Tips for New Supervisors, Five Simple First Time Supervisor Tips and Skills

Summary

This video script offers valuable tips for new supervisors on motivating teams and enhancing efficiency. It emphasizes the importance of soft skills, such as organizational, time management, communication, training, and people skills, which are crucial for building trust and team morale. The speaker shares insights on how supervisors can act as a bridge between management and the workforce, effectively communicating and training team members to improve performance. The script also highlights the need for supervisors to prioritize tasks and eliminate distractions to maximize productivity and maintain a positive work environment.

Takeaways

• 📘 Supervisors play a crucial role in motivating teams and increasing efficiency, regardless of their level in the organizational hierarchy.
• 🔑 Soft skills are essential for supervisors, including leadership, management, and interpersonal skills, which are vital for building trust and morale.
• 👥 Supervisors often act as 'managers in training', responsible for results but sometimes lacking authority to make changes, emphasizing the importance of people skills.
• 🔄 Organizational skills are key for supervisors to efficiently manage tasks and teams, including creating checklists and flowcharts to guide new team members.
• ⏰ Time management is critical for supervisors to eliminate idle time and prioritize activities, using tools like the Eisenhower Matrix to categorize tasks by urgency and importance.
• 🗣️ Communication skills are vital for supervisors to effectively relay information between management and the team, and to listen to team feedback for better decision-making.
• 👨‍🏫 Training skills are essential for supervisors to assess team members' knowledge and skills, and to provide necessary training for improved performance and efficiency.
• 🤝 People skills are paramount for supervisors to maintain rapport with both team members and management, fostering a positive team culture and high morale.
• 🛠️ Supervisors must be adept at identifying the strengths and weaknesses of their team members to provide targeted training and development opportunities.
• 💡 The importance of a proactive approach in supervisors to preemptively address potential issues and to involve team members in problem-solving and policy adaptation.
• 🚀 Supervisors can significantly impact an organization's success by enhancing team productivity, reducing stress, and improving morale through the application of their skills.

Q & A

What is the main focus of the video script?

The main focus of the video script is to provide tips for new supervisors on how to motivate their team, increase efficiency, and build trust and morale within the organization.

Who is the target audience for these supervisory tips?

The target audience includes new supervisors, upper management, entrepreneurs, and senior leadership roles who are looking to improve their team's performance and culture.

What are the key supervisory skills discussed in the script?

The key supervisory skills discussed are organizational skills, time management, communication skills, training skills, and people skills.

Why are people skills so important for supervisors?

People skills are important for supervisors because they act as a conduit between management and the team, and are crucial for building trust, rapport, and a positive team culture.

How can supervisors use organizational skills to improve team efficiency?

Supervisors can use organizational skills to create checklists and flow charts that help team members know what tasks to perform and when, reducing idle time and increasing productivity.

What is the significance of time management for supervisors?

Time management is significant for supervisors because it helps to ensure that team members are focused on important and urgent tasks, reducing wasted time and increasing overall efficiency.

How does the script suggest supervisors handle policy changes that may affect their team?

The script suggests that supervisors should first explain the problem the policy change aims to solve, then present the change, and finally, ask the team for alternative solutions, which can help soften the impact of the change and maintain a positive team dynamic.

What is the role of communication skills in the supervisor's role?

Communication skills are crucial for supervisors as they need to effectively relay information between management and the team, ensure timely information dissemination, and listen to the team's feedback for better decision-making.

Why is it important for supervisors to assess and train their team members?

It is important for supervisors to assess and train their team members to identify skill gaps, improve performance, and help team members reach their potential, which contributes to the overall success of the team.

How can supervisors use the quadrant system by Stephen Covey to prioritize tasks?

Supervisors can use the quadrant system to categorize tasks into important and urgent (Quadrant 1), important but not urgent (Quadrant 2), urgent but not important (Quadrant 3), and neither important nor urgent (Quadrant 4), helping them to focus on high-priority tasks and reduce time spent on low-priority activities.

What is the connection between people skills and job success according to Dave Ramsey's quote mentioned in the script?

According to Dave Ramsey's quote, people skills are more critical for job success than formal education. The ability to interact effectively with others, demonstrate professionalism, and build rapport is what truly leads to success in the workplace.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Introduction to Supervisory Skills

The speaker introduces the topic of supervisory skills, emphasizing their importance for new supervisors and their relevance to various roles within an organization. They outline the session as part of a soft skills series, briefly touching on leadership and management skills before focusing on supervisory skills. The speaker highlights the distinction between supervisors and managers, especially the lack of authority supervisors often face, and the significance of people skills in their success. The paragraph concludes with an introduction to the five key skills identified for supervisors: organizational, time management, communication, training, and people skills.

