Tips

Be sure to send your helpful management tips to mail@theosbornegroup.com. If we choose to run your tip, we'll give you full credit along with a link to your company's site & email address.

In a recent survey conducted by Beta Research Corporation for Business Week magazine, 90% of the managers participating ranked themselves among the top 10% of performers in their workplace. When you add that statistic to the knowledge that one of the top reasons for employee turnover is poor supervision, it gets one to wondering.

Are you, as a manager, a top performer?

Here are some questions to ask yourself to help you decide where you actually fit in the picture.

1. Identify your top three to five priorities – not on any given day, but as a whole? For example, as a manager of front line fundraisers, your top priorities might be to:

• Plan for the year, monitor and report on the plan progress monthly, and make needed adjustments to ensure meeting goals
• Provide the team with the tools, training, feedback and resources they need to be successful
• Achieve my goals as an individual contributor
• Respond to donor and volunteer queries and needs in a timely manner

2. Seek and get agreement on your list along with their order of priority and how much time should be devoted to each.

• For example, planning might be a top priority but only require 5% of your time throughout the year.

3. Seek and get agreement on your supervisor’s performance expectations. Now that you have agreement on the priorities – what are the actual expectations concerning each priority? What outcomes are expected? What does expected performance look like? What does exceptional performance look like? Consider asking your supervisor questions like:

• "Why is this important? Urgent? For whom is it important or urgent?"
• "What constitutes success for this effort?"
• "From your point of view, how will we measure success?"

4. Seek inputs from other sources. How do your peers perceive your work performance? How do those you supervise perceive you? Make sure you complete a self-evaluation annually, whether or not it is required. If your supervisor is careless about evaluations, take the initiative and request a formal discussion annually. Ask your supervisor questions about your performance like:

• "What do you believe are my strengths?" "How so?"
• "I would like to continue to grow in my role. From your perspective, how might I strengthen my skills?"
• "How am I doing in relation to your expectations?" "Can you say more about that?"

With clarity of priorities, time commitment and expectations along with concrete feedback from peers, staff and your supervisor, you will know if you are delivering peek performance.

For a free tool to help you, click here.