Management Training Seminars

By introducing our Management Training workshops to your staff we help ease the negative effect of change on both managerial and supervisory personnel. The change in job responsibilities, the change in personnel, job duties, and the rising challenge of developing subordinates are specific goals of our learning systems courses. We are highly successful at helping Managers and Supervisors learn and adapt to the necessary skills and proper behaviors to be successful at work as well as in their personal lives.

For more information on our management training classes please contact us.

As a part of our management training courses, Managers and Supervisors will learn how to:

• Minimize the chance of miscommunication by understanding what people are really saying, and why
• Deal with difficult people, manage tense situations, and resolve conflict
• Make use of proven active listening skills to improve your ability to gain helpful information
• Be able to facilitate, guide, and close discussions in one-on-one or group settings
• Improve understanding and communication by giving and receiving good feedback
• Use ideas submitted by a member of the team without causing other members to be defensive
• Develop a comprehensive team building strategy that improves productivity of the whole team
• Emphasize the value of working toward common goals without devaluing individual accomplishment
• Define and set up a method to track staff activities
• Be able to manage time and work assignments effectively
• Conduct team meetings that capture and hold the audience’s attention
• Interview and hire the right person for the right job
• Save time and work more effectively through the use of a clear time management plan
• Understand and comply with proper hiring and managing requirements
• Communicate effectively with both superiors, peers and subordinates
• Become effective coaches for their work team
• Conduct accurate and difficult performance appraisals

 

Management Training Tips:
The Importance of Trust in the Workplace

Trust is a funny thing, it is difficult to obtain, even harder to keep and can be gone in an instant. When people think about trust it is pretty easy for them to define those major things that will cause them to lose trust in someone or something. However when it comes to the change management, trust turns out to be quite precarious in what can cause it to be lost between the manager, company and employee. Lately we have seen a number of major change management events that have caused people to lose their trust and faith in major institutions like banking or the investment community. No less important but less publicized is the number of people who no longer trust the companies that they work for due to multiple layoffs, downsizings and restructurings. These types of events are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the ways that trust can be broken.

Before getting into some of those more subtle change management areas that break trust, let's take a look at why employees don't trust their companies anymore and whether or not there is anything that can be done to improve those relationships. Very often companies don't communicate properly when they are going through a crisis situation, and because it is human nature, managers avoid discussions with employees when they don't have all the answers or when they don't know what to say. Lack of information breeds insecurity and makes employees fear the worst even when the danger of layoffs or whatever the company is going through has passed. However, if employees feel like change management isn't telling them everything or if they have been told something that turned out not to be true, their level of trust will go down immediately. If trust has been lost because of the perception of lying that can be devastating to the relationship and might possibly be irreparable. However if employees are feeling like they can't trust change management because they don't feel change management is being forthcoming with information, that is something that can be fixed. However, it will take ramping up communication, admitting when you don't have information and a commitment to share information as soon as it becomes available. Communication has always been important, but in uncertain times it is even more essential to communicate frequently. You don't need to be sharing major information every day; all you need to do is meet with your employees regularly and discuss departmental progress and how the company is doing. This will give employees a chance to ask questions and keep an open dialog which will make them feel more connected and prevent them from feeling like you are keeping information from them.

Now let's turn to those other areas that can cause a loss of trust. One area that is a sure way to cause people to lose trust in you is breaking promises. You may not think of this as something can affect trust when you tell your employee you will follow up with someone for them and then you forget and don't do it. However, if you do that regularly chances are they will start to think that you aren't being honest about your desire to help them. Even if your motives are pure but you are overwhelmed and forget to do things you still will risk losing trust. Follow through is essential for building an effective, trusting relationship with your direct reports as well as your peers.

Another way to lose the trust of people you work with is to act inconsistently. If you treat one employee one way and another employee another way for the same behavior not only is that favoritism it is also a sure way to make people lose trust. Yes it is true that you may like one employee better because they work harder, help you all the time or they just have a better attitude, however, as a manager it is up to you to treat everyone equitably. It is also important to not bring your moods to work you can't be a happy go lucky person one day and a tyrant the next, that type of inconsistent behavior will make working for you very difficult. You also will cause your employees to not be able to trust you since they won't know what to expect when they talk to you day to day.

It is also important not to underestimate the effect you have on your employees when you don't deal with poor performance or attitude issues in your department. You need to realize that you are impacting not only the person with the issues but everyone else in the department (and maybe other departments as well) and they will begin to lose respect and trust for you as their manager. The clear message here is to make sure that if there is someone in your department that has performance problems or an attitude problem, you need to address it for everyone's sake.

Being objective is a critical skill for managers; you need to make sure that in all situations you find out all sides to a story before jumping to conclusions or taking action. Managers that make assumptions about situations are sure to lose the trust of their employees. Even if you find out what really happened later and prove that your original assumption was wrong, chances are the damage is already done and it will be very difficult for that employee to trust you again. So to prevent issues like this from happening, find out all the facts, get everyone's side to the story and then draw your conclusions.

Last but not least, individuals in change management who are perceived to be acting in their own interest as opposed to the interest of employees will not be trusted. Sad but true, everyone has run into someone who is out for themselves and will throw someone under the wheels of the bus to protect themselves. This is a pretty obvious way to lose trust, and most likely if you are that type of individual you won't really care whether or not people trust you. However, if you are perhaps perceived as acting in your own interest but truthfully are not out for yourself then you may want to be aware that anytime employees don't think you are on their side they may lose trust in you. Sometimes it is simply a matter of better communication to clear up any misunderstandings as well as looking closely at your behaviors to see where people could have gotten the idea you are out for yourself.

Trust is not only important from a relationship perspective; believe it or not, productivity is impacted by how trusting a relationship employees have with change management. The Harvard Business Review published a study of hotel employees where the results showed that "hotels where employees strongly believed their managers followed through on promises and demonstrated the values they preached were substantially more profitable than those whose managers scored average or lower." Keeping trust is a lot easier than trying to get it back once you have lost it so it makes sense to be aware of how trust can be lost and consciously work at keeping an honest, trusting relationship with your employees. You need to be consistent in how you deal with people, keep the lines of communication open and treat everyone with respect and fairness.

Debra Breski: http://debrabreski-humanresources.blogspot.com/

Subject: Change Management

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