05:00

📝 Developing Organizational Skills

This paragraph delves into the first supervisory skill: organizational skills. It discusses the challenge of taking over an existing team and the need for supervisors to organize and increase efficiency. The speaker shares an anecdote about a marketing supervisor who hired young graduates to manage social media, using a checklist and flowchart to streamline tasks. The summary underscores the importance of supervisors acting as 'oil cans' to keep the team running smoothly and suggests that effective organization can significantly boost productivity and morale.

10:01

⏱️ Mastering Time Management

The speaker addresses the second key supervisory skill: time management. They stress the importance of eliminating wasted time and prioritizing tasks using Stephen Covey's quadrant method. The method categorizes tasks into urgent and important, important but not urgent, urgent but not important, and neither urgent nor important. The speaker advises supervisors to focus on quadrant one and two tasks, plan for quadrant two to prevent urgency, and eliminate distractions from quadrant four. This approach is presented as a way to enhance efficiency, reduce stress, and improve team morale.

15:01

🗣️ Enhancing Communication as a Supervisor

The paragraph shifts focus to the third supervisory skill: communication. Supervisors act as a conduit between management and the team, requiring excellent communication skills. The speaker explains the necessity of timely information sharing and active listening to team observations, which can inform management decisions. They provide a scenario where a supervisor manages a policy change by discussing the underlying problem with the team before the change, potentially incorporating team suggestions and preventing negative reactions. The importance of preventing an 'us versus them' mentality is highlighted.

20:02

🏫 The Art of Training Team Members

The speaker discusses the fourth supervisory skill: training. Supervisors must assess their team's knowledge and skill levels and provide necessary training. The paragraph provides a detailed example of how a supervisor might evaluate and improve a team's performance in various roles, such as account managers in the given example. It emphasizes the importance of identifying strengths and weaknesses and tailoring training to help team members reach their potential, ultimately contributing to the team's success.

25:04

🤝 Cultivating People Skills for Supervisors

The final paragraph of the script focuses on the fifth and crucial supervisory skill: people skills. The speaker shares a quote from Dave Ramsey about the importance of people skills in the workplace, arguing that they are more critical than formal education for job success. The paragraph discusses the role of supervisors in maintaining rapport with both team members and management, using personal experience to illustrate the impact of poor people skills on team morale and turnover. The speaker concludes by suggesting that retraining supervisors in people skills can resolve organizational challenges.

Keywords

💡Supervisory Skills

Supervisory skills refer to the competencies needed to effectively oversee and manage a team. In the video, these skills are a subset of managerial skills and are crucial for those in supervisory roles to motivate their team and increase efficiency. Examples from the script include the need for supervisors to organize teams, manage time, communicate effectively, train team members, and possess strong people skills.

💡Organizational Skills

Organizational skills are the ability to arrange and manage tasks and resources efficiently. The video emphasizes the importance of these skills for supervisors to help their teams become more efficient, such as by creating checklists and flow charts to streamline processes for new employees.

💡Time Management

Time management is the capacity to prioritize and allocate time effectively to tasks. The script discusses its critical role in ensuring no wasted time within a team, with an example of using Stephen Covey's quadrant system to categorize tasks based on their urgency and importance.

💡Communication Skills

Communication skills are essential for conveying information clearly and effectively. In the context of the video, supervisors use these skills to act as a conduit between management and the team, ensuring information flows both ways and facilitating understanding and collaboration.

💡Training Skills

Training skills involve the ability to assess and develop the knowledge and abilities of team members. The script illustrates the importance of supervisors identifying areas where team members need improvement and providing targeted training to enhance their performance.

💡People Skills

People skills are interpersonal abilities that facilitate rapport and trust-building with others. The video discusses how supervisors must maintain good relationships with both team members and management, using examples such as responding to policy changes and creating a positive work environment.

💡Leadership

Leadership in the video is depicted as creating a vision and setting a new path for the organization. Leaders are distinguished from managers and supervisors by their role in innovation and strategic direction-setting, as opposed to the operational focus of supervisors and managers.

💡Management

Management, as discussed in the script, involves making the navigation of the path set by leaders more efficient. Managers pick up where leaders leave off, focusing on the operational aspects of achieving organizational goals, which is different from the people-centric focus of supervisors.

