Hub and spoke or a connected web? The difference between a poor manager and a great leader.

When you first become a manager it can be easy to think of yourself at the top of the team, with your team members reporting in to you.   In doing so it's easy to slip into a hub and spoke mentality where the one constant that keeps the team together is yourself.  You call the meetings, you set the goals, your choose the strategy.  My, if you weren't here for a week the whole thing would just fall apart!

It's ironic that because of the structure you've built - it probably would!  You haven't built a team, but a set of individuals who are focused on their own success over and above the team's.

So what do great leaders do differently?  Leaders spend time building connections between each of their team members, enabling them to help each other and to build out their own strategies and tactics.  Leaders make sure that team members value each others' success as highly as their own.  Leaders enable the team to work just as well when they are away.

What are you doing to build connections between your team members?  Are you delegating tasks to them to work on jointly?  Are you pairing up team members to work on specific projects?  Are you supporting social engagements for your team members?

Do you see yourself in a hub and spoke scenario?  Does it work for you or are you trying to create a web?  We'd love you to share your thoughts with the community.

5 skills you should be looking for in a job description

If you have a look on any recruitment site you'll see that most job descriptions list a very standard and generic list of skills or attributes that candidates must have:

• Self-Starter
• Team Player
• Goal orientated

Who would say that they weren't one of those things?  "Hi, I'm really keen to join your business but I'm not really a team player!"

They are just an easy way of filling space in your job description.

Here are five skills we think you should add to a job description, because they'll make you stand out as an employer, as well as giving you some great discussion points when you move on to interviewing.

Curious

Businesses are filled with problems!  It might be that sales take too long to close, or the legal contracts are too detailed, or the number of support tickets coming in is too high.  Whatever it is you are hiring for you need someone who is curious enough about the problems in your business to try and find solutions.  You don't want automatons that just take instructions from you.  You want people to use their brains and to help you solve your company's problems.

In the interview ask them about their curiosity.  It's probably not a question they have a pre-planned answer for!

Innovative

The sister to curiosity is innovation!  Having had a dig around and found out that the quote to cash process has 118 steps in it, you want people who can suggest innovative solutions to solving it.  Your team can excel by being the one that delivers great solutions back into the business.

Entertaining

Depending on the culture of the team that you are trying to create, you might want to look for entertaining people.  Ultimately you want a team that gets on well together, laughs together, learns together and you might therefore look for people that can work well in that environment.

Entertainment does not have to mean an extrovert that enjoys public speaking, it can just as easily mean an introvert who works well in one to one situations.  But ultimately you might be looking for someone who can put a smile on someone else's face and not drain energy from the team.

Visionary

If you've read the business classic Who Moved My Cheese? then you will know that change is a constant in business and it's those that deal with change the best that succeed.  Therefore you need to find people that can look far into the future and understand what the ultimate goal is.  Every day your team members need to be getting a little bit closer to that future and not getting distracted by short-term change when it appears.

In an interview you might ask candidates about the house that they are going to be living in in 10 years time, or where their current employer's business will be in 10 years time.  "I haven't really thought about it" is not a great response.

Caring

A great leader differs from a manager in that they build a self-dependent team that collaborates and works together, rather than managing 1-2-1 relationships with each team member.  You want to hire in people who value the success of their colleagues as highly as their own.  You do not want a culture of "if you fail, I succeed".  Ask your candidates to talk about how they have worked with or supported people in their current team, or perhaps other family members, or volunteering work.

We hope these five suggestions have given you some ideas to add to your next job description, as well as some good content for the next interview you run.

What other unique skills or attributes would you add to a job description?

Replace your team meeting with a Daily Scrum

"OK everyone, team meeting at 1pm.  I want everyone to run through their plans for this month."

Sound familiar?  Maybe you have a weekly team meeting on a Monday to kick the week off, or a wrap up on Friday.  You might have convinced yourself that it's great to get the team together and that you need to keep on top of things.  You might even have convinced yourself that your team members get value out of it as well - "It's useful for everyone to hear everyone else's plan!"

The problem with big team meetings is that they are not there to achieve an objective, or to make decisions.  Their sole purpose is for you to hear what people are up to, and that doesn't need the rest of your team to listen in.

