Effective Business Management Techniques
Many people are hired as managers or bosses, but not all managers are prepared for the job. Being an effective manager requires many different skills and personality traits. There are many people to manage and motivate, deadlines to meet, data to record and more.
You are also responsible for the successes — or failures — of all of your employees. Being the boss is a demanding role. Luckily there are ways to make team management more seamless and successful. Keep reading to find out some effective business management techniques and tips for how to manage staff effectively.
1. Communicate - and Listen
Efficient communication is an essential part of successfully managing a team and being a leader. It’s important to be transparent with your employees about company and department information. Communication is one of the duties of a manager that employees value most — it can help keep them informed on important deadlines and decisions and makes them feel included in the company culture.
A great rule of thumb for managers is to communicate through either email, print or in-person each week. These could be in the form of department or team-wide weekly meetings or weekly email or memo recaps. Keeping up with your employees makes them more engaged in their work, and yours as well.
In addition, employee-to-manager communication is equally as important as manager-to-employee interactions. It’s often been said that a company’s greatest assets are its employees — as a manager, listening to your subordinates can result in new ideas and improvements for the company. Implementing practices such as an anonymous suggestion system, process improvement meetings or boss open office hours will make your employees feel heard, resulting in a better company experience and the continual improvement of the company.
2. Facilitate a Safe, Positive Environment
Another technique for how to manage staff effectively is to foster a workplace culture that makes employees feel welcome and protected. Employing people is often a company’s biggest expense, and fast turnover rates can lead to a company’s complete downfall. A good manager should do their best to make the work environment comfortable at the very least — an excellent manager tries to make the workplace somewhere that employees look forward to coming to each day.
Creating a positive company culture can be easier than it seems. As long as you, as a manager, are committed to helping your employees succeed and enjoy what they do, your subordinates will appreciate that effort and respond accordingly. Here are some tangible effective management techniques to boost employee morale and productivity:
Create rewards for great results and attitudes: Having incentive programs motivates employees to work harder to achieve their goals — and the prize that comes with them. You may be surprised at how implementing a positivity or goals program within your department or company can completely change the work culture and inspire your employees more than ever.
Positivity is contagious: Employees look to their manager as a leader in work and in attitude as well. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to behave the way you would like your employees to as well. Positivity and hard work will be mirrored — but so will negativity and laziness.
Eliminate negative influences: Some people are negative in nature and won’t change their behavior, even when those around them do. If you have an employee who brings the rest of the team down, it might be worth having a serious discussion about their intentions and attitude.
3. Mitigate Conflicts Immediately and Effectively
The reality is, there will always be conflicts that occur in the workplace. Different people have differing opinions, work ethics and attitudes, and those differences can and will cause friction between people. As a manager, it can be difficult and unpleasant to deal with interpersonal problems, but it’s part of the job.
Being a mediator is a required skill of a boss because issues will always be present, and it’s your job to handle them. However, by addressing conflicts immediately, you can make everyone’s life easier. You will thank yourself in the long run for mediating disagreements in your workplace as soon as they occur — by addressing them immediately, you can prevent them from becoming bigger issues that go over your head (and make you look like an incapable manager).
4. Delegate Efficiently
If you’re a current manager, you know that you don’t have enough hours in the day to do everything on your list. Meetings and other tasks will always come up at random, preventing you from getting everything done that you had planned. For this reason, an essential management technique is to learn how to delegate effectively. Unexpected things will always come up for you as a boss, so it’s important to have the ability to hand off something to your employees and be confident that they’ll be able to do it for you.
While this effective management technique may seem simple, managers who are high achievers often find it nearly impossible to learn delegating skills because they have high standards for the work that they produce. However, if you are a good boss, you will eventually be able to implement this technique because you’ve trained your employees well enough to trust that they can complete work to your standards.
5. Provide Meaningful Feedback
Giving feedback is undoubtedly one of the most important and effective business management techniques. Your employees can’t improve if they don’t know whether they produce good — or bad — work. It can be unpleasant to confront employees who aren’t performing well, but it’s necessary. As a manager, your job is to monitor the work of your subordinates to make sure it is bettering the company. Those who produce good work can help move your career forward — but those who don’t can hold you back.
An effective management technique is to meet with each employee at least every three to six months. By checking in and reviewing the work they’ve been doing, you can motivate employees to continue their great work or to improve their performance. It’s also recommended to meet with employees when serious issues arise. If an employee makes a major mistake, don’t wait another week or month to address it. Handle the situation now. Talk through what happened and how it can be fixed or prevented in the future.
It’s also important to address exceptional work as well. For situations where an employee goes above and beyond, reward their good work by featuring them in the weekly team email, personally celebrating with them over coffee or naming them employee of the month. Providing meaningful feedback is an essential management tactic that betters your employees as well as you and your company as a whole.
Contact NeuroLeadership Institute Today
If you want to learn how to manage staff effectively and more management techniques take a look at our Brain-Based Coaching Course. NeuroLeadership Institute is a leader in putting science to work. We'll teach you how the brain functions so that you can more effectively manage your business and employees. With NLI, you can read, listen to and watch our library of management training resources to learn how to manage your staff effectively and better understand what makes a great manager. Contact us today to learn more!