💡Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal skills are the social abilities important in any career for building and maintaining relationships. The video mentions that these skills will be covered in more detail in a future session, highlighting their importance across various roles and industries.

💡Morale

Morale refers to the confidence, enthusiasm, and general spirit of a team or organization. The script discusses how supervisors play a key role in building morale through their people skills and the effective use of supervisory skills, which can impact team culture and performance.

💡Efficiency

Efficiency is the degree to which time and resources are used effectively to produce the desired outcome. The video script stresses the importance of supervisors increasing team efficiency through organizational and time management skills, as well as by reducing idle time.

Highlights

The importance of soft skills for supervisors in motivating teams and increasing efficiency.

The value of building trust and morale in grassroots team culture.

Soft skills as a subset of managerial skills, including leadership and management skills.

The role of supervisors as 'managers in training' with limited authority but high responsibility.

Key supervisory skills identified: organizational, time management, communication, training, and people skills.

The necessity for supervisors to master organizing inherited teams.

Creating checklists and flow charts to improve team efficiency and reduce idle time.

The critical nature of time management for supervisors to prioritize and eliminate wasted time.

Stephen Covey's quadrant method for task prioritization and efficiency.

The role of supervisors as conduits for communication between management and the workforce.

Importance of listening to the team and involving them in problem-solving for better policy acceptance.

Assessing and training team members to reach their potential and improve performance.

The significance of people skills in building rapport, trust, and preventing conflicts within the organization.

Dave Ramsey's perspective on the importance of people skills over degrees in the job market.

The impact of poor supervisory skills on team morale and turnover rates.

The need for retraining supervisors to improve organizational morale and team culture.

Upcoming session on interpersonal skills to address challenges faced by managers in training.

Transcripts

[Music]

