Performance Management Blog

Supervisors: Important for Engagement. Motivation. Innovation.
There are lots of elegant solutions out there, and Square Wheels are a great tool to use to generate them

Supervisors are critically important for engagement, motivation and innovation. Are we optimizing the impacts?

WHO in your management team has the absolute most impact on profits? Please do not delude yourself with some belief that it is someone in senior management.

Tons of statistics and all kinds of research that the ideas from top management take 2 to 3 years, in general, to be fully implemented in most medium to large organizations. And we also know that, “a desk is a dangerous place from which to view the world” (John LeCarre). Right? Not all the ideas implemented from the top are good ideas with direct application at the customer / worker interface.

Okay, than it must be sales or engineering or manufacturing or something, right? Well maybe… But let me make the simple point that workers work and managers manage and who has the biggest impact on the workers working? Let me suggest that the answer is our lowly supervisor.

Supervisors! You know, the people you had to promote because the other ones quit; that person who you promise to actually send to training one of these days when the workload drops some or you can get a relief person ready…

And what is their normal day like? Mostly, from our conversations and observations, they are covered up with obligations about summarizing results, solving problems, doing HR paperwork, dealing with angry customers or angry managers in other departments and, above all, attending meetings!

You can save them a lot of time by reducing the number of meetings, or making meetings more effective and efficient and sending them information instead of telling them. There are some new, brilliant AI tools that help to improve these processes. Check out Elise Keith’s website — https://www.lucidmeetings.com/ — for some really solid ideas. She knocks my socks off with powerful tools every time we meet.

And you can also impact them positively by giving them some job-skills with broad impacts. There are plenty of online tools and your Training Department certainly can assist with support and coaching (and those new AI coaching tools).

There are lots of elegant solutions out there, and Square Wheels are a great tool to use to generate them

With AI, there are a LOT of powerful tools to impact supervisory skills for engaging and motivating people.

You cannot expect supervisors to impact their people much if you do not allow them to interact with their people. (I read an article that showed that people working remotely had more manager contact than those located in the same office space.) And I believe that. Managing by Wandering Around is just not the norm these days, for sure.

Let me suggest that effective communications are also somewhat of a skills and somewhat of a tools problem, that many people simply do NOT know how to facilitate effectively to involve and engage and motivate people. If you put a gun to their head, they simply could not do much better, so it is a SKILL issue and not simply one of motivation. And that lack of skill and the pressure to perform causes something like this in most workplaces:

Trial and Error with motivational carrot

The supervisor and the people are responsible for motivation, innovation and implementation. The TEAM is what makes the difference.

I’ve been playing with the themes of Square Wheels® for over 20 years and they are a fabulous as well as easy to use way to involve and engage people in workplace improvement. 

If you want to kick the tires a bit and talk about using some simple Square Wheels images and metaphors with your people, connect with me and collaborate on some solutions to improve effectiveness and impacts,

For the FUN of It!

Dr. Scott SimmermanDr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of team building games and organization improvement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced presenter and consultant.

You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com
Connect with Scott on Google+

Learn more about Scott at his LinkedIn site.

Square Wheels® is a registered trademark of Performance Management Co.

 

 

Dr. Scott Simmerman

Dr. Scott Simmerman is a designer of the amazing Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine team building game and the Square Wheels facilitation and engagement tools. Managing Partner of Performance Management Company since 1984, he is an experienced global presenter. -- You can reach Scott at scott@squarewheels.com and a detailed profile is here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottsimmerman/ -- Scott is the original designer of The Search for The Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine teambuilding game and the Square Wheels® images for organizational development.

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