Managing people: the hardest part of running an agency?
You’ve heard it before: if you’re running a business, you will know that managing people is simultaneously the hardest thing you’ll do as well as the most rewarding.
However, establishing a few simple principles to optimise your people, your management of them and your approach will help.
Firstly, set a baseline principle that becomes your focus. An example could be: engaged employees have a sense of purpose, something to aspire to and are fairly compensated for what they do.
Unpacking Purpose
Employees understand and believe in what the business does and what they are individually and collectively doing in service of it.
Expectations are aligned; they know and are happy with what the company expects of them in their role and why.
They are communicated to and have a relevant amount of knowledge about the business and its performance.
Something to aspire to
The employee has a career plan that gives them a tangible and achievable pathway to attaining their professional goals (and importantly, therefore, their personal goals).
They have the support to get there e.g. training and development, mentoring and exposure to new opportunities.
On an on-going basis they have the opportunity to discuss their aspirations and performance against them with senior management.
Fair compensation
The employee is rewarded commensurate with their experience, skill and competency in their role.
They have visibility on a financial plan moving forward that includes salary and any other meaningful benefits the business can provide.
As a leader these things are not always easy to deliver.
Getting these principles in place calls for structure, consistently-followed processes and strong, decisive leadership. As the business leader you are responsible for this. So setting yourself some simple principles can help.
Be authentic: find your voice and develop a process and approach that plays to your strengths
Always be ready to listen and feed back. It’s not going to work if it’s all left until the annual appraisal
Don’t compromise on your standards: be prepared to be flexible but don’t sell yourself or the business out
Getting the balance right: treat your team with respect in order to get it back. Don’t expect to be one of them and then have to ask for the respect that your position demands. This usually means finding ways to simultaneously keep close and keep your distance
Seek senior support: executive and non-executive, you need people who are ready to be empowered, energetic and accountable, not just heads of departments or practices. Don’t be afraid to outsource support in order to get it right
In summary, three important points in managing people:
a vison of what you want to achieve and the process to support that
creating the opportunity for two way discussion
delivered in an authentic way by you
Without question this is a challenging balancing-act but remember, success is only really success if it works for the employee and the business (and that means you as well).
Lucy is a qualified coach, a DBA Expert and a BLINK Advisor. Read her bio here
If you fancy an exploratory chat about how we can help you, let’s find a time.
