Hannah

Hello in today’s episode I am joined by David Deacon and we are going to be talking about manager effectiveness and manager development. David, welcome.

00:00:10 David

Thank you. Lovely to be here

00:00:13 Hannah

Could you kick us off by giving us a little bit of a potted history of your career to date.

00:00:19 David

Sure. So I’m a Chief people officer. That’s what I do for the last three and a bit years, I’ve done that for a company called Active payroll.

There were a founder LED to PE backed growth transformation story. Lots of fun.

And so that’s sort of what I do along the way. I picked up quite a lot of management development, leadership development, talent management culture, building, performance management, all of those kinds of talent topics. So that’s the specialism. So I’m a kind of HR generalist with fairly deep leadership and learning specialism and I’ve been really lucky. Well I’ve lived and worked in the US twice. I’ve lived and worked in Asia once I’ve been across Europe so yeah, it’s been fantastic. Yeah. Yeah. Has been has been.

00:01:14 Hannah

Exciting, really exciting.

00:01:17 Hannah

And David, you recently wrote a book called.

The self determined manager, a manifesto for exceptional people managers.

00:01:27 David

Yes, here it is. Look.

00:01:29 Hannah

Good plug. We absolutely want to plug.

00:01:32 David

Thank you.

00:01:33 Hannah

Why did you write it? What? What drove you?

00:01:36 David

So I actually didn’t write it recently.

00:01:41 Hannah

Ah, my bad apologies.

00:01:43 David

I actually started at years and years and years ago, years and years and years ago and I was just frustrated.

00:01:50 David

Yeah, frustrated and annoyed and irritated at how badly my colleagues were managing the people they worked for.

00:01:56 David

It was. It was just that, and it seemed to me that they were clueless.

And they didn’t know where to go. Yeah, to find out how to do it. Well. Mm-hmm. And it’s quite simple. So for some reason, Hannah, I don’t know what the reason was. I got it into my head that it was my mission to write that. And therefore a book seemed the obvious. And I love writing.

00:02:25 David

Yeah, so a book seemed the obvious thing. It then took me 20 odd years, probably to actually write it started it left the manuscript behind. When we went to Hong Kong never got back to it because the children were growing. So finally, actually, when I was in the US, started writing again and that’s that.

00:02:50 David

That was what became the book. Yeah. And. And the book. And the training that then kind of goes with it because much to my surprise, the world was not that excited by the arrival of the self determined manager. And so yeah, I’ve been. I’ve been looking for ways to influence managers. Yeah. And it’s not easy. It turns out it’s not easy. One thing I would say. I got the title of the book wrong.

00:03:17 Hannah

Ohh what should it have been?

00:03:19 David

I don’t know, but, but it shouldn’t have been that it’s too long. It’s too hard, but you have to look at your notes to remember what it’s called and it just that doesn’t work, needs to be snappier.

00:03:31 Hannah

Well, that maybe can be V2. Did you find given how how long it took you to write that when you did go back to it after a number of years, you needed to do quite a lot of editing because the the world had moved on.

00:03:33 David

That can be the next.

00:03:50 Hannah

Or did you actually find that even though a significant period of time had passed, the principles still stood sound?

00:03:58 David

I love that question, Hannah. It was the IT was the second. Mm-hmm. The. Yeah, I think very little has changed. Yeah, actually. And managers seem to be just as bad.

00:04:06

Yeah.

00:04:10 David

Managing now as they appeared to me to be 20 plus years ago.

00:04:17 Hannah

And why do you think that is?

00:04:18 David

I think it’s because we’ve done a really bad job at telling them what the job actually is. I think we’ve done that badly and I think people like me in the leadership development profession have also said to leaders don’t be managers. We’ve kind of said, look, leaders do this. It’s exciting. It’s interesting, it’s future focused, it’s about vision and creating success these things managers get things done. Get tasks completed, delegate, have difficult conversations, so that’s the dull day-to-day operational stuff that’s managers, leaders, special, important and I think in a way we were.

00:05:05 David

Right.

00:05:07 David

To tell leaders that they were special, but in doing that we told managers that they would.

00:05:12 Hannah

Yes.

00:05:13 David

And so in a way, no one cares about the manager and no one thinks about it as a particularly important job. Mm-hmm. And so managers don’t either. Yeah. So they don’t know how.

00:05:27 David

And no one really cares. And if you look on on any, on any bookshelf in Waterstones or Onza, noble or wherever you are.

00:05:35 David

The rule books of that leadership.

00:05:37 Hannah

That’s so true. That’s so true, yes.

00:05:39 David

It is. It is.

