Would you like to know the secret to having more time and less stress as a people manager?

As people managers we are our own worst enemy when it comes to having time to do our job. Our teams become over-dependent on us because we often believe that the best way to help others is to fix their problems, provide solutions and give people the answer.

And the result, we become overwhelmed, spend our time ‘fire-fighting’ and we don’t have the time to focus on the work we really need to do.

The solution… empower people to help themselves. Change your conversations to be less ‘telling’ and more coaching. Coaching conversations are all about helping others to help themselves, and in turn freeing us up from having to help, fix and solve all of the time.

But it’s not as simple as learning how to have a coaching conversation. Before you can do the ‘doing’ of coaching you need to think about how you approach conversations with others. In essence you need to consider the mindset or beliefs that you hold about your role as a people manager. And develop the critical human skills (much more than ‘soft skills’) to influence and motivate others.

What do we mean by this?

Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel and behave in any given situation.’

Some common assumptions or ‘unhelpful beliefs’ of people managers:

• I’m right.
• There is only one way to do this.
• I should or I need to have all of the answers.
• It’s my role to provide solutions.
• They have asked me what to do, therefore they must not know what to do (you can still be ‘helpful’ and not give advice).

These beliefs drive us to respond, solve and fix but there is another way…. By challenging our ‘unhelpful’ beliefs we can open up the possibility of helping in a different and more effective way.

Here are some more helpful beliefs:

• People are resourceful and don’t need to be ‘fixed’.
• The best solutions for our team members are the ones they identify themselves.
• Individuals have more accountability and ownership of a task when they identify the way forward.

It is important that you find a belief that works for you, so that you can use it to catch yourself if you go into ‘fixing-mode’. What’s the most useful belief for you?

CAPE are the people experts for founder and owner led organisations. Visit our website to learn more.