Get a threshold level of understanding. When managing an area, you need to gain a rich enough understanding of the people, processes, and problems around you to make well-informed decisions. Without that understanding, you will believe the stories and excuses you are told.
Avoid staying too distant. You need to know your people extremely well, provide and receive regular feedback, and have quality discussions. And while you don’t want to get distracted by gossip, you have to be able to get a quick download from the appropriate people. Your job design needs to build in the time to do these things. If it doesn’t, you run the risk of not managing. The tools I have developed give me windows into what people are doing and what they are like, and I follow up on problems.
Use daily updates as a tool for staying on top of what your people are doing and thinking. I ask each person who reports to me to take about ten to fifteen minutes to write a brief description of what they did that day, the issues pertaining to them, and their reflections. By reading these updates and triangulating them (i.e., seeing other people’s takes on what they are doing together), I can gauge how they are working together, what their moods are, and which threads I should pull on.
Probe so you know whether problems are likely to occur before they actually do. If problems take you by surprise, it is probably because you are either too far removed from your people and processes or you haven’t adequately visualized how the people and processes might lead to various outcomes. When a crisis is brewing, contact should be close enough that there will be no surprises.
Probe to the level below the people who report to you. You can’t understand how the person who reports to you manages others unless you know their direct reports and can observe how they behave.
Have the people who report to the people who report to you feel free to escalate their problems to you. This is a great and useful form of upward accountability.
Don’t assume that people’s answers are correct. People’s answers could be erroneous theories or spin, so you need to occasionally double-check them, especially when they sound questionable. Some managers are reluctant to do this, feeling it is the equivalent of saying they don’t trust their people. These managers need to understand that this process is how trust is earned or lost. Your people will learn to be much more accurate in what they tell you if they understand this, and you will learn who you can rely on.
Train your ear. Over time, you’ll hear the same verbal cues indicating that someone is thinking about something badly or failing to apply principles appropriately. For example, listen for the anonymous “we” as a cue that someone is likely depersonalizing a mistake.
Make your probing transparent rather than private. This helps assure the quality of the probing (because others can make their own assessments), and it will reinforce the culture of truth and transparency.
Welcome probing. It’s important to welcome probing of yourself because no one can see themselves objectively. When you are being probed, it’s essential to stay calm. Your emotional “lower-level you” will probably react to probing with something like, “You’re a jerk because you’re against me and making me feel bad,” whereas your thoughtful “higher-level you” should be thinking, “It’s wonderful that we can be completely honest like this and have such a thoughtful exchange to help assure that I’m doing things well.” Listen to your higher-level you and don’t lose sight of how difficult it can be for the person doing the probing. Besides helping to make the organization and your relationship with the person who is probing you go well, working yourself through this difficult probing will build your character and your equanimity.
Remember that people who see things and think one way often have difficulty communicating with and relating to people who see things and think another way. Imagine you had to describe what a rose smells like to someone who lacks a sense of smell. No matter how accurate your explanation, it will always fall short of the actual experience. The same thing is true of differences in ways of thinking. They are like blind spots, and if you have one (which we all do), it can be challenging to see what’s there. Working through these differences requires a lot of patience and open-mindedness, as well as triangulating with other people who can help fill in the picture.