Do your team meetings feel like this?

A quick bit of maths tells you how much a meeting costs - 10 employees x 2 hours (1 hour meeting and 1 hour prep before and wind down afterwards) x average hourly rate $15 (approx for a $25,000 salary) gives you $300 for your 1 hour meeting.  Add on any travel to get your remote workers into the office and the amount quickly totals up.

But the real cost is visible as you look around the room and see everyone who is not speaking at that time (all but one) looking bored and realising that this meeting each week doesn't help them to achieve their goals.

Daily Scrum

You may have heard of Agile Development and Scrum from the world of software development.  The methodology has been created to keep projects moving forward quickly.

One of the key activities is a very short, stand-up meeting of all of the team members every morning - a daily scrum.  Very quickly around the circle each team member relays what they did yesterday, and what they are going to do today.  Anyone else in the circle is able to, and encouraged to offer help or ask questions about what others are working on.

The value to your team here is that you really are encouraging them to help each other and to collaborate as a team.  They are reporting in to each other and not to you.

No slides or spreadsheets, just a quick discussion and within 15 minutes everyone is back to work.

By building a daily scrum into your team - whether you work in Legal, or Finance, or Sales you bring energy and velocity into your team's work.  You eliminate the 'slow days' or worse, the 'slow weeks' where 'not much is happening'.  Your team knows that every day, every 8 working hours, they will stand up in front of their colleagues and discuss what they achieved yesterday, and what they will be working on today.

As a manager you will have a much clearer view of what is going on, and your team will leave these quick meetings invigorated for their day.

As the manager you need to be very strict on yourself.  This is not your meeting.  You cannot intervene and start a detailed dissection of what a team member has discussed.  If you need more information on a particular piece of work note it down and make a point of going to see them after your daily scrum.

We love the idea of daily scrums being used in teams across the business.  Have you started using them?  Have you been able to stop your weekly team meetings?

Never forget the power of a letter

In today's technology filled world it can be so easy to send an email, send an IM, post an update, and feel that we've done our duty to communicate a message.  But before you hit send, just take a moment to think of the power of a letter.

In year's gone you probably received plenty of letters, but today real letters (not from your bank or electricity supplier) are probably thin on the ground.  Maybe an invitation to a wedding, or a thank-you card for a Christmas present.

What do you feel when you receive a real letter?

• That some-one took the time to write it and post it.
• That is was personal to you and not a mass Facebook update
• That they actually used a pen rather than a keypad
• That they chose a card specific to you
• That you smiled when a hand-written envelope came through the door

How great will Jim feel when this drops through his door?

If you're like us, you almost feel like writing a thank-you letter....for the thank-you letter!

So why not use letters as a way of thanking your team members now and again?  Perhaps a postcard or letter for another year's service, or a great project that was brought in on budget.

Your team member will seriously appreciate that you've taken the time to sit down, think about it, write them a letter and post it.  Their family will no doubt see it as well - "Hey check this out, I've got a letter from my manager!" Public praise in the home is at the heart of social leadership!

Take a moment to think about some of the great work that your team has done over the past few months, and start sending a few postcards or letters.  Don't over do it - perhaps a couple per team member per year - that way they will be appreciated and not considered your standard practice.

Let us know here on the blog how you get on!

Praise promptly for the full effect

When do you praise your team members?  Have you ever found yourself saying "I'll remember to thank her at the next team meeting"?  Did you get round to delivering that thanks?  Could you remember the specific details of what your team member had achieved?

As soon as your team member completes a great piece of work the clock starts ticking, and every minute, every day that goes by the power of the praise you can offer diminishes.

Even though your day is busy, if you see a great piece of work jump on it, and take a moment to praise your team member, publicly if you can.

Use the specifics of the task they have just completed so they see that you really truly understand and appreciate what they have just done.  Do it now, while it's still fresh in your mind.

5 reasons you should train your team to replace you!

What are your plans?  Do you aim to be doing the same job in 5 years?  You probably have your eyes on one or two levels up and are planning your career around that promotion.

So once you are in your new role who is going to be reporting in to you?  Perhaps the company could recruit a new head in from outside the business to replace you - but they might not have a great cultural fit with you, and they certainly won't have the history of working with you.