so this week i'm covering a few tips for

new supervisors that can help you

motivate your team and increase

efficiency and if you're not a new

supervisor these tips can still be very

helpful even if you're in an upper

management role or if you're an

entrepreneur

or if you're in a senior leadership role

a lot of times

we tend to kind of overlook the things

that are

really important in building that trust

and building that morale and these are

some things that can help you get back

to

kind of the grassroots of your

organization and really create that type

of team culture that you're looking for

now this is a continuation of our soft

skills series if you recall in the first

year in the first session

i talked about what soft skills are and

why they're important

in in just about any role in any

organization then we divided the skills

into segments we talked about leadership

skills

and management skills we've done that

over the last couple weeks um this week

we're talking about supervisory skills

and then next week we're going to talk

about interpersonal skills

those are the people skills that are

important in just about

any career that that you're in so in

this session i'm going to focus on

a a list of of supervisory skills things

that we really need to know if we want

to be a good

supervisor if we want to be a good coach

for the people that

work for us and work with us and as as

we talked about in the

soft skills session supervisor skills

are

there they're a subset of managerial

skills you know and

for instance if in the very first couple

of sessions that i covered on

on this topic we we talked about how

leaders

kind of create the vision for the new

path these are the folks that

this path didn't even exist before the

leader came up with it

and so it's a it's a new route it's a

new path that we're taking and then the

manager picks up

where the leader leaves off and makes

the navigation of that path

more efficient well supervisors have the

same goal as the manager

however a lot of times the supervisor

doesn't yet have the

authority to make changes to that

process or

to the personnel and so a lot of times

supervisors are often

they're i kind of call them managers in

training they're responsible for the

results

however in many cases they may not have

a lot of authority yet and as a result

people skills

are going to be way more important to

their success

a good example this by the way outside

of

kind of normal business structures would

be like non-profits a lot of times

directors and folks who work at a

non-profit they're they're dealing with

volunteers these are people that are

volunteer volunteering their time to

to help the cause and so a lot of times

these folks will have have

responsibility for

for what these volunteers are doing but

not necessarily authority we can't make

the volunteers do something we can ask

them and we can use good people skills

though

and that's why these this type of skill

set can be important

in a lot of different different ways in

different organizations

so the supervisor and the manager by the

way because they have the same goal

they share two key skills they share

organizational skills and time

management

however the remainder of the important

skills for

for supervisors are quite different than

the manager skills and so let me give

you the five things that i've identified

as really key skills

for supervisors so the first two skills

are the same as the top two skills for

managers as well it's organizational

skills you have to be able to organize

things and

time management skills you have to

manage your time and the time of the the

people that work around us work for us

the third one though is a little

different than the managerial skills

it's communication skills you got to be

able to communicate a lot of times

the supervisor is going to be the

conduit or the

the go between between management and

the workforce

and so they have to be excellent

communicators the

the fourth area is training skills they

have to be able to

get the people that work around them

work for them to a higher level of

performance and a more efficient

way of performing in their job duties so

they have to be good trainers as well

and then the last one is the one i

talked about in the intro which is

people skills you have to be able to

motivate and inspire the folks on on the

team

to to do a really good job so let's

cover each one of these skills in just a

little bit more detail

so starting with tip number one or skill

number one it's organizational skills we

have to look for ways to help

our teams become more efficient so

so first time supervisors often inherit

inherit their teams right most of the

time somebody else has hired these folks

and a lot of times other people have

have actually trained them but we we're

kind of jumping in so it's an it's

it's an inherited team so if you're a

first-time supervisor

a lot of times you you you may not have

the ability to hire

and build your own team and if you do by

the way if you if you

have if you're a first-time supervisor

and you're able to build your own team

if you're able to hire your own team

members

you're like a unicorn it's like it's

just very very rare

so supervisors have to really master the

skill of organizing a team

that someone else created and by the way

those

who can do that supervisors who can do

that they

excel very very quickly in in

all kinds of different organizations so

i'll give you a good example a few years

back

our marketing supervisor decided to hire

some young people to help us with social

media right i mean we're all

the the marketing team by the way is a

fairly young team

so they're they're kind of into social

media that kind of stuff that's

that's why we we hired them but um even

the it's still very difficult to keep up

with all the new trends um and

the the longer that the older that we

get

the less trendy we are i mean i know i'm

i'm a dad

right so so basically what she decided

to do is hey let's hire some brand new

you know uh high school graduates uh

college graduates to come in and help us

with social media and

that way we're staying on the cusp of

being the the trendsetters

and one of the one was a graphic artist

who

kind of knew social media inside now

because she grew up on it

however she had very few programming

skills so she

she wasn't really well versed in

websites

and stuff like that so the things that

the supervisor was asking her to do

they were actually fairly simple tasks

but they involved a lot of repetitious

steps and for somebody who's brand new

in that task it was it was kind of

challenging for

for the young per young person so to

help this this new employee

the supervisor typed up a checklist and

and created

a flow chart and then posted them in

like a three ring binder it was a really

low low-tech solution to kind of a

high-tech problem

but that little checklist that the

supervisor created served as a reminder

for what kind of task to do

when this new person was had completed a

project a lot of times

when someone new comes into the

organization

and they they can kind of speed through

projects much more quickly because they

don't have as many time constraints

and if the supervisor is busy then that

person can kind of be sitting around

going god what am i supposed to do now

i'm not really sure

but by simply creating a a list the

supervisor