00:05:41 David

So one of the things I could have done possibly is, given the book’s leadership in the title, and it might have sold more.

00:05:49 Hannah

But would it have solved? Would it have solved the problem exactly? Yeah, yes indeed.

00:05:52 David

Would it? It would not, and it would have sold to the wrong people. So yeah, that wouldn’t work.

00:05:55 Hannah

Indeed.

00:05:57 Hannah

So, David, what do you think are the biggest challengers managers face today?

00:06:06 David

So you were kind enough to send me a couple of the questions. You were gonna that you were going to.

00:06:11 David

Ask me and this was one of them.

00:06:13 David

So I’ve given this a bit of thought.

00:06:16 David

And I think with the greatest of respect, I think it’s the wrong question.

00:06:22 Hannah

Ohh, OK go on.

00:06:23 David

Because right. So I think what managers actually have every manager is a brilliant platform for doing something fantastic. Mm-hmm. And I think that that’s what was the same 20 years ago. Yeah, as is real. And I think if we start a conversation about the challenges that managers have, we go down that kind of rabbit hole of how hard the job is. And I think that just perpetuates this sense of managers not being very good.

00:06:59 David

So I feel as though the conversation should be look at what a brilliant opportunity you have. If you’re a manager, even if you only have one person working for you, just shape something extraordinary. Yeah, you can do something fantastic for the people who work for you, awesome for the organisation you work for. You can build a brilliant team. You can create individual success.

00:07:19 David

You can nurture a tonne of growth. You can. You can get really high performance out of the people who work for you, and you can do.

00:07:25 David

That. Yeah, that’s your opportunity.

00:07:27 Hannah

Yeah.

00:07:28 David

So how lucky are you to sit, to sit in a seat with that opportunity? Every single manager on the planet has?

00:07:29 Hannah

Yeah.

00:07:36 Hannah

That and that.

00:07:38 Hannah

Rhetoric. That narrative feels much more inspiring than one that I hear a lot, which is more.

00:07:50 Hannah

Managers are having so much devolve to them their to do lists are getting bigger. We’re asking so much of them, et cetera, et cetera. But that’s but it’s interesting to turn it into a actually we’re giving you the autonomy and empowerment to make a real difference.

00:07:53 David

Yep, absolutely yes.

00:08:01 David

And we are, of course we are.

00:08:11 Hannah

But do you think we need to think about the support that we need to then make sure is there structurally to enable, yes, those managers?

00:08:23 David

Yeah, and you are absolutely right. It’s gonna get harder. So however hard an individual is finding their role right now it’s going to get harder and the budget is going to get tighter and the expectations are gonna get higher and the customers are gonna get grumpier and the clients are gonna want think things more quickly. And it’s the same every.

00:08:46 Hannah

Yeah.

00:08:46 David

Every year.

00:08:49 David

You recognise it’s gonna get harder. So I we just kind of need to stop with that middle managers have a hard time. The squeeze the squeezed between leaders and people that just forget it that’s not that’s not.

00:09:05 David

It it’s not.

00:09:05 Hannah

Message, yeah.

00:09:08 David

So this idea of yeah, it’s a platform. It’s an opportunity to do something extraordinary. You have to live within the environment and the constraints and the challenges. But that’s what makes it fun. But you are right, there needs to be more support, I think, to help managers to know what they need to do.

00:09:28 David

Because there’s what they do.

00:09:32 David

But really, more importantly, there’s the approach and the attitude that they take towards doing it and we don’t talk about that.

00:09:40 David

We talk, we sometimes talk about delegation not.

00:09:44 David

Performance management or difficult conversations or whatever, whatever it is that we decide they need, yeah. But we rarely talk about attitude and we rarely talk about approach. And that’s actually, I think the support that all managers could do with.

00:09:57 Hannah

Hmm, So what if there were two things? The impossible question, two things that organisations could do that would have the biggest impact on manager effectiveness. What what would they be?

00:10:10 David

In addition to giving them all my book or putting them, putting them through my training and alright and they’ve done the training awesome. Well in that case.

00:10:13 Hannah

Well, let’s say we’ve already given them all your book. All. Yeah, given everyone a book, they give everyone some training.

00:10:23 David

I think there are two things actually I think 1 is elevate the importance of the impact of managers.

00:10:30 David

And the other is help with awareness.

00:10:33 David

So MasterCard, where I was the chief talent officer for a bunch of years, did this really well. Every year there was a manager effectiveness survey and every employee had to complete the survey was invited to complete the survey.

00:10:52 David

Detailing their experience of being managed. Yeah. And so the manager got feedback on how she or he was managing the team.

