Finding the missing spark!

I was speaking to a newly appointed manager, Jim, last week. He has a team of 16 people and he had begun to have those first conversations with them about objectives, performance and so on. There was little spark in these initial meetings and no sense that people were preparing differently with Jim than with any other boss. Jim was frustrated by the process and he sensed his people were bored by it too.

‘What do you think your people want?’ I asked him. ‘Other than performing to the job specification what would have them feeling excited and wanting to go that extra mile?’ Jim had no idea because he hadn’t been thinking about that conversation. He called himself a people leader but he’d fallen into that trap of going through the standard HR process and believing that was enough.

We began to explore the idea that performance appraisals are too often focussed on ticking boxes rather than being brilliant opportunities for managers and leaders to encourage possibility, hope and belief in their players. My encouragement to Jim was to have a different sort of dialogue with his direct reports – to open up conversations that that would identify those projects or opportunities that would give his people a sense of ownership for a future that both stretched and inspired them.

And more than this I suggested to Jim that if he really wanted his people to step-up then he’d need more than a one-off conversation. Rather, he’d have to make it his business from now on to check-in regularly with his team about how they were getting on with their ambitions – bringing his conviction, his energy and his backing to each and every one of them. In other words Jim would have to make it a priority to develop his people as leaders, not just as followers.

The delight in working with Jim is that these are exactly the sort of conversations he wants to have with his people. And as we spoke about why all this mattered to him his own energy returned and a new sense of possibility emerged. After all Jim is not a box-ticking sort of guy. He wants his team to feel good, to get the most they can out of work and to deliver brilliant results for the company and now he knows exactly how he has to lead to make this all begin to happen.

Leadership nudge: what opportunities are there for you to transform standard interactions into brilliant conversations that leave people feeling uplifted, energised and wanting to do more?

Learn more about Anthony Landale, the author of this article.