kind of increased the efficiency of the

team member

and also reduced idle time because now

that person had she had something

to do when she had finished her next

project so a good supervisor

is kind of the proverbial oil can that

makes the machinery run more smoothly

it's just that the machinery here is

they're team members so

so basically if you want to be a good

supervisor use good supervisory skills

look for ways to organize your team in a

more efficient way

so the second skill that is really

important for

new supervisors any supervisor really is

time management your goal

is really to have no wasted time

in your your team members no no idle

time so

and in fact this is one of the most

critical skills time management is

really one of the most critical skills

for supervisors

and the what's critical about it is that

a good supervisor

will first want to prioritize activities

that are done within that

group that department whatever it is

that we're supervising

um one of the best exercises by the way

that ever came across

was from stephen covey and i'm i'm not

sure if he actually created it that was

the first

place that i kind of saw this but his

advice was to

was to to divide a piece of paper into

four

equal quadrants in the in the first

quadrant

you would write down things that are

both important and urgent

and then in the second quadrant you

would write down things that

you do that are important but not yet

urgent so so quadrant number one

things that they're really really

important and they're urgent we have to

do them right now these are important

things that have to be done right now

in quadrant two those are things that

are

also important but they haven't yet

gotten to the point where they're urgent

yet right and so those would be things

that we would we would plan for

and then third the third quadrant you

would write down things that are

urgent they're things that we have to do

right now but they're not really

important and so a lot of times

these are kind of wasted time things and

then finally in the last quadrant you

would write down things that are neither

important nor urgent they're they're

not urgent and they're not important at

all but a lot of times those are things

that we tend to get bogged down in so

when you create your chart by the way

spend some time

listing the tasks and and the jobs that

that you or the people on your team do

each day

and then place them in the correct

quadrant on the chart

you you'll be shocked by the way at how

many of your activities fall into that

quadrant for the last quadrant

um and when you find those activities

those are things that you want to

absolutely stop

doing you don't those you don't want to

be doing those things

in that quadrant at all um and those

quadrant

four activities by the way they would

include things like scrolling through

social media

or or chatting with coworkers that kind

of thing

now i'm not saying those things aren't

important i'm just saying that a lot of

times

we will use those as distractions we'll

we'll we'll come up with a good idea and

then we'll pop into a co-worker's office

interrupt the co-worker and

and and get off topic so instead of just

relaying the idea to the co-worker now

we start chatting about everything in

the sun and now we've wasted 22 minutes

that's the kind of stuff that we really

want to avoid as a supervisor keep our

our team motivated and on the right

track

the third quadrant by the way would

include things like

that that should be minimized really or

avoided you know for instance i i just

on my own cell phone i used to have news

alerts

i still do by the way but i just don't

look at them as often but

but i used to have these news alerts

that would appear on my phone and

the the news alert when when the feed

would alert

the uh my my phone it would create an

alarm

it was identical to the message alarms

from

my clients so when i would hear the

alert i'd stop what i was doing even if

it was

something really really important urgent

i would immediately go and look at my

phone to see what was what was

what the alert was about and um because

and

at the time by the way it seemed urgent

because there was alarm attached to it

however

really the the the thing that was being

alerted to me wasn't really important at

all

you know it was it was it would be a a

headline that didn't apply to me didn't

apply to my business

but i would take time out of my day to

go and look at it so

one of the things that i did was i just

kind of changed the alarms on my

on my phone to make it to where i'm only

getting especially during the business

day

i'm only getting distracted by things

that are urgent and important

and it really helps so once you've

identified these

items that are in the in quadrants one

and two especially really all of

all four quadrants but the ones that are

in one and two those are the things

that you want to schedule with your team

you want to start with the quadrant one

items because those are the things that

have to be done right now they're urgent

and they're things that are important to

the success of our group

and then for the quadrant two items we

want to plan and organize and strategize

on the things that are in quadrant two

because we want to make sure that those

things get done

before they become urgent so those would

be the things that hey once these urgent

projects are done

we're going to spend some time

organizing the the

quadrant two things to make sure that

they never become urgent so that

that reduces the stress increases morale

and and it makes it a whole lot easier

and then the last thing that i would

suggest people do is identify

the triggers for the not important but

urgent items and then just eliminate

them kind of like i did with my

with my with my phone feeds

those triggers those things that are

triggering

that item to become urgent if you can

eliminate the triggers a lot of times

you can

save some time and make yourself more

efficient and make your team members

more efficient as well

so anyway so those would be the things

that i would kind of suggest to kind of

really help you

get better organizational skills with

your team if you do those things

you're going to increase productivity

pretty dramatically also reduce stress

and reduce the increase morale at the

same time

so lots of good benefits for doing those

things so the third skill that is really

important and this is where we start to

differ a little bit with the managerial

skills

is that as a supervisor you are the

conduit between management and the and

the team so you want to really

work on your communication skills so as

a supervisor by the way

that that conduit you you're you're

you're between

management and your your team so you're

the one that

you're you're the um

the the path that good communication

comes through so when you're getting

information from management

it's important that you pass that

information along when it's appropriate

and vice versa when you're getting

information that's important to the

decision making process for management

you pass that along to them as well so

your commit your communication skills by

the way have to just be top notch

if you're in a supervisory position

these skills by the way include

providing that needed information to

your team in a timely manner when it's

appropriate

in addition though a major part of the