00:11:01 David

And it was, you know, lots of false positives, lots of false negatives. But this thing was not particularly valid for all of the reasons that everyone would understand.

00:11:11 David

But it created an awareness in the organisation that how I managed as an employee.

00:11:18 David

Actually matters and I can influence that in some way. By the way, I answer the questions by how I interact with my manager by feedback I give outside of this and it told the managers we’re gonna pay attention and we did right. We paid a lot of attention to the scores and we paid a lot of attention to progress up and down in, in the scores year on year. And we intervened when we thought there was a need.

00:11:43 Hannah

And what did that intervention look like?

00:11:45 David

Usually coaching or training.

00:11:47 Hannah

Yeah.

00:11:49 David

Yeah, usually because that’s a shift down means that something has gone wrong.

00:11:58 David

And a shift up means there’s something to be celebrated. Yeah. So. So it was it was typically one of those two things.

00:12:01 Hannah

Absolutely.

00:12:06 Hannah

And I guess just to pick up on that celebration of success point kind of important across the board.

00:12:12 Hannah

But.

00:12:14 Hannah

Given the conversation we’ve already had around managers and what you said they’re around elevating the importance of the impact that they have. Have you seen that be done really well, the celebration of managers success, no.

00:12:29 David

No.

00:12:30 David

I don’t, I don’t think so. Yeah, because it’s really hard.

00:12:34 David

It’s really hard and we feel as though if you call out some people than others are not getting, I’m not getting the recognition that they that they should get and you’re worrying that people are begging up their manager because they’ve been coerced rather than because their manager really is good. It’s really, really hard.

00:12:46 Hannah

Yeah.

00:12:54 Hannah

Yeah.

00:12:54 David

Here’s the thing with managers in, in my view, almost everyone wants to be a good manager. Excuse me, almost everyone wants to be a good manager so so they don’t come into the role thinking I’m going to be average.

00:13:08 David

That’ll be OK.

00:13:09 Hannah

It’s it’s not a motivation problem.

00:13:10 David

It’s it’s not they they want, and most of us want to be a great manager and and most of us are a little bit disappointed when we aren’t. Yeah. And so we don’t know whether recognition.

00:13:22 David

As such, makes a difference to that I think feedback does. So I think the individual knowing how she or he is doing that makes a difference, but whether organisation level recognition manager of the year manager of the.

00:13:35

Hmm.

00:13:36 David

I don’t know when you see it, right? Retail does still does.

00:13:39 David

Quite a lot.

00:13:39 Hannah

Yeah, yeah.

00:13:39 David

Of that. But usually that’s because there’s fairly clear metrics that you can use to measure to, to to assess.

00:13:46 Hannah

By yeah, probably linked to store performance and all of those sorts.

00:13:49 David

Probably exactly. Whereas just being a brilliant manager.

00:13:50 Hannah

Of things indeed.

00:13:54

Hmm.

00:13:55 David

Very hard to very hard to assess very much in the eye of the beholder, but if you if you work on the basis that everyone wants to be great at being a manager, then then I think again, you’re just changing that. You’re changing the tone about.

00:14:10 David

Why focusing on this matters? It matters because you want to be.

00:14:15 David

Good at this.

00:14:16 Hannah

And have you ever seen or experienced a situation where?

00:14:24 Hannah

You feel intervention is appropriate. Maybe schools have schools have gone down, but the manager doesn’t necessarily agree that in an intervention is what is required. And I guess with these sorts of surveys it’s very easy to brush off low scores with ohh you know, I’m not surprised they don’t like.

00:14:45 Hannah

That I’m trying to get them to do at the moment etcetera etcetera. So how?

00:14:46 David

Absolutely yes.

00:14:48 Hannah

Do you deal with that well?

00:14:51 David

A score, particularly on an annual survey, is just a moment in time is just a single data point. Mm-hmm. And every manager works for.

00:14:59 David

A manager, yeah.

00:15:01 David

So. So in the end, you’re kind of looking up the organisation. Mm-hmm. Do you understand? Are are you as a as a manager of managers?

00:15:10 David

Paying enough attention, doing enough coaching, getting your managers to be strong enough performers. Yeah. So it’s the it’s the whole picture. Yeah. And that’s it, that’s just.

00:15:12 Hannah

Yeah.

00:15:18 Hannah

A single data point? Yeah, absolutely agree.

00:15:23 Hannah

David, what role do you think technology can play in manager development or manager effectiveness?

00:15:30 David

Hmm.

00:15:31 David

I.

