People join companies, but leave managers

Everywhere in the world, every company or organization is making an effort to mobilize people in order to succeed. Whether you are a not-for-profit, a government agency, or a commercial company, you are constantly striving to maximize employee contribution in an effort to achieve your intended mission and drive extraordinary results.

Of course there are external challenges that every organization constantly battle, but the most frustrating and costly challenges are mainly internal. There’s a people dimension in every business problem. These include issues related to turnover, disengaged employees, poor leadership, burnout, employee conflict, ethics violations, and employee theft. The principle challenge therefore that any organization will hurdle is how to hire, develop, engage and retain the right people.

In his book “Good to Great”, Jim Collins wrote about getting the “right people on the bus.” And once you find the right people, you have to find the best way to keep them and eventually to put them in the right “leadership” seats. Have you considered how much the having the “wrong” people cost your organization?Much more if they are your managers.

You have probably heard the saying, “People join companies, but leave managers.” When new hires join a company it is often because of the perceived opportunity and what they believe the company represents. Yet a significant number of exit interviews reveal that people leave an organization because of their managers. Based on a survey cited in "The Real Productivity-Killer: Jerks" by Maeghan Ouimet (2012) 65% of the respondents said they take a new boss over a pay raise. Yet when the managers were asked why their people left, the number one answer given was “for more money.” This discrepancy shows a significant disconnect between those in management and the people that they lead.

The impact that those in managerial roles have upon the performance of the organization should not be underestimated. That is why in this column, we intent to share best practices to managers to become effective leaders of people in the workplace hence increasing their employee engagement, contribution and productivity.

In a recent effort by Google to answer the same question, they undertook an initiative called “Project Oxygen.” What Google found was that the best managers had teams that performed better and had higher employee retention. They realized that if they could replicate the behaviors of the highest performing managers and make everyone as good as their top performers, it would have a significant impact on company performance and the bottom line. Thus, they began to explore what made their best managers so good, and tried to determine whether these attributes could be replicated. In their attempt to build better bosses, statisticians gathered and analyzed more than 10,000 observations about managers, across more than 100 variables, from years of performance reviews, employee surveys, and HR interview notes. They then coded all the information in an effort to identify patterns. What they discovered were several key attributes of their most effective managers ("Google's Quest to Build a Better Boss."| Adam Byrant |2011). You may find these helpful as well. Here are the eight habits of highly effective Google managers:

1.   Be a good coach.

2.   Empower your team, and do not micromanage.

3.   Express interest in team members’ personal success and well-being

4.   Be productive and results-oriented.

5.   Communicate and listen to your team.

6.   Help your employees with career development.

7.   Express a clear vision and strategy for the team.

8.   Demonstrate key technical skills so you can help advise the team.