A much better strategy is to ensure that the members of your current team are well equipped to step up into your role and continue to support the team whilst you go on to a more strategic role.

Here are our tips for coaching your team to replace you.

1. List out some of your key managerial roles

As a manager your job is to focus on the future and the vision for your team.  Start off by listing out some of the key duties that you do as a manager.

• Managing a Profit and Loss Account
• Forecasting strategy
• Creating a job description
• Running interviews
• Public Speaking
• Running team meetings
• Attending management meetings

Be careful though.  It's important to respect the confidentiality of your team and you should not involve your team members in any salary or personal discussions.

2. Involve your team members in coaching activities

You can now start to get team members involved with you on your projects.  Perhaps you need to hire a new marketing assistant.  Pick a team member and book out some time for them to sit with you as you create the job description together.

This activity has multiple benefits.  Obviously you can coach them in a skill that they might be able to take on from you in the future, but you also convey trust and confidence in their ability which can improve overall morale.  Delegation is one of the most important traits of a great leader and this is the start of it.

But more so, when was the last time you really sat down with a team member and worked on a project together?  When did you last challenge each other, make decisions together and succeed together?  This kind of activity can form a solid basis for a working relationship, especially for newer team members.

3. Share the responsibility out

Ensure that you share your coaching out equally across the team.  You do not want to be perceived as a king-maker and openly running a succession plan for your top performers.  Instead, this process can provide even more benefit to you by deliberately focusing on your middle and lower performers.

Firstly, you demonstrate to them that even though they aren't at their peak performance you still have trust and confidence in them and are prepared to invest your time in them.  Check out the Praise/Productivity Loop for details of how this can inspire the performance you want.

Secondly, different members of your team will have different skills and you may uncover talents in team members that you might not have expected.  Perhaps one of your team has a real knack for numbers and can help you nail your forecasts.

4. Publicly praise

As your team members help you complete each piece of work, no matter how small, make sure you publicly praise them.  Perhaps in a team meeting, but ideally in a wider environment - a company meeting, or via Kebuki onto their social networks.

Let others know that your team members are going above and beyond their job descriptions and that they are the managers of the future.  You will look like a great leader, and probably have others wanting to join your team.

5. Repeat

Don't leave it with just one coaching session per team member.  Continue to coach your team members with different challenges, and perhaps permanently delegating tasks if you can.  Enable your team members to take on the responsibility and free you up for more strategic and visionary activities.  You'll know you've achieved your goal when your team can function perfectly when you are away on vacation!

It might seem counter-intuitive to train your team to replace you, but the confidence you will have as you move up into your new role, knowing you have an entire team of capable managers-in-waiting to call on will put you in an amazing position.

How to write a winning Job Description

Great news!  Things are going well.  Your team is meeting all it's targets.  You need to expand and have the go-ahead to add a new team member.

Your first step is going to be to pull together a Job Description so your HR team or external recruiters can get out there and find you some candidates.

For many managers though getting the go-ahead to recruit is exciting, and the interview process is exciting, but writing the job description.....well that can be less entertaining.

It's sad to see how many Job Descriptions are dull and lifeless, that look as if they have been copied or modified, and that just don't pass over the passion of the company and the manager doing the hiring.

Whatever department you are in, when it comes to writing a job description you are in Sales!  Selling your company, selling your team, and selling yourself!  Why should your ideal candidate apply for your job when there are so many options available to them?

A killer job title

Start with a blank piece of paper

There are plenty of jobs out there with similar requirements.  A quick search on LinkedIn Jobs for "Finance Manager" brings up thousands just in the US.  You need to make your job stand out and drive a click.  Is your company:

• In a unique industry
• Growing rapidly
• Exciting to work for
• Multi-national

"Finance Manager - high-growth mobile gaming company" gives some extra information that might drive more attention to your advert.

Executive Summary

Think about the CV's you read.  What is the point at which you decide to read on, or pass?  It's the Executive Summary.  This is your chance to pitch the company, the role, and your team in a few concise sentences.  Focus on the vision for the business and the team, and why this role is instrumental in achieving that vision.  Don't oversell the position, but make sure it sounds attractive and exciting.  You want your potential applicant to want to read on.