00:15:34 David

I think I’m back in the same world.

00:15:37 David

Which is that management is the same as it’s always been.

00:15:40

Yeah.

00:15:41 Hannah

Yeah.

00:15:42 David

And so great management is regardless of the technology that you’re using is, is it, it’s just how you are with your team, how you are with your people, what what expectations you set, what what, what models you drive?

00:15:58 David

So I’m not sure actually what the impact of technology is.

00:16:04 David

It it changes the medium, so we’re all managing remotely as well as directly. And so that that changes some of the some of the ways in which you.

00:16:08

Yeah.

00:16:14 David

You have to operate in order to be effective and and there’s a whole actually quite a lot of good work now done on on, including people who are almost always remote and sitting in their own their own place, not in your place.

00:16:28 David

Yeah.

00:16:30 David

But fundamentally.

00:16:32 David

Being a great manager is still the same as it as it always was.

00:16:35 Hannah

Do you think?

00:16:36 Hannah

Do you think the rise of hybrid working and remote working?

00:16:41 Hannah

Has meant that managers have had to develop new skills, yeah.

00:16:45 David

I do. I do and. And that’s been actually quite good because I think one of the things that did was drove a focus on.

00:16:55 David

People’s experience matters.

00:16:58 David

Because you started to recognise that people were getting left behind, they were not switching on their cameras. They were, yeah, not getting out of their pyjamas. Whatever it was, you could, you could tell that they would much less involved, much less engaged.

00:17:12 David

And and we rightly said to managers, you have to pay more attention. Yeah, you have to be involved with your people more. So I think that did I think that paradoxically, did have quite a good impact. And. And you, you see it, they’re really good managers.

00:17:15

Hmm.

00:17:27 David

Are fantastic at making sure that no one gets left behind. Yeah, they’re really good at that. Yeah. And and that’s.

00:17:33 David

That that’s partly because we’ve suggested they need to do that, and partly because they’re that’s their instinct. They were doing that anyway. They were doing that when everyone was in the office. Yeah, sometimes it’s harder to spot the people who were getting left behind in those in those situations.

00:17:47 Hannah

Indeed, you talked about instinct there. So is that. Do you think that’s something that some people just have? Yeah, naturally. Very good at it. Other people have to work very hard to build it. How do they do that? And what? What do they have to do to build?

00:18:03 Hannah

Those skills, if it doesn’t come naturally.

00:18:06 David

I think they just have to be very, very aware of the impact that they’re having. I think it’s honestly it’s it’s that simple. It’s just about knowing, yeah. And and thinking ideally everyday.

00:18:22 Hannah

Yeah.

00:18:24 David

About the impact that as a manager, you’re.

00:18:27 David

Having.

00:18:27 David

Yeah. And most people don’t think that that they come into work, whether that’s actually or virtually and they think about what their manager thinks about them and they think about the jobs they have to do. Yeah. And they think about their pressures and their customers or clients or.

00:18:41 David

Whatever those things are, yeah.

00:18:44 David

They don’t usually think.

00:18:47 David

What kind of manager am I gonna be today?

00:18:49 David

What kind of team spirit am am I going to curate today? Who am I gonna hope to be brilliant today? Who on the team is is doing fantastically, who’s struggling? How is the team’s team doing overall? How are we viewed? What’s our reputation like? You know, all these kinds of things. And so how am I gonna act? Am I the manager of the team?

00:19:10 David

How am I going to act in order to make a difference to the team today?

00:19:14 Hannah

So it’s almost a need to create, remind reminders to constantly ask yourself those questions whether it be literally something in the, some time and space in the diary.

00:19:19 David

It is.

00:19:21 David

Exactly right.

00:19:26 Hannah

Where you have those questions that pop up on your calendar every week.

00:19:30 David

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the thing the thing with the manager, you know, we used to call them team leaders back in the day. Yeah, thing with the manager is it’s in their gift to create that environment for their.

00:19:31 Hannah

Yeah.

00:19:43 David

Team.

00:19:44 David

In fact.

00:19:46 David

They create the environment for their team. Yeah, that’s what they do. It’s kind of built into the job and and and. You know, when you’ve worked for a great manager, you’ve felt really good about the team that you’re in and the work that you do. Yeah. And you’ve felt your confidence lift and you’ve felt that you can do extraordinary things and you’ve.

00:20:06 David

Enjoyed being in that team and you look back, I think that was a fantastic time. I love that. I love my colleagues, I love my my team leader. All of that was fantastic and I.

00:20:10

Yeah.

00:20:15 David

Did great work.

