The Folly of Rewarding A when wanting B and 9 other necessary managerial skills/traits

Managing a group of people or groups of people and aligning their goals with yours is a difficult, sometimes frustrating task unless you have the right approach. There are different supervisor, manager types.

Direct managers are those to whom people report to directly and who can influence their subordinates to do what they ask because for example the compensation of those working for the manager are in the hands of the manager. For a direct manager it is absolutely crucial to align the reward system with what s/he is looking for and to have transperancy

Integrators - are those in charge of moving projects forwards, cross team collaboration and getting other people to get things done, but who do not actually have authority over these people/teams. For an integrator it is important to align the team's goals with his own, remain organized and learn to adjust to different personality types.

Top 10 skills for a manager and how to improve them

1.) Organizational skills - As your responsibilities grow most likely you will be managing more projects, more people, more levels of complexity. You need to stay on-top of all of them because you are accountable for all of them. The best way is to use a spreadsheet or Microsoft Project. Have a column for project, team, task, deadline, state, benefit of task completed, dependencies. This will help you get the big picture and timeline for your projects and who is responsible and allow you to fill in the details. Meet with teams/ people responsible on status periodically and fill in the details. This will allow you to know what's going on, quickly report to higher management and help you quickly identify areas that require more attention.

2.) Clear Communication - Learn to organize your thoughts clearly. Make sure the person being asked understands what you are asking. Use short to the point sentences outlining the tasks. Use action verbs to indicate what needs to be done.

3.) Set Measurable Deliverables, Attainable Goals - Know the big picture but set attainable measurable goals. The project may last 2 years but how do you keep people motivated? Present the project in chunks. This will help people focus, and allow higher management see that you are making progress.

4.) Transparency - Make sure you know what's going on before you ask someone to do it. Is it to technical? Inform yourself of it. You must understand the task in order to make sure it is done correctly. If you do not one weak link can severely damage the success of your project and your reputation as the manager. Everything is relative so if one team is doing exceptionally well find out why. Are you measuring the correct thing? What incentives in that team are working but are not in another? Are there specific people traits that are present? Question, question question all the time.

5.) Give Credit Where Credit is Due - Did you have Joe B. write that summary for you, when you send it out to upper management sign Joe and I, or thanks Joe for helping put this together. Have multiple individuals contributed to the success of their project, if you cannot name them all give credit to the team. People will see that their work matters, will feel good about themselves and will be more eager to help the next time you ask. The praise can be private just make sure the people you work with know you appreciate them.

6.) DO NOT BELITTLE - How do you deal with an employee that is performing sub-par? Do not humiliate anyone in front of other it will fire-back. Approach the person directly, it is possible that she did not understand the requirement, make sure she is clear. The person is clear but has better things to do, make sure to align his goals with yours. Still nothing show others as examples that are doing a good job. Still having a hard time and no authority approach the manager, let her know the tasks required of the employee, the tactics you have tried and ask for advice as to how approach the situation further. She will be grateful to see your effort and will most likely help straighten out the problem.

7.) The Golden Rule - Are you asking employees to stay late while you run of early to get a manicure? People will start whispering. Treat your employees and coworkers with respect. Things come up in people's life, be understanding. Judge and reward your employees on performance and nothing else. Do onto other as you want done to you at the core.

8.) Make Sure you are Rewarding the Correct Things - Are you paying typists for how many keys they press per hour? You may get a pile of papers with just ongoing eeeeees. The difficulty lies in the fact that managers want simple, observable, measurable attributes to use in order to make sure a behavior they want is happening. The problem with this is people adjust to "gaming the system" quickly. Behaviors are often complicated and thus are not easily measurable by quantifiable things. The way to setup correct rewards is to understand and have transperancy and remain organized. This will put you in a much better position to understand whom to reward and for what. Make sure the rewards are understood and are for attainable goals and have substantial incentive for the employee to do it.

9.) Diplomacy and Evolution - You will be faced with different personalities and projects. Adjust your way of communication and management. Did you have to just send an e-mail before and things would get done? Well this time you may need meetings, phone-calls, personal conversations etc. Do you completely despise the person you are working with? Find out what makes him tick and press the right buttons to get what you want.

10.) Prioritize - Learn to prioritize in order to figure out which tasks can be done today and which ones can wait. This will help you push along the correct things. People will become numb to constant nagging and constant pressure. Make sure to explain what is necessary and when it is due (with some cushioning ofcourse), so people can understand the timelines. On a continuous basis remind people of the long terms but push the short term tasks.