Have you found yourself taking the hard line in production management all your life, from both sides of the fence? Did you come up through the ranks learning from peers that the only way to stay on top was to keep people down?
You've got plenty of friends sharing your situation. I've met switched-on, deep-feeling managers who really struggle with the paradox of what they've learned by rote, up against the demands of today's working environment. Who love their job, are loyal to their company, but just don't know what to think when it comes to the people they're employed to look after.
Retaining personnel can be a tough call with attrition high, morale low, and communication leaving a lot to be desired. Staff turnover is expensive and in wanting people to be happy here, you could find yourself wondering which way to turn. Turning things around, however, demands of you to be hard on your habits and go easy on yourself, for a change. You can have the cake of change and eat it, you know - in fact the taste-test is a prerequisite! Usually, we are hard on ourselves and let habits run riot. Excellence comes about through adding more good reasons and positive currents to butter the collective mood.
Not to over-egg the pudding, the engineering environment is full of under-rated people - with managers ranking the intellect of their employees according to positional status. Alongside this big mistake comes erroneous language... be careful with terminology! Low-hanging fruit ripens in orchards, you'll be hard pressed to find any on an industrial site. There are no plebs in your employ, 'production' isn't a separate species - you're hosting staff who would love to increase their sense of worth in relation to themselves and the company - wishes becoming truly paramount as society recognises mental health as a basic need and engagement earns its place as an essential point of focus.
As a manager in this evolving scenario, you need to grow along with everyone else. Knowing what engagement means is one thing - knowing how to achieve it is another. View mistakes as opportunities to learn how to do things better, and let others in on the problem-solving process. You'll find yourself;
a) acknowledging people more positively and
b) finding new ways to approach long-standing issues.
Check out the 7 Steps - a roadmap to follow for fast-track alignment.
Ask questions of yourself as a first port of call:
"Is it good to take the hard line as standard practice?"
"What am I doing to morale by bawling out employees in front of others?"
"Do I visibly appreciate best-practice enough?"
2 Rules of Recognition - take care to praise output, quality and company gains to avoid individual bias, and when you do want to recognise someone's personal effort, keep it confidential.
You're a good person with a brave heart who wants to do well by the company you love or you'd have flown from this page by now. Take it from me, you have the opportunity right here in your hands to excel in engagement and alignment - your change of approach to management could make for the biggest difference of all. The truth is out there, as it's within - you are not alone.
Know that Kathy is here to chat with in confidence about your own situation. Talking things through is essential to finding solutions that work for everyone, and if you've never been comfortable chewing the fat, this could be a really good place to start in putting some meat on those bones. Check out WorldLine's Page for more useful articles, insights and advice.