00:20:16 David

Yeah. And most of us have that experience somewhere along the line.

00:20:21

Hmm.

00:20:23 David

And most of us also have the opposite experience, of course, which is when you worked in a team that was broadly unhappy, where people didn’t feel confident, they felt that they were likely to get criticised, they were likely to get caught out. There was internal competition. There was a sense of, if I do well, this person’s gonna do badly and that’s OK. I’ll win.

00:20:43 Hannah

Yeah.

00:20:43 David

I’ll get. I’ll get their bonus. Whatever. So all of those kinds of things.

00:20:48 David

And and and it’s the manager who’s created those two environments and it’s not the company.

00:20:55 Hannah

Yeah.

00:20:56 David

Despite what we like to think, but brilliant teams exist in horrible companies.

00:21:02 Hannah

Yeah. Yes, that’s very true.

00:21:04 David

And horrible teams exist in fantastic movies, so so it’s actually about what’s the environment that the manager creates for the team.

00:21:05 Hannah

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

00:21:12 Hannah

Umm, I really like that, yeah.

00:21:14 David

And and that that thing is what managers aware managers.

00:21:19 David

Do consciously, yes, they they consciously use all of the levers that they have to create a strong positive environment and high performing. Yeah like cause you can’t. You can’t be soft no and be a great manager indeed you have to push.

00:21:34 David

People.

00:21:36 Hannah

What information do managers lack today that would make the biggest difference to their success do you think?

00:21:47 David

I think you know partly what I’ve just said. Your job is to create an environment for your team of success, positivity and outperformance.

00:21:49 Hannah

Yeah.

00:21:57 David

That’s your job. Yeah, your job is not to delegate to coach, to to get tasks done. Those are things that you need to do along along.

00:22:06 David

The line.

00:22:07 David

But but fundamentally, the way you’re gonna really bring value is you’re gonna create that awesome team environment of high performance growth. Yeah. And then some form of measurement.

00:22:20 David

Feedback loops.

00:22:22

Yeah.

00:22:22 David

Awareness building, something that helps managers to understand when they’re doing it well and when they’re doing it poorly.

00:22:30 Hannah

And those feedback loops, what have you seen done well and what have you seen done less well?

00:22:36 David

So the I guess again I go back to MasterCard, that combination of the regular assessment.

00:22:40 Hannah

Hmm.

00:22:44

Yeah.

00:22:45 David

And we also did quite a good job of elevating the importance of managers.

00:22:49

Mm-hmm.

00:22:50 David

So we had a monthly managers matter newsletter. This was relatively old tech.

00:22:59 David

And and we we we did try to showcase great managers and we we did a decent job I think of just making it.

00:23:09 David

A good thing to be.

00:23:10 Hannah

Yeah.

00:23:10 David

To be a manager. Yeah. And I’d say that I think made quite a difference. And it, you know, the retention was high and the engagement was high, yeah, partly cause it’s a great business model and it’s a great business, right, so, so that helps. Of course it does. Yeah. But I think I think that focus on.

00:23:28 David

Creating it as an important, an important role, just as leaders are important, managers matter, and that’s a that thing that actually quite worked that quite worked.

00:23:41 Hannah

Absolutely.

00:23:46 Hannah

What role can assessment play in manager development or manager effectiveness? Because they’re kind of two slightly different?

00:23:54

Thanks.

00:23:55 David

Things. Yeah, I think it’s.

00:23:57 David

I’ve I’ve been worrying about this.

00:24:01 David

So if we accept for a moment that approach and attitude and skills and capabilities are kind of the three pillars that the best managers.

00:24:12 Hannah

Yeah.

00:24:14 David

Are successful on.

00:24:17 David

You can’t.

00:24:19 David

The the the feedback loops help with with.

00:24:24 David

The impact of the approach.

00:24:25 Hannah

Yeah.

00:24:27 David

You can probably get a little bit after attitude with assessment.

00:24:34 David

And you can get a little bit after skills. Mm-hmm. In all honesty, I’m not sure. I’m not sure anyone has cracked assessments. Really effective assessments for managers.

00:24:45

Mm-hmm.

00:24:46 David

360 is probably about the closest, because at least people are talking about their their experience of of being managed, yeah.

00:24:53 Hannah

Yeah, tapping into that feedback feedback loop.

00:24:56 David

Yeah.

00:24:58 David

So yeah, I’m not. I’m not.

00:25:01 David

There has to be an answer.

00:25:03

What’s your view?

00:25:03 David

And and a smart organisation might well be able to come up with.

00:25:08 David

An answer, but I don’t know what it is.

00:25:10 Hannah

And what’s your view on?

