You May Lose the Smart Guy
One, of my friend who is working with a retail giant was sharing his frustrations with his line manager. He was skeptical against conveying the manager about his lowering productivity & increasing anxiety. My friend was in his Mid-20’s and has passed out from a premier management school.
The manager had a typical way of working. He closely monitored his subordinates and interacted with them every now & then. His point was the recent training he has got on coaching skills taught him about the significance of hand –holding the juniors who are in the learning period and flooding them with the feedback. Eventually, the frustrations had pushed my friend to join another organization.
The discussion has triggered some thoughts which I think are prevailing with most of the Gen-Y Managers.
1.Following the subordinates every time!! Everywhere!
I don’t think anybody likes to add their boss on Facebook or Instagram in this century where the whole internet conspire your plans, page content with your history of searches. Doesn’t matter, whether you party with Kim Kardashian or you had a vacation to Uzbekistan with your school girl friend. I think Germans are seriously planning to ban employers from contacting employees after office hours, just as it’s already forbidden to contact employees on vacation under German law.
Huh!! I wish I had a German boss
How interesting it is that when you ask for a day off stating that your grand-mother is ill and after few days your friend tags you in the beach party the same day you took the day off! On the way back to home, you hear a whistle which indicates a new comment on your post. Our somewhat Pavlovian response is to pick up the device, see who the comment is from and read it.
Your boss has commented – “Whoah …whoah!”
2.The urgent task phenomenon!!
You are a line manager and you have got an urgent task!!
Whom will you delegate it to? Of course, the smarter one! This is an increasing phenomenon in managers as they progress on the ladder; to meet the deadlines they tend to delegate the task to the ones who completes it faster rather than to skilled one. The inspirational talks on aligning the tasks with the guy’s career aspiration aspirations ,eventually get faded on papers.
If you are a Line manager and you have some smart employees under you; don’t just add responsibilities to them without empowering them. Cross check that the tasks & assignments you are assigning to them are superior in nature to what they are doing now.
3.Adding JD with more bubbly words without adding a zero to your pay -cheque!!
If you want to enhance their job, make them as a LEAD of project. Consult with your HR to give a raise; else explain them the bigger picture of how the task can add value to the company & expose him as well to the wider community of senior leadership.
Don’t enhance or enrich his job with add-on responsibilities without rewarding him properly.
Wait!! Even domino’s pizza asks you to pay extra for cheese or top –up!
4.The story of FY promises which are not in your hands (of course that are not even in HR’s hand)
It is the same old story of crying kid & moon. You offer the Moon to the Kid when he screams out on the top of his voice. No doubt your wife will bang you to the wall if you make the kid to cry for a min more.
Here only change is that you offer many things without any reason. Kind of statements like “When you do this, you will get this” (Masala & animates stories are even used to get the guy in). When you make a promise you make him sit on the same chair of exit interview!! The guy completes the job and will be waiting for your offerings and of course you had many promises to make & tasks to complete which will make you moving on to the next. You know clearly that during PM, you can tell him about the recent policy changes HR had and restructuring of the company as an excuse for your unkept promises. End of the story is – the smart guy chooses the chair for an exit interview session.
5.Creative!! Boy but that’s not professional, we have an SOP in place.
Freedom of creation!! Gen-Y likes to bring on creative solutions. They might be thinking from all perspectives and bringing the solutions which can withstand the business requirements. But often the creativity is discouraged in one sentence. SOP!! You need to follow this method.
Asking silly/insane/ irrelevant questions are the other ways of discouraging the creativity. MNC’s has a way of working and one needs to follow that. Especially for managers who are in the mid-of their middle management career stage; trying something different is a big No-No. Creativity for them is like oxymoron: Somebody has to tell them they are not here to manage creativity, but to encourage the same. Smart guys need intellectual challenges – vertical problem statements and an environment which is dynamic in nature; not stale, boring with monotonous operating procedures.In the end, what it takes to keep a guy with you is to engage him, without disturbing his private space; to coach him without micro managing him and to recognize him not at the cost of an exit interview.