Responsibilities

In bad job descriptions the responsibilities are listed in an almost negative way.  Here is your opportunity to stand out by positioning the role in a positive way.

Instead of "completing project work requested by Legal Director" why not try "supporting the creation and management of our legal agreements"

It's worth spending some time on this area and discussing with your current team members to get their feedback.  Definitely do not copy the responsibilities off another job description and modify them.  This has to be your document that accurately reflects the role you envisage.

Company Overview

Here you have another opportunity to out-sell your hiring competition.  Your HR department may have an agreed template, but why not get some time with your marketing department and understand how they are positioning the company to potential customers?  If you are asking someone to transfer their career over to you and your team, then they need to have confidence, and excitement in the vision and strategy that your company has.

• Why your industry?
• Why your company?
• Why your vision?
• Why this office and team?

Reporting Lines

"This role will report in to the Director of Operations" sounds a bit ominous and bland.

"This role will report into the Director of Operations.  Having worked at the company for 10 years she has fantastic success in promoting team members into positions of responsibility in both her own team, and others across the business." sounds positive and gives an insight into future development within the company.

If you are a Kebuki manager then this would be a great place to list your current Kebuki Rating as well to demonstrate the value that your existing team see in you.

References

You are going to be asking your candidates for references to check out what they are saying, so why not offer the same thing back to your candidates.

"References available from current team members" is all that's required.  You're demonstrating your confidence in your abilities as a leader, as well as promoting your team mentality.

Later in the interview process you can provide contact details for the relevant people.

Get a second opinion

Once you have finished your awesome job description, get it checked over by someone else.  Ideally someone not involved in the recruiting process - a family member, a friend, a manager from another department.

• Does this job description sounds attractive?
• Does it tell you what the job requires?
• Does it make you excited about the business?
• Does it make you excited about the team?
• Do you know what to do next (how to apply)?

Once you are happy then work with your HR team or recruitment consultants to format the document and get it looking amazing.  Don't waste your hard work with a spelling error or by using a poor resolution resized logo!

Good luck, and enjoy creating your job descriptions - they are one of the most important parts of your recruitment process.

We hope you have enjoyed this post and found it of use.

The Ultimate Goal Setting Template

When you think goal setting you probably think of goals that you set for your team members.  But in this post we're going to look at getting your team members to set life goals for themselves.

Think about your own personal goals.  Perhaps you have some like these:

• Buy a new house by 2015
• Become a Director by 2013
• Transfer to a new region by 2014
• Set up your own business by 2020

You may or may not have taken these goals out of your head and written them down, but it is probably unlikely that you are actively working towards them with the support of your own manager (at least three of them might appear to conflict with your managers ideas for you)!

Help your team hit their goals!

In the same way, each of your team members will have their own set of personal goals, some short term, some medium term, and some long term.

Some of your team members might have formulated these into a specific document, but more likely they are just a set of loose ideas in their head.

You have the opportunity to set yourself apart as an amazing leader by both helping your team members to produce a goal document, and then by regularly helping them to get towards their goals (whether they match your plans for them or not.)

Short Term Goals

We think of short term goals as the next six months.  Goals here might include:

• Hit work related targets
• Get away on a holiday
• Become a team leader

As you run your monthly one to ones with your team members its essential to spend some time reviewing these short term goals as your team members should be completing them and adding new goals to the list.  As goals are completed you get fantastic opportunities to inspire them via the Kebuki app.  Work related successes can be praised publicly, whilst personal successes should be kept between you.

Medium Term Goals

We think of medium term goals as the next 12-24 months.  Goals here might include:

• A job promotion
• A transfer to a new role
• A transfer to a new region
• A transfer to a new company
• Getting married
• Having a new baby

On the face of it some of these goals might seem to conflict with your role of managing the team.  But refusing to acknowledge that your team member has a desire to transfer to a new role does not remove the desire!  Better as a leader to understand, to facilitate and to plan for replacements.  Your job as a leader to to enable high quality communication between your team members and yourself, and if they feel that you are their to support their dreams then you are a lot closer to a productive and engaged team.