00:25:13 Hannah

UM.

00:25:14 Hannah

Using assessment in this context to help managers better understand themselves.

00:25:23 Hannah

So that they can.

00:25:27 Hannah

Better think about.

00:25:30 Hannah

Their relationship dynamics so 1 to one with the team, but also the team dynamics and better understand how they might need to change their approach to get the best out of different people.

00:25:42 David

Yeah.

00:25:45 David

Yeah, that’s a good thought, actually. Yeah. Away of assessing the team dynamics as a as a way of helping managers to recognise where to focus. That’s a that’s a good thought that would make a difference.

00:25:50

Hmm.

00:25:58 Hannah

Do you see much of that?

00:25:59 Hannah

Happen no.

00:26:01 Hannah

And why do you think it doesn’t?

00:26:04 David

Because we don’t want to have to invest in it.

00:26:07 Hannah

Ah, so it’s going back to managers.

00:26:11 Hannah

Aren’t that important.

00:26:11 David

Aren’t that.

00:26:12 Hannah

Umm, so that’s really problematic that attitude.

00:26:15 David

Yes it it it, it actually is, but I think that’s.

00:26:19 David

I think that’s real. If you’re going to invest in assessment, you’re probably gonna invest in leaders and high potentials.

00:26:27

MM.

00:26:28 David

You’re probably not going to spend money on your managers.

00:26:33 Hannah

Do you think that should change?

00:26:38 David

I don’t know. I don’t. I don’t know. Because because I, I also think.

00:26:46 David

Managing is a relatively simple task.

00:26:48

Hmm.

00:26:49 David

So I actually think that most managers should be able to just get on with it. They should be able to spot.

00:26:56 David

When their team is doing well and when their team is doing poorly, they actually shouldn’t need.

00:27:00 David

Some kind of an assessment to recognise that the dynamic is off and they need to have some conversations with people or they need to talk to the team. They need to confront issues they they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t need something outside of the team to make that. To make that clear, just as they should have a plan for all of the individuals in the team.

00:27:14

Yeah.

00:27:21 David

And that should be in their heads and it should be.

00:27:25 David

Common sense, and it should be rooted in what they see in the person, what the good are, what their weaknesses are, all those things.

00:27:32 David

That they they should have enough about them to be able to do that again without without.

00:27:40 David

Investment in.

00:27:43 David

Too much assessment. So if the organisation does invest.

00:27:45 Hannah

Yeah.

00:27:46 David

Fantastic.

00:27:47 Hannah

Yeah.

00:27:48 David

Everyone is fortunate. Everyone is better as a result of it.

00:27:51 Hannah

Yeah.

00:27:52 David

But in organisations that don’t.

00:27:55 David

They can still, I think, expect their managers to be very good at spotting how the team is doing and spotting how the individuals are doing and adapting their behaviour and their approach as needed to create that high performance.

00:28:10 Hannah

Yeah, I think that’s right. In terms of, we should have those expectations of managers. But I guess going back to the very top of our conversation.

00:28:21

Yeah.

00:28:22 Hannah

The reason you wrote your book was because you were so frustrated that people weren’t doing a great job here, so.

00:28:25 David

Yeah.

00:28:32 David

And and and and most people.

00:28:36 David

I’ve done some research, McKinsey have done some research, others have done research. Most people are disappointed by their managers most of the time.

00:28:47 David

So so typically the numbers are somewhere between 75% and 85%.

00:28:54 David

Of our managers are broadly poor.

00:28:59 Hannah

Which is.

00:29:00 David

2025% good to go. Yeah, it’s definitely problematic. It it absolutely problematic. Yeah, because what? What’s being left behind is productivity and performance.

00:29:00 Hannah

Problematic, right?

00:29:05 Hannah

Yeah.

00:29:15 David

But, but most most of us, if you think about your career, if you think about the managers who you’ve loved working for, you think about the managers you haven’t loved working for.

00:29:25 David

The chances are there’s more in the.

00:29:28 David

Different than in the half and in the have loved working for you can name them. You can picture them. I watched you do it when we were talking about it. It’s what. It’s what we all do. We think about our best manager.

00:29:29 Hannah

Indeed, indeed.

00:29:39 Hannah

Yeah.

00:29:42 David

But but it but it’s it’s the worst managers.

00:29:45 David

Who we spend most time with in our.

00:29:46 David

Careers.

00:29:48 Hannah

It’s not ironic. It’s so ironic and but surely also.

00:29:53 Hannah

That makes such a case for needing to invest in a manager population.

00:29:59 David

Yes.

