Managing from your kitchen table — step six — the mid-crisis manager performance review

My sixth article in this series for people managers who are trying to making sense of managing their teams well during these strange times..

Common processes might be on pause for now, but common sense shouldn’t be. And common sense says, think about how you are managing and leading right now.

The key question to ask yourself is, when you look back, how will you feel about your own performance? You’ve had to do a bunch of things differently, adapt your management style and approach, make different assumptions, change your focus and be more aware of everything. You’ve had to cope with your own fears and worries as well as those of your teams; deliver bad news as well as messages of hope; cope with extraordinary stress amidst constant unpredictable and unexpected change, and do all of this at least at a distance, and for many, entirely remotely. How will you be remembered as a manager and leader during this time?

And not to add more pressure, but for many people this will be a pivotal time, a time that they will remember for many years, that will frame a phase in their lives, that will mark a “before” and “after” anchor. Memorable periods like this mean that things that happen during that time will stick in our minds, how we are treated and who we learn to trust (and mistrust) will remain important long after the immediate crisis has passed. So you need to have been the best manager you can be; this is not the time to give yourself a break, or feel that just being visible on zoom or teams has been enough. You need to have been your very best managerial self.

One of the things that great managers have always done is monitor their own performance; rather than looking to others for feedback, or waiting for performance review time, they have found ways to self-assess - looking for signs of the impact they are having and the difference they are making, and adapting their approach accordingly. Great managers do this all the time, and whilst they welcome feedback both formal and informal, they don’t need it to be successful. Truthfully, they usually have something of a tendency towards being self critical, which is not recommended, but is a feature of setting yourself high standards. There’s more about all this in the book, of course.

So my thought is, because I think we are in general about mid-way through this phase of our crisis, now would be a good time to conduct your own performance review. Think about how you’ve been managing your team, think about the things you’ve tried and the impact you’ve had, and make any adaptations you need to make to increase your success over the next few weeks. Here’s the review questions you might ask yourself:

1. Have I adapted quickly enough? You know what you needed to do — connect in many ways, use all of the platforms, get virtually visible and stay virtually visible, increase your contact and availability, talk and talk, include and involve, be that conduit for connectivity and a role model of accessibility. Did you do that well enough? Are you still doing that? And are you experimenting and adapting as things change, dialling some things up and other things down, changing your approach as needs change?
2. Have I kept my balance? Managers in particular have been the people that employees have looked to and leaned on. Have you reacted with the right balance — between optimism (vital) and pessimism (sometimes inevitable); between short-term concerns (really important) and long-term growth (ditto); between business stuff (it’s your job) and personal stuff (also your job, especially now)? Have you been realistic? Have you set out the context around the work in thoughtful ways, helped people to think through what is happening to them and around them, in a realistic and calm way. Have you been a voice of reason, a source of intelligence, a bringer of perspective and context, a sensible and balanced commentator, a role-model of balance?
3. Have I prioritised the work in a good way? For many of you, the goals you agreed for yourself and set for your team earlier this year are gone; performance metrics and targets are meaningless for most; all bets are off. And yet, performance still matters even if the measures are changing. Productivity is important, even if you’ve furloughed people, the people who are still working need to be working hard, focused on the most important things. Have you reviewed all this with them to get them working on the things that really matter, setting expectations that are realistic and standards that are achievable? Have you coached them, helped them to remove obstacles, solved problems together? Have you reframed goals to reflect the new realities? Have you set micro-goals around tasks for today and tomorrow, as well as goals a little further out? Have you negotiated with them that these will likely change, often, and you’ll be with them every step of the way? And have you remembered, whilst prioritising the work, to also look after them as people, to register and allow for the other pressures on their lives - the demands of home schooling or sick relatives or money worries or fears or loneliness or depression? Have you focused on high performance in the areas that still matter, and looked after your people at the same time?
4. Have I been looking forward? One of the trickiest things about managing in this crisis has been to simultaneously manage the shifting sands of the day to day whilst at the same time look to the future, which is still so uncertain and seemingly distant. So whilst acknowledging that whatever emerges from all this will be different, and the recent past is not a reliable guide to the near- or medium-term future, you need nonetheless to have been plotting some possible paths ahead. Have you built multiple scenarios, discussed possibilities with your team, worked through the implications of various plausible futures? Have you thought about how your clients or customers might emerge and what they might want from you, what you will and might need to change and do differently? Have you reviewed where emerging opportunities could sit? Have you thought about the skills you will need to harness, and the skills you will need to role-model? What about possible new structures, partnerships and alliances? New products and solutions? It’s your team, your responsibility — have you been thinking clearly about their collective future and how best to make that a collective success?
5. Have I been the manager I would want to work for? This is a lot about being more present and less impressive, more open and less..traditionally managerial. Are you staying out in front of your team, courageous and honest, realistic and optimistic? Are you staying close to your people, connecting more, coaching more, solving problems together more? Are you appreciating the small things, encouraging and supporting? Are you being more patient than you might normally be (not easy for most self determined managers), more open about your own challenges and worries; more honest about not knowing things, about the ambiguity of uncertainty; and more welcoming of ideas and suggestions, offers of help and support, thoughts and signals from unusual places? When they look back, will your team remember you for doing your very, very best, for being a positive force, a true leader of the team?

Managing people has never been easy — it’s a challenge for even the best managers in the best of times. This crisis has multiplied that scale of difficulty, and between looking after yourself, leading the individuals on the team, focusing everyone on doing great work and leaning into the brighter future to come, these are tough days to be a manager. Rewarding too, but tough. So don’t be too hard on yourself. But also don’t take for granted that you’re doing the best job you can; ask yourself these five review questions, decide what you could do differently, and make that change. Don’t aim to be an ok manager; aim to be a great one.

And since this is probably the last article in this particular series — my instinct is that focusing on the “new rules” for managers for the new future is where I will probably be most useful — can I just say, whatever you are doing and wherever you are doing it, thank you for reading, stay safe, and good luck..

Your writer is David Deacon: author of The Self Determined Manager, Chief Talent Officer, talent consultant and management developer, leadership coach, HR executive, regular writer on how much managers matter.. www.selfdeterminedmanager.com or email me at david@thetalentoffice.org