weight of the car, in this case your company sitting above you and then you, the shock absorber, and then the wildly erratic happening of the springs and tires underneath it. It is your job to allow enough bounce to make the ride smooth but not enough bounce to make it lose control and crash.

You are that shock absorber. It is your job to balance the weight of the organization above you, maintain control, and accept responsibility for any actions happening at your level or below. It is also your job to absorb all of the shock coming from the springs and road, your people that you watch over and take care of. It is your responsibility to keep them from getting to bouncy wild, to make sure any potholes are absorbed and minimized, that any unforeseen thing that happens can be taken care of by you with little or no attention form the company above you.

A great manager listens to the hums, anticipates the bumps and keeps everything under control so that the organization runs smoothly and in the right direction.

You are the person that helps both of those things come together to make a wonderful working organization stay in control and keep everything moving in the direction it should.

So the next time you wonder… what makes a great manager? Just say…I’m here to absorb all the bumps. Until next time~ Many blessings and success in your managing!  ~Steve Sapato

Expectations?

I recently read a post that read 'the less you expect of me the harder i'll work to prove you wrong. The more you expect of me the harder I will work to exceed those expectations.'

While on some levels that could be possible, for instance, the less you expect the harder I will work to prove you wrong, typically comes from the realm of underachievers... the few that you run across who will react positively to this are people who need to prove themselves and have almost always proven that they have not excelled in the past and need to keep proving themselves because of reputation or earlier experience.

The second part of this is, the more you expect of me the harder I will work to exceed those expectations, also comes at the expense of too many people. By this I mean that high expectations can backfire. Along with high expectations there also must be high rewards, thorough explanations and understanding of what is wanted, needed, expected and why. Without those necessary understandings, most people feel that your high expectations are unnecessarily pushy. They will feel exploited, unappreciated and over worked. They will rebel, stop working or worse, quit and move on.

These expectations may be used to take rather unusual individuals and produce a motivated and exceptional employee but when dealing with the general population it should be noted that for most people this 'expectation' kills moral, depletes motivation and drives down production.

A great manager will treat each of their people as individuals. They will find out what their hopes and dreams are, find out what motivates them and do their utmost to find ways to keep their people happy within the realms of their employment.

I know of a company right now that when they hire their employees share with them how much they expect of them, how heard it will be and why they do it this way. They also explain one incentive that usually excites the type of employee they are looking for: after five years with the company they will receive an all expense paid trip to anywhere in the world for a month.

You see, learning what your employees want and better yet, hiring with the right incentives will help your company become or remain at the top of their food chain.

Learn more about the many different reasons people excel and what motivates your people as well as how to become a GREAT MANAGER by writing to me or subscribing to my blog at blogger.com/stevesapato