Long Term Goals

We think of long term goals as the next 5-10 years.  Goals here might include:

• Retirement
• Become a Director
• Set up a company
• Buy a family house

5-10 years might seem an excessive time span, and its unlikely that you'll still have this team member part of your team in that time.  However, the secret to achieving long term goals is to do something, however small, every day to help you get there.  If you don't they remain just that - long term goals.  By helping your team members to define their vision for the future you can help them get there bit by bit, day by day.  This positions you in an amazing light compared to the majority of managers who have no interest in what their team members do next week never mind the next 10 years.

The Ultimate Goal Setting Template

To help you get underway we've put together this Goal Setting Template which you can copy and adapt for your own use.

In your next team meeting introduce the concept to your team.  You should have completed one for yourself, and if you are confident why not share it with your team so they know what it should look like?

Give them a few weeks to complete it and then review at your next one to one.

Some suggestions:

• Be interested
• Be supportive
• Don't criticise any goal (even if it conflicts with your plans)
• Regularly update
• Use Kebuki to praise when goals are reached

We hope this Goal Setting Template has been useful.  We'd love to hear how you are using it.

The Praise/Productivity Loop - a lesson from the world of physics.

As a busy manager it can be easy to slip in to reactive praise - recognising a key performer in a quarterly team meeting, or with an email after the fact.  But is this the only way of using praise to lead your team?

When I was at school I remember sitting in a physics class wrapping copper wire around a spindle to create an electric motor.  The motor was then connected up to a battery and around it went.

It's up to you where you start on the loop!

I then remember the teacher asking us what would happen in reverse - if we disconnected the battery and manually turned the copper wire around.

I was amazed to discover that the action of turning the copper wire round by hand would in fact create electricity and power a light bulb.  The motor had become a dynamo.

When you think about how you lead your team, its fairly clear that if your team is really productive then you'll praise them.

But remember the dynamo.  It's just as possible to use praise to initiate the productivity in your team, especially for the weaker performers in the group.

Praise doesn't have to be for a major piece of work, in fact it can be even more powerful for a smaller effort that might otherwise have gone un-noticed - perhaps helping a new starter settle in, putting an agenda for a team meeting together, or an idea for a new internal process.  The fact that you have praised shows that you are watching, shows that you value everything they are doing, and inspires that team member to go on and work harder.

Managers that use Kebuki are reminded to praise each and every team member on a consistent and regular basis ensuring that they use praise as a proactive dynamo for their team, and not a reactive motor.

For more information on Kebuki reminders check out the demo video.

Do you use proactive praise to drive productivity?  How has proactive praise helped your team to develop?  We'd love to know your comments in the section below.

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Apps for Leaders: Evernote

This post is part of our Apps for Leaders series in which we look at cool technology that can help you to lead your team simply and amazingly.

As a manager your day can have you doing 101 things for 101 different people.  Setting some KPI's here, planning a recruitment drive, conducting an interview and completing the annual budget.  How do you keep on top of all of these things?  A notebook and a pen?

Evernote is a great app that you can access on your laptop, desktop, mobile or tablet and enables you to quickly add notes to specific notebooks.

You can either type text in, or add audio, video or images.

Perhaps:

• Driving in to work you have a great idea for a new team incentive
• In a 1-2-1 you write key actions on a whiteboard
• You want to video a interviewee's presentation
• Someone tells you about a great business book you should read

Use Evernote to quickly upload your thoughts into one of your notebooks and you can easily retrieve them from any of your devices at a later date.

We'd suggest having a notebook for each of your team members giving you an easy way of tracking items you want to remember.

Evernote is free, but we think you benefit from the Premium Account by enabling others to contribute to shared notebooks.  That way you could have a shared notebook that all of your team could contribute to.

Do you use Evernote?  How are you using it to support your team members?

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Definition of "Leadership"

Sometimes you say a word so much you forget what it actually means.  "Leadership" can often be misconstrued as dictatorial and managerial - "you must do this!"

But search for the definition of "lead" and you'll get back to the core - "Cause (a person or animal) to go with one by holding them by the hand, a halter, a rope, etc., while moving forward."

Removing the halter and rope references for animals for a second, the key point here is that leading is about getting others to follow - and not about pushing them in a particular direction.

It's essential for you to have a clear vision of where you want your team and your business to be, and then ask yourself the question "How do I get my team to follow me there?"

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