How do I enable managers to develop People Success Habits?

  • 10 minutes

A photograph of Margo and Ahmed, two managers.

Habits embed behavior change in the flow of work. Let's see how that happens.

Let’s walk through two examples of how to help managers (Margo and Ahmed) develop the right habits for People Success.

Meet Margo

A photograph of Margo.

  • Age: 50
  • Title: Unit Manager
  • Key attributes: Somewhat time poor, comfortable with tech

About Margo

Margo manages a team of 10 sales professionals who all have various experience. She and her team handle selling multiple products into new and existing accounts in the region. She has been doing this type of work for the past 20 years.

She was recently promoted to this senior level position and has attended all the required leadership training. Many of these training courses took her away from the job for a few weeks at a time. Once she got back to her desk, none of the important things she learned felt applicable.

She has bi-weekly team meetings where she talks about the goals for the team and any changes or updates in strategy. In addition, during bi-weekly 1:1 meetings she talks to each of her team members individually about their own goals.

Margo’s goals

  • Ensure she and her team hit quotas.
  • Remove barriers while making team members self-sufficient.

Margo’s frustrations

  • It's difficult to access knowledge needed to improve processes.
  • There is too much attrition on the team, particularly in the first year.

How can Margo benefit from the People Success Habits?

Here are a few best practices tailored for Margo's needs:

  • Simple, practical, and regular surveys. These give her timely and focused information on roadblocks she needs to remove for her team.
  • ACT conversation prompts. Built into her biweekly team and 1:1 meetings, these prompts embed the practice into her existing rhythms.
  • One People Success focus area. Given how closely she follows business goal-setting practices, identifying one focus area a quarter helps her track and measure progress.

Meet Ahmed

A photograph of Ahmed.

  • Age: 30
  • Title: Engineering Manager
  • Key attributes: Good with time, new to people leadership

About Ahmed

Ahmed is a first-time engineering manager recently promoted to manage a team of back-end engineers who used to be his peers. He's eager to learn new skills as a manager and wants to do his best to position the team for success but he has a few things working against him.

He's under-resourced. He has open positions on this team that need to be filled and given the competition for talent in engineering, he finds himself spending a lot of time interviewing and sourcing candidates, which takes away from time he spends with his team. He has not been equipped with the tools and learning he needs to level-up from being an individual contributor to being a people manager.

Ahmed’s goals

  • Upskill himself as a people manager.
  • Manage a team who often feels burnt out from doing more with less, effectively.

Ahmed’s frustrations

  • Trying to manage his responsibilities as a people manager while still being responsible for delivery and hiring.
  • His team is under-resourced, and he needs to hire new engineers and the process is taking longer than expected.
  • He is new to people management and is not sure he’s doing a respectable job.

How can People Success Habits help Ahmed?

Here are a few best practices tailored for Ahmed's needs:

  • Frequent feedback. This gives Ahmed insight into how he’s doing and how he can improve; he can take ownership of his development.
  • ACT conversation prompts. Being equipped with conversation prompts can help new managers like Ahmed feel more comfortable with having difficult conversations.
  • One People Success goal. Linking focus areas to bite-sized learning allows Ahmed to develop new skills as a manager.

True transformation requires everyone to adopt a People Success mindset and habits. We need leaders to role model habits and to reward and encourage the right ones. We need the HR team to be enablers of the change that is needed. Managers and employees, in turn, can feel empowered to own the change they wish to see.   How are people different when your organization is transformed?

Senior leadership Managers HR Employees
A photograph of Senior leadership. A photograph of a manager. A photograph of HR. A photograph of an employee.
Transparently share feedback results and commit to focus areas

Become role models		 Share team results and own ongoing conversations

Become coaches to employees		 Build organizational capability to use insights to drive behavior change

Become change enablers		 Feel empowered to actively voice perspective and participate in change efforts

Become owners of development and success