Leadership When the Heat's On: 24 lessons in high-performance management

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 Lesson Six

Practice Humanagement

Humanagement is simply the ability to use the job to develop the person while having fun in the process.  My entire emphasis changed as I stopped managing my people like a bunch of livestock and began leading them as people.  It occurred to me I could help each individual unlock the talent he or she had inside, as well as to:

• Set more meaningful goals (personal and professional)
• Better understand and plan their time
• Use more of their creativity
• Better handle their stress
• Feel safe pushing their envelope

If I had an office full of happy, growing people, I thought, there’s no telling what we could accomplish.  Sure enough, when they began taking a new and enriched mind home at night, instead of a sore, tired, and aggravated one, our entire universe expanded beyond anything we would have previously thought possible.

Don’t forget the “...while having fun in the process” part.  I don’t mean you open the office with a joke every morning.  My experience has proven time and again that people who grow and develop to the point they can handle problems they would not have been big enough to handle in the past are happier people.  They are happier because they are more fulfilled and actualized.  When an office full of people becomes more fulfilled and actualized, morale goes up.  With higher morale comes higher productivity.  I’ve never seen it fail.

           

Staff turnover also drops.  With low staff turnover comes more bonding and team spirit.  High turnover results in suspicion and a lack of personal investment in the job.  It’s difficult to feel a part of an organization if the probability of losing your job is high.  There are the managers who swear their organization has a terrific atmosphere, but people leave because the money is not competitive.  There are also bureaucracies where people stay forever, even though they are miserable.  A good logo for them would be: Repeating Yesterday, Inc; Home of the Living Dead.

Nobody is having fun in either case.  People leave the first organization because they’re not happy, not because there's more money elsewhere.  The value of having fun on the job ranks above money.  The ability to enjoy the work and the working environment is a stronger hold on people than higher wages in an unpleasant job and environment.  Ask yourself the following three questions to help get positioned and mentally prepared to practice Humanagement: 

• What can I do to set a better example for my team of the five bulleted points above?
• If my team members were asked to rate how much fun they have working for me what would my grade be?
• What's the gist of the conversations that are being carried on about me at night in the homes of the people that work for me?

“Help a team member grow, and you will receive respect in return.”