Bring shit up

One of the things I learned early in my career about managing people is to encourage and create an environment for people to bring things up that they want to say. Most employees, especially on the lower levels, are often worried about bringing things up that are important because it may be controversial.

The problem with this thinking is that everything comes out eventually. Like a fire, things start as little embers and over time may turn into a full fledging forest fire if untreated. I was guilty of this in my last job when I couldn’t muster the courage to tell my manager that he was too unorganized and he was slowly losing the entire team. It didn’t end well and it could’ve been nipped at the early stages.

As a Manager, it’s my job to create a space and forum that anyone can tell me anything without fear. This open dialogue cannot be created with just telling your direct reports that you can tell me anything. Like anything related to culture building, you need to live and breath it.

Here’s some tricks that I currently use to ingrain this in my team’s culture.

I ask for feedback after a call whether it’s with a lower level staff or a higher level staff. This creates a culture where it’s okay to speak up even if it seems critical of me. Make it okay for your staff to give you feedback. In addition, I always try to provide feedback when I can.

After meetings with other teams/departments, I like to debrief with my team and ask their opinion on what they thought. Often times, staff will mention things to me afterwards that they were afraid to bring up during the meeting. If that happens, I try to coach them to speak up next time.

I openly discuss my weaknesses, faults and mistakes. It may seem self-deprecating at times but it lowers my guard and establishes the fact that no one is perfect. We all make mistakes and it’s okay to make mistakes.

Lastly, I have regular check-ins with the team to discuss any issues. We also discuss the positives, but I openly ask if there’s anything I can be doing better.