Assess whether your direct report is ready to be a manager

You have an ambitious team member who is working toward a promotion. She’s great at her job, but is she cut out to lead others? Measure her potential by gauging her interest in managing. Ask her what she believes management entails and what her approach would be. Inquire about any experience she’s had outside of work that could provide useful preparation. Has she been in charge of an athletic team or a squad of volunteers? Give her opportunities to practice her management skills. Ask her to lead an upcoming project or spearhead a new initiative so you can observe her in action.

(Adapted from Is Your Employee Ready to Be a Manager? by Rebecca Knight)

Stop giving your team unnecessary work

If your team is buckling under deadlines and stress, assess whether you’re giving them unnecessary tasks and then figure out how to ease the burden. Start by regularly auditing your team’s work. Ask team members to estimate how much time they spend on each task, how central the task is to their roles and how much value each task yields. For those tasks that are needless or low in value, solicit your team’s suggestions for how to reduce or eliminate them, and work together to implement solutions. Often, improving communication and granting greater autonomy can help to get rid of any inefficient processes. Keep in mind that you may not be the one assigning the unnecessary work. Advocate for your team by insisting on better information when your team receives unclear or conflicting directives from above.

(Adapted from How to Know Whether You’re Giving Your Team Needless Work, by Monique Valor)

Need employees to cooperate? Play upbeat music

New studies show that people tend to be more cooperative (and less self-interested) in a group setting when they’re listening to happy music. Note that the type of music matters. Happy music — songs with rhythm and warmth — encourage cooperation much more than ‘unhappy’ music with arrhythmic song structures and screamed lyrics. Next time you need a group to work closely together — during a meeting or a brainstorming session — consider playing music. Not only will it break up the usual, often dreary, background silence in your office, but it could also improve your team’s performance.

(Adapted from Upbeat Music Can Make Employees More Cooperative, by Kevin Kniffin)

Draw a picture of your business model

Growing companies face a predictable problem: Over time, the business becomes too complex for its own good. To untangle this complexity, draw a picture of your business model. What does it look like at its most basic level? Make clear in your drawing what really matters to the business. Focus on the key outcomes, whether they’re in-store sales or revenue from secondary products. Then think through and write down what causes those things to happen. With this picture in front of your team, dive into the implications for what the organisation should be focusing on — and, more important, what it could stop doing. If a unit can’t clearly show a link between what it does every day and the outcomes it hopes to drive, resolve to eliminate it.

(Adapted from To Reduce Complexity in Your Company, Start With Pen and Paper, by Rita McGrath)

Make your meeting more effective by following up

It’s easy to think that your work is done when you walk out of a meeting. But the decisions made in the room will only be effective if you carefully follow up. Start by writing a succinct summary note, describing what was discussed and clear action steps. Draft this in a way that allows others to forward your message to anyone who missed the meeting or who cares about what occurred. Record any task due dates in your calendar so you can make sure they’re completed. If there’s someone who has a particular stake in the meeting outcome, such as your boss, follow up in person to make sure he’s aware of the decisions made and next steps.

(Adapted from the HBR Guide to Making Every Meeting Matter)

Published in Dawn, Business & Finance weekly, January 16th, 2017