What do managers manage? Their focus should be on managing behaviours

What exactly do managers manage? Is it people? Objectives? Money? Time? Logistics? Or some combination of all of that?
Phil Geldart, the Guelph, Ont.-based chief executive officer of Eagle’s Flight, which delivers training programs for major corporations across the globe, believes managers must focus on managing behaviours. In turn, those behaviours, properly calibrated and in tune with what he calls the seven cornerstones of teamwork, deliver results.
“There is great potential in every human being that leaders have an obligation to release. The shareholder is looking for the best possible value and leaders are charged with getting that from their people, but most of them don’t know how to do it,” he says in an interview.
“Every result, in every company, comes from the behaviour of people. So, if you want to change the results, you really must change the behaviour.”
To do that, leaders focus on giving people tools – more technology, more training and more resources – but that doesn’t address behaviours. To proceed properly, four things must be in place:
“If you get those four things right, you change the behaviour. And if you change the behaviour, you change the results,” he says in the interview.
In a practical way, a manager without a big budget for outside training who wants to adopt these ideas must go to each individual on the team and ask what the leader can do to help that person contribute to the fullest. Initially, Mr. Gelbert notes, the individual won’t have sufficient trust to bare their soul. Instead, he or she will offer something safe and not terribly meaningful. But if the manager responds to that in a way that demonstrates integrity – even if only by explaining what is being suggested can’t be addressed now – it opens a path to going deeper and deeper into the individual’s emotions and thinking, until gold is unearthed. He notes this is not just about the subordinate changing; it’s about the leader changing their own behaviour and providing support for the other person to alter their behaviour.
This all happens in the context of teams because people work in teams. “World class teamwork,” he says, “requires a standard.” Any team needs to assess themselves against what he calls the seven cornerstones of teamwork, determining where weaknesses are and the behaviours needed to improve:
It’s a tall order – changing behaviours and subscribing to team standards. But they can help managers get better results.
Cannonballs
Harvey Schachter is a Kingston-based writer specializing in management issues. He, along with Sheelagh Whittaker, former CEO of both EDS Canada and Cancom, are the authors of When Harvey Didn’t Meet Sheelagh: Emails on Leadership.