Most managers simply face this problem: How do I get someone to do their job and what do I do when they don’t?
In all the industries and sized companies I have worked with, the top issues are the same:
- Staff not listening to feedback or being defensive.
- Managing different personalities and management styles.
- Handling conflicts and having direct conversations.
- Managing mental health issues and setting boundaries.
The challenge with management is the inconsistency in approaches. In all the hundreds of companies I have worked with, I have never come across a systemised, consistent approach to management as directed by the company.
Each manager is out to fend for themselves, often holding their managerial successful actions close to their chest, with each team operating in different ways, big or small. This makes it hard to achieve consistent results across sites / branches. Because most people believe that “people are either naturally good at management or not,” the emphasis is put on the hiring of managers, not the training of them. This is especially scary when 98%[1] of managers feel they need more training and when 91%[2] of staff say their managers lack communication skills.
I think the lack of focus on training is partly due to most management training being airy-fairy, general and more “inspirational” than it is practical. Management training that is practical, scalable, and able to be consistently deployed across any and all sites should become the focus of upper management. In simple terms, it is the managers’ job to get the staff to do theirs. If you invest in good managers who can then do this, the staff tend to sort themselves out.
Generally there is too much focus on the staff themselves, and not enough on the managers. One can spend countless time and money trying to get the staff to do better and produce more, but the only way that will ever happen when the pressure is removed from upper management, is if this pressure is maintained by the staffs’ managers themselves.
Every manager can be upgraded in how they think. Especially where upper management employs specific management frameworks and tools that become a part of the standard infrastructure – and not considered as an individual skill set. The ROI of management training, especially where the training is practical and useful, far surpasses the ROI of staff training.
Objective #1 of Management Training: Detaching Managers from Staff
One of the weakest areas of management is the breach of internal brand and reputation; how the team views the company, each other and its systems. There’s not one of the 160 managers I have trained in the last 6 months who did not reluctantly put their hand up when I asked: “How many of you are guilty of talking badly about the company / other managers / upper management to your staff?” Allowing staff to gossip, criticise and talk badly about the company is one of the most insidious issues in management and yet (shockingly) hardly spoken about. If you do not attack this first, any attempt to improve performance and culture thereafter becomes fruitless.
Action follows viewpoints.
Cultures are composed of viewpoints.
Therefore the first objective of management training, before anything else is done, is the removal of this cultural tendency to talk badly about the company or its stakeholders. This really comes from the managers’ inability to be disliked. It stems from a desire to be liked and admired and their distaste for interpersonal turbulence. In our Australian culture, this is particularly prevalent. This creates rifts between “staff” and the “company” and is the managers’ biggest challenge to overcome.
How do you staff them to perform well, but also ensure they feel heard if they have a genuine concern, but then also not allow them to talk badly about the company? This is a tricky balance that must become the focus of all managers.
This requires two things:
- The managerial infrastructure that is set by the company itself. Think processes on how feedback is received and dealt with, role definition, specific tools that allow staff to propose solutions and changes, meeting agendas, pre-set workshops, digital platforms or forums, etc.
- The soft skills given to managers (that are the same across the board). Think communication techniques, conflict resolution and prevention strategies, manager confidence and mentality, etc.
Make the idea of honour, integrity, respect more attractive to your managers than being liked by staff. Give managers permission to not be ‘liked’ by their staff, but respected.
Give them the systems / processes that their staff can use so that they have an outlet for feedback, a recourse for suggestions, a way to feel heard. Ensure any and all policies and processes are based on what works and what is successful – buy in is easy when staff can see how or why something is.
This cultural shift creates a beautiful base from which other management tools can be developed and evolved and is what I recommend as your first training objective. This objective is based on my personal observation, although all training should be tested across sites and confirmed to have worked before it is deployed everywhere. When something is confirmed as having worked, it is used with confidence and faith. When any training is given for the sake of it, it becomes, once again, up to each individual manager to cipher through and find what works or what doesn’t. It is upper managements’ responsibility to test and confirm what doesn’t work and what does, then ensure each site follows it. And management is no different.
Marnie Jones Founder of Talent X | Educate X | Business Power X embarked on her management consultancy career at 19, aiding companies from $200k to $130m turnover over a decade. By 23, she led a team in Sydney, directing workshops for 2,000+ people across 56+ industries.
Her expertise emphasises three core principles: strategic hiring, optimised team workflows, and effective staff retention. Marnie witnessed the hefty financial toll of poor hires and inefficient organisation, noting that 30-50% of business efforts could be redirected with better structure. She advocates for stronger management to unlock businesses’ full potential.
Contact: Email: marnie@educatex.com.au | Phone: 1300 347 955