Developing effective managers is the key to business success

I read a recent article demonstrating the difference made by effective managers which seemed to sum up a lifetime of experience. It summarised a number of recent research articles looking at the value of effective managers within any organisation.

Did you know that effective managers can increase productivity between 12% and 25%!

Another study by Wharton business school, looking at the electronic games industry, showed that standard of production management had a 22.3% impact on the success of a new electronic game. The standard the designer only had a 7.4% impact. These and other studies suggest that many organisations are drastically undervaluing the significance effective managers.

Have you ever stopped to think about the effectiveness of your managers? Are they really managing? Could their poor performance be costing your company much more than just their salary?

So what are they key competencies of effective managers?

Well surprisingly, despite all the theories and books written on this topic, there is a pretty consensus that there are just 7 key talents that the best managers show.

Relate – The ability to form and build trusting relationships with their staff
Energize – The ability to energize & inspire others
Coach- The ability to develop and get the best out of their people
Direct – The ability to set a clear direction
Execute – The ability to make sure that your team delivers on time and on quality
Innovate – The ability to encourage continuous innovation
Thrive – The ability to look after and develop yourself

Ref : The Return of the Manager – A white paper – www.themindgym.com

All of these dimensions are important but probably the most important, because it is central to all the others. is the managers ability to relate well with their staff. So let’s look at that one in a bit more detail.

How can effective managers build better relationships?

To help us I’d like to introduce you to a factional character called Tom. Tom is the brainchild of my friend Ross Page and appears in a wonderful book called Everyone Agrees With Tom.
TOM is actually an acronym for Trust, Objective & Motivation and reminds us that the these three elements are critical to any successful relationship. In the book Tom goes on a journey up a mountain and discover 12 tools that are the keys to happiness, success and great relationships. But lets just focus on Tom in this article.

Trust: Without some level of mutual trust it’s difficult to get commitment. Effective managers work hard to build and support a proper level of trust with each member of their team. They know which behaviours increase trust and which undermine it.

Objectives: Effective managers understand that when both parties share a crystal clear understanding of the desired outcome and how they will work together to achieve it success is much more likely.

Motivation: For a relationship to work there needs to be enough motivation for both parties. Effective managers understand this and create mutually beneficial win-win relationships with their team members. Of course they also understand that each person is different and so recognize that different people will need different motivational factors.

If you’d like to learn more about TOM and how he can help you become a more effective manager, leader, trainer or parent there is a series of one day workshops coming up in the UK and Australia soon. Click here for details of the latest Tom workshops