00:30:00 Hannah

Assessment or training or whatever it may be. So I wonder whether it, you know, is it truly enough to just expect managers to to do that? Do you think you need to intervene a little more? Yeah.

00:30:03 David

Yeah. Tell me.

00:30:12 David

It it it kind of, yeah, I mean.

00:30:14 David

It can’t be.

00:30:15 David

It it, it cannot be, but I don’t.

00:30:17 David

The the the other side of the problem.

00:30:20 David

There’s so many managers.

00:30:22 Hannah

Indeed, so you need scalability, which is a real challenge, yeah.

00:30:24 David

You need scalability though. Absolutely yeah. And and I don’t, I don’t know what the solution to.

00:30:30 David

That is, yeah.

00:30:31 David

Because because organisations rightly have a hierarchy of where they spend their money.

00:30:37 Hannah

Indeed.

00:30:37 David

And managers are never going to be at the top of the hierarchy. They’re just.

00:30:41

Hmm.

00:30:41 David

And so I I’m almost wondering if the answer is to to have people invest in themselves.

00:30:50 Hannah

Oh, interesting.

00:30:51 David

And I don’t quite know how that unfolds.

00:30:55 David

But something about you’ve become a manager. You’ve been appointed.

00:31:00 David

Here’s here’s how you can help yourself to be fantastic at that. To be to be someone’s best manager.

00:31:07 David

Because I I like I said before, I genuinely think people do want to. They want to be really good.

00:31:12 David

Managers.

00:31:13 David

They don’t want to be average or, you know, more poor they. They want to be great.

00:31:16 Hannah

Umm, but then you need to then go back and solve the problem of the value attached to managers and make sure that that value is perceived to be high.

00:31:27 David

Yes. Yeah. And and.

00:31:30 David

And I guess there is a philosophical question about where does the investment, where should the investment come from? Should it come from the organisation that employs you?

00:31:40 David

Or should it come from you as an individual?

00:31:42 David

And if it comes from you as an individual?

00:31:45 David

You are at least taking some ownership for your impact and effectiveness.

00:31:50 Hannah

Interesting. So I guess equivalent of choosing to go and do some further education and get a qualification.

00:31:59 David

Exactly, exactly. And and you know, not that hard. Umm, honestly. And not that time consuming but but needs attention. Needs attention. So yeah. I feel as though in the.

00:32:11 David

World there’s something there about getting after.

00:32:13 Hannah

Yeah.

00:32:16 David

Getting after individuals at the point at which they’re given that responsibility, and they’re helping them to live up to that in the way that they would want to. There’s something something there, regardless of whether or not their organisation invests in them, which it might.

00:32:31 Hannah

Yeah, yeah.

00:32:32 David

But the chances are it will not.

00:32:34 Hannah

But step one, raise the raise the bar in terms of expectations and value placed on that population.

00:32:41 David

And absolutely right. And and of course the place where great leaders learn to be great leaders.

00:32:49 David

Is when they start being managers.

00:32:52 David

So. So so it’s it is, it’s step one and and and so you learn it’s absolutely in your in your career development interests and to learn how to be a great manager.

00:32:52 Hannah

Step one on that journey, yes.

00:33:03 Hannah

Indeed, indeed.

00:33:04 David

And if your team has a great reputation in the organisation that helps you.

00:33:10 David

And if they do great work that helps you to and. And so it all it all builds up. So it’s absolutely in your interests to do that job super well.

00:33:10

Across.

00:33:17

Mm-hmm.

00:33:18 David

And to assume that your employer is not going to invest in your development, you’re lucky if they do, but most do not.

00:33:25 Hannah

Interesting. Two final questions for you, David. So firstly, what three top tips would you give organisations wanting to improve manager effectiveness?

00:33:28 David

Yes.

00:33:37

MHM.

00:33:42 David

Other than the book, what three top tips?

00:33:43

Yeah.

00:33:49 David

So so go after awareness. Find the ways to make sure that managers know what doing the job really well involves, and make sure that they understand that it’s about that environment that they’re creating for their team.

00:34:07 Hannah

Yeah.

00:34:09 David

However, you frame that in your organisation, whatever terms you use.

00:34:14 David

Whatever that looks like, make it clear that the job is building that environment of success, yeah.

00:34:21 David

So I’ll go after that. I’d go after some kind of feedback loop.

00:34:28 David

And again, MasterCard did this well. We did it, we did it reasonably well in active payroll actually that, that, that giving feedback to the managers, yeah, so that they have some sense for how they’re doing.

00:34:40

Yeah.

