Published on June 5th, 2018 | by Guest

5 Conversations Every Manager Should Have With Their Team Before Taking a Smart Move

Do managers interact with their employees regularly? Of course, they do!

Let’s take an example of any developed organization. Here there are many managers interacting and controlling numerous teams from small to very large ones. They communicate through emails, instant messaging, hold meetings with them, and when they are at the workplace they stop by their team and have a brief conversation. But, is it enough to have only these types of conversations?

As a manager if you are only discussing day-to-day tasks and duties with your team mates or junior employees, then there is very high possibility that they are not feeling very connected with their work. If this is the case, then it would be really very difficult to take the strategic move.

Discussions about your employees’ long-term goals and personal strengths that would drive them towards growth generally take place during general team meetings and formal performance evaluations. But there is a dire need to take these into consideration more frequently than it is taken generally.

Taking a strategic move is always a crucial decision to take; and its always the result of a team effort. As it’s a team effort so its always important to discuss people’s strengths, values and goals, and assure them that their growth is relative to organization’s growth. It’s a general trait of employees to naturally get motivated towards things that adds personal value to their work, and this is usually done by recognizing their talents and motivating them timely with awards accolades and recognitions.

As a manager, it is always a responsibility to help employees maintain a clear focus on their work, and to make this possible there must be defined goals and a clear purpose to attain success. So, to help your employee tree bear fruits in the long run, a manager needs to inspire his team and grow their abilities to the fullest.

So, lets have a look at the “5 Conversations every manager should have with their team before taking a smart move.”

The Development Conversation

Development plays a key role in providing overall satisfaction to any employee, and development conversations should be conducted regularly, say in a month or once in a quarter. These development conversations would help managers to know deeply about their team’s growth and specifically know about their domains in which they want to grow. As the agenda of team’s growth, its manager’s responsibility to help employees to achieve their career-oriented goals.

The main aim of these development meetings should always be casual, rather than discussing about formal agendas, development meetings should be about generating opportunities and training the team to take help of these opportunities for unprecedented future growth.

Managers should consider these meetings to be the informal ones which should be taken over a coffee or during the team lunch, this would not only help to create a friendly atmosphere but also a productive one and help employees to open-up and participate whole heartedly.

Questions like: what are your interests? In which domain you want to grow? Where do you see yourself in the future? In what way I can help you grow? Are some of the questions which managers should ask their employees to gain trust of his team to lead them with confidence in the future.

The Expectations Conversation

As organizations have different expectations from their employees, in the same way employees too have expectations from the organization or from their respective managers.

For a manager, to know his employees’ expectations he need to keep himself in the place of his team member or employee to know what exactly he wants. For every employee there are some things that he/she wants their manager to do for them, there are expectations, and often these are not expressed due to some reason or other.

So, it’s a managers’ responsibility to know their employee’s expectations and then tailor their approach for each employee according to their aspirations and needs.

Irrespective of the size and nature of the organization, every employee wants their managers to get them back with timely response to solve their query.

So, decoding these types of employee expectations from their behavior is the purpose of having expectations conversations, and this would surely help the managers in the long run by adding value to their strategic move.

The Aspirations Conversation

In an organization, every employee has their own career aspirations, and its unique and different form one another. Also, employees do have personal as well as professional growth aspirations within any organization.

It’s a common trait among employees to work for such n organization that provides opportunities for professional growth, also work under such a manager who has interest to listen to their queries and come out with a solution within a stipulated time.

Communication plays a key role in gaining confidence of one’s team, so to know one’s aspirations, managers should take help of these questions like: what are the skills you would like to develop, and how we can help you achieve your goal? Are we providing you with ample learning opportunities? If, not how can we change the system?

These questions will not only help the managers to gain trust of their employees, but also will develop a bonding between the team members.

Conducting check-in meetings

Check-in meetings are one of the most legitimate ways of building a strong team and at the same time it is one of the best medium of discussing agendas and taking feedbacks from the team members.

While conducting a check-in meeting, the purpose should be to hold the team accountable on valuable aspects and at the same time give any insights needed to do their best.

Regardless of the place or medium of conducting the meeting, it should be conducted bi-weekly or weekly. The conversations should be strictly related to the progress of the team which would serve as the calibration point for each one of them; thus, helping them to compare and calculate their potentials among themselves.

It makes sure that the team is having enough opportunities to get help on specific issues while also making sure their energies are spent towards making the smart move.

Nurturing Employees to Create a Winning Strategy

Its not easy to go ahead and take a strategic move to take your organization to another level, it’s a team effort and doing it alone is never possible.

If we take an example of any software development company, there is a common threat that everyone faces is, valuable employees leaving the organization.

The key to employee retention is investing in each employee to make them get what they want and make them know that what they are getting.

The more the managers help their employees along their path, the more they’ll likely stay and help the company on its journey.”

If valuable employees can be retained, then no force can stop to build a strong team which would take the responsibility along with the manager to take the long awaited strategic move.

Author Bio:

Sagar is a tech enthusiast by day and an avid reader by night. Currently working at afourtech.com, precisely he is a tech enthusiast who likes spending time by creating something from scratch. When he’s not writing or is out of his daily job role, Sagar likes to travel and explore new places.

Tags: business, conversations, employment, manager, smart move, team, workplace