Maintaining a productive agency environment

Do you ever hear complaints from your employees and dismiss the grumblings as the ravings of a misguided few? Their grievances may have more merit than you think. An employee who believes that he or she is being treated unfairly may convince others of the same. Soon, your once peaceful workplace maybe become a den of dissatisfaction as the perception of one worker transforms the whole office.

It's important that managers stay tuned to the office's mood by applying the skills of emotional intelligence. New York Times science writer Daniel Goleman, an expert on emotional intelligence, describes it as the ability to control one's emotions and to perceive the emotional states of others.

Some people naturally possess a keen emotional intellect, but everyone can develop their emotional intelligence through self-awareness, social sensitivity and empathy towards others. Show your employees that you value their input by listening well and responding to the issues they raise.

Principle No. 2: It's all about trust

Trust is the reliance on the integrity, ability or character of a person. Through their everyday actions and behaviors, managers must earn the trust of their staffs. Unfortunately, many agency managers may unwittingly be guilty of violating this trust. Have you ever received a customer complaint and then accused an employee of bad service before you heard both sides of the story? If a department completes a project after deadline, do you blame that department before finding out the reason for the delay? Do you arrange meetings then cancel them at the last minute? I even encountered a manager who became emotional and cursed at subordinates. All of these behaviors destroy trust.

Inaction also can wipe out your employees' confidence in you. A manager who fails to resolve conflict loses the confidence and trust of the staff. An agency principal, recently told me of a manager she was forced to fire. The employee had a terrible attitude and was widely disliked, but she was also a satisfactory worker. The agency head thought the department was better off with her than without her. Boy was she wrong.

The situation became unbearable and the boss finally let the manager go. Guess what happened? The manager-less department breathed a sigh of relief and assumed the additional responsibilities without complaint. If the owner had failed to act, it would have further impaired her employees trust in her. Keep the trust in your agency alive and healthy by addressing problems early.

Principle No. 3: Create cultural principles and practices

Many agencies have a mission statement, but few write them down, and fewer still have employees who know the agency's mission statement by heart. Your agency's mission statement should define what the agency is and the values it upholds. Everyone in the agency should contribute to the creation of this document, although, depending on how large your agency is, management may need to craft its final draft for the sake of time and consistency.

Acronyms are effective, easy mne-monic devices that will take your agency's mission statement out of the filing cabinet and into the minds of your employees. It can be simple: "We have ESP–Excellent Service Professionalism" or "We Make MAGIC–My Actions Generate Incredible Customer Service." Prospective employees and customers will also appreciate the easy introduction to your agency. Create a mission statement that embodies the values of your agency and post it prominently for easy reference.

While mission statements pinpoint an agency's basic values, they won't tell employees how to compose a professional e-mail message, how to answer the phone, or how to dress appropriately for work. For that, an agency should develop a best practices of performance document that outlines these standards. With specific instructions to guide them, employees will be more likely to function in accordance with the core values of your agency.

Principle No. 4: Develop people

When you have an important project, to whom do you assign it? Always your best employee, right? Wrong thing to do. Giving too much challenging and time-sensitive work to your top employees will create burn out. Meanwhile other workers, with more time and fewer responsibilities than your top performers, are being overlooked. They will suffer workplace stagnation and won't develop enough to tackle sophisticated tasks. Here are six steps to effectively delegating work and creating a win-win situation for both the manager and employee.

1. Communicate the task specifically. Define the task, how you want it done and who is accountable for its completion. Give a deadline.

2. Provide the context. For example, don't just say to an employee, "I know this is a June renewal, but we need everything by April." Instead, give your worker a reason to complete the chore early: "This is a June renewal, but I need it by April 15 because the client is going out of the country." Don't withhold information because you're short on time or because you believe it isn't necessary. The more people know about a task, the more effective they are in responding to it. We all work better with more information.

3. Determine the standards. Here's how I describe this: You walk into an automobile service station and you see a sign that reads, "We give the quickest service. We provide quality work. We have the best price." Choose two. All three promises can't delivered at the same time. At best, one person can provide two out of three. Establish the two standards you want your delegated project to meet.

4. Grant authority. Let your employees know what they can do to get the task done. Let's say you give a CSR a project that may require him to call a client, although you didn't explicitly say he would need to do so. The CSR doesn't get the project done. Before you get mad, get all the facts. Did you give the CSR the authority to call the client directly? Did you object when he contacted a client the last time you gave the CSR a similar project? Such a negative encounter has to happen only once or twice for the CSR to say to himself, "I'm not going to do anything unless the boss tells me to do it."

5. Confirm understanding before ending conversations with employees. It's funny how two people speaking the same language can misunderstand each other so completely. Make sure everyone is on the same page.

6. Provide support and feedback. Good managers despise micromanaging. To show their faith in their staff, they don't bother an employee after assigning him or her a task until the task is done. Showing support and offering feedback isn't nagging or looking over someone's shoulder. It can be just this simple: A week after delegating a project, ask your employee, "How are you coming along?" That's not micromanaging, it's teamwork.

Developing people means not only giving them good work to do, but also recognizing their contributions. Make your people feel important. Give everyone, including interns and receptionists, a business card. If your office has an in/out board, list each person on it. Let all employees know that their contribution is valuable.

Take time to get to know your employees. I knew a company president who refused to have client meetings in the mornings. Instead of hosting sit downs in the boardroom, he toured the office. Coffee cup in hand, he stopped to chat with each of his employees not only about work but about their personal lives as well. In 45 minutes, he would hit all three floors of the agency, renewing his rapport with his employees wherever he went.

But not all managers are of the coffee-cup-in-hand, chit-chat variety. Even well-meaning managers make mistakes. But the managerial errors you've made in the past don't have to be the ones you make in the future. Follow these four principles of great management practices and make your agency a more pleasant and productive place to work.