00:34:43 David

And and I guess the third is this thing about elevating the importance and the value of managers in the organisation, yeah, celebrating them in some way, some, some form of managers matter. Yes, some form of of dialogue about that. Yeah. Yeah. Just elevate the importance of the role.

00:35:02 Hannah

Indeed.

00:35:02 David

So people know.

00:35:05 David

What attitude and approach they should take?

00:35:07

Yeah.

00:35:07 David

They get some feedback on how they’re doing and the organisation is told that it matters. Yeah, that would.

00:35:13 David

Do it.

00:35:13 Hannah

Yeah, great summary. And then finally, what three top tips would you give managers wanting to improve as managers?

00:35:26 David

OK, so the first is actually the same, the 1st is get.

00:35:30 David

Aware.

00:35:31 David

Just.

00:35:33 David

However you.

00:35:33 David

Do it.

00:35:34 Hannah

Yeah.

00:35:35 David

Get that awareness of what you what your approach needs to be. Use a daily checklist, a weekly checklist. Ask yourself hard questions.

00:35:37

Yeah.

00:35:43

Yeah.

00:35:44 David

Read the book. Whatever.

00:35:45 David

Yeah, it it just just just get.

00:35:47 David

Aware, yeah.

00:35:51 David

Secondly, have a plan for the individuals on your.

00:35:53 David

Team. Mm-hmm.

00:35:54 David

Genuinely have a plan. Not the not the company, performance management, career development thing that’s important, but.

00:36:01

Mm-hmm.

00:36:04 David

But have some ambition? Yeah, for each of the individuals who work for you and just give that a a bunch of thought for what they could do, where they are now, how they could be great.

00:36:16 David

How their careers could unfold just have a just have a plan for each of them as individuals.

00:36:25 David

And and and and build.

00:36:26 David

That plan as a human.

00:36:30 David

And I guess the third would be pay lots of attention to the team dynamic.

00:36:35

Hmm.

00:36:36 David

What watch. Watch how they’re working together or not. And watch how they’re responding to you.

00:36:43

You.

00:36:44 David

Because you, you, you all you know.

00:36:47 David

The way your manager is just makes a huge difference to your mood. Yeah. You know, if your manager is in a good mood. Yeah. On any given day, you feel pretty positive and optimistic and all the rest of it.

00:36:59

Hmm.

00:37:00 David

If you manage is in a bad mood or just isn’t very engaged, doesn’t say good morning to you seems to be massively distracted. You worry that you’ve done something wrong.

00:37:10 Hannah

Yeah.

00:37:11 David

All of the companies in.

00:37:13 David

Trouble.

00:37:14 David

Or, you know, just Germany. Something bad is gonna.

00:37:17 David

Happen. Yeah.

00:37:18 David

And and you know, people watch people watch their manager for for the queues and the clues and and and the stuff about what’s going on and.

00:37:29 David

And managers just need to be really aware of that.

00:37:31 David

Impact.

00:37:32 David

And they need to really, really watch that. Yeah. And think, think about, think about that because.

00:37:38 David

Because they’re they’re they are who we look.

00:37:41 David

At.

00:37:41 David

Yes, we don’t we we we worry about our CEO or whatever, but we we look to our manager to know how things are, how things are for the team, how things are for me as an individual and and so yeah, AA manager needs to just pay attention to to the signals she’s sending.

00:37:58 David

All the time.

00:37:59 Hannah

Hmm, absolutely. I really like that .2 there.

00:38:03 Hannah

Around have a plan for each individual. That’s not necessarily anything to do with the sometimes what feels like a box ticking exercise around, you know, corporate career planning and form filling out and I’m down, I think that I think that’s really nice.

00:38:18 David

And and.

00:38:20 David

And and it it makes such a difference because because if you really have that, if you really feel that.

00:38:27 David

Yeah, it changes all of your discussions with that individual. Yeah, because you’re.

00:38:32 David

You. You, you’re. You’re invested in them on a on a genuinely human level. You you can actually say I I really want good things.

00:38:42 David

For you.

00:38:43 David

I’m I you know, I I’m the I’m the person who worries the second most about your career. Yeah. Assuming you’re the one who worries the first most about your career. I I worry the second most.

00:38:50

Yeah.

00:38:53 David

And that that just changes your relationship with them. People will try much harder for you when you try much harder for them.

00:38:58 Hannah

Indeed.

00:39:00 Hannah

Yes, absolutely, David. Thank you so much. It’s been an absolute.

00:39:04

You’re very welcome.

00:39:05 David

Pleasure.

00:39:06 David

Likewise, thank you for the great questions.