of especially first-time supervisor

skills

is to listen to your team your

observations are

critical to helping management make more

informed decisions

like for example let's say that a

that management creates a brand new

policy to fix

a a challenge that we've experienced in

the past so we've

this we this is a big problem and so as

a result we've changed a policy in order

to fix that problem now because you know

your team really well because you're a

good supervisor

you anticipate that your team is going

to react

negatively to that change so because

a lot of times they're going to react

negatively to any change so if you just

go to your team and just tell them hey

management created change the policy

then you're right they will they will

react

negatively to that change so instead

what you may want to do is kind of meet

with your team

and and tell them about the problem that

is trying to be solved by this

policy change before you actually tell

them that the change the policy is being

changed

tell them about the problem get them to

focus on that problem

and then you can soften the blow by

explaining how management created the

new policy

to solve the problem and then the final

thing that you want to do

to to because this is where your

role as a supervisor can be very very

beneficial to the company as a whole is

ask the people that are on your team

these are the folks that are on the

front line

if they can think of any better

solutions if they come up with one then

you bring that solution to management

now you're the hero and your team's the

hero

on the other hand if they don't come up

with a better solution then

at least they'll know why management has

changed the policy and they'll be much

more open to that that policy change

so all of those things are really really

important interactions and

communications like this they really

keep the team from

experiencing the old us versus them

mentality that tends to happen in a lot

of organizations

so the supervisors are the conduit to

make sure that that mentality

doesn't get created in the first place

fourth skill that is really really

important

for supervisors is the skill to train

your folks the success of your team

really depends on your ability to train

the people that work for you work around

you work with you

in fact this is really one of the most

important supervisory tips

to to to really strengthen and become

really good at

because as a supervisor you really have

to focus on

two important components related to this

skill the training skill first

you have to be able to assess the

knowledge and the skill level of your

team members

remember a lot of times we're inheriting

these team team members

and so as a result we

have to kind of figure out who's really

good at what and then second

once you identify any needed training

you have to be able to help your team

members gain those

needed skills or that needed information

so this process by the way can take a

little time but

the effort will be absolutely well

rewarded

you're going to get some phenomenal

results if you if you kind of go through

this process

so one of the things that i would

suggest that you do is make a list of

the skills and the knowledge that are

needed

for each job description within your

team you know like for instance we

at our company we have account managers

that they're they're

i don't want to call them salespeople

because that's not really what they do

they're more like consultants so they're

they're helping our clients make good

decisions with

uh with their with their training

dollars and that kind of thing

but the the position has a

lot of different roles these are experts

in the industry

and you know for instance they do things

as simple as answering

customers questions you know if a

customer has a question they'll answer

that

but they also consult with the the

customers to help them

create good decisions they also provide

good customer service so

um they're helping with scheduling and

all kinds of stuff like that in addition

to

those normal kind of consultation roles

they also serve

a marketing role within the company as

well so they do a lot of our marketing

and and social media

because they're they're kind of on the

front line and then and then the last

part

is they also have administrative duties

meaning that

that when when contracts are are um

are sold or when they're when they're

written up

that information has to be passed along

to the appropriate people so that the

so that the programs get implemented

properly and that invoicing is done

properly and all that kind of stuff so

there's cost reports there's revenue

reports and things like that that

they're also responsible for

so anyway a lot of different roles

within that so

once the supervisor has the list of

roles and responsibility kind of like

what i laid out for our account managers

the next step

is now to assess the team in each of

these areas

each team member each person that we

have on the team is going to be

really really really really good at some

of those tasks

and they're also going to be not so good

at other tasks right

like for instance you may be for our

sales team or our account managers

we because they are sales people because

they

are consultants they may be really

really good

at at working with customers customers

love them they're really good at helping

solve problems that kind of thing but

maybe not so good at paperwork right

and so they may have challenges within

the reports

so um so what you want to do is is

once you have that list of of items or

job

responsibilities you want to go through

and rate each member of your team based

on where they are

now in each one of those job roles for

instance you might

just rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 or

some people like to use

like high school letter grades you know

this is an a a plus

a minus b b plus b minus that kind of

thing um i

i like just 1 through 10. it makes it

really really easy one means that

they're not very good 10 means that

they're excellent

so for instance one of the one of the

things that our

customer or our account managers have to

do is they have to be able to answer

questions for customers

so let's say i've got a person named

joan that has a lot of experience

she's been with the company for a number

of years and she's an

8 out of 10. however jim a newer guy

he's

he's only been in the position for less

than a year so currently he's a 4 out of

10. not because

jim isn't as smart as joan it just means

that

she's been here a lot longer she's got

more experience and so she's more

skilled

in that particular area um so so

basically once you

kind of identify where each person is on

that

on that list the the last thing you want

to do is go through your team list one

more

time but this time assess each one of

those people

on their potential in each of those

areas so going back to the

the previous example with joe jones and

jim

joan is an 8 out of 10. however she is

the most senior person on the team and

she's kind of set in her ways

so as a result her potential may also be

an 8 out of 10. she's probably because

she's set in her way

she's not up to changing or growing or

doing things differently

most likely she's going to be an eight

next year and the year after and the

year after and the year after right

jim on the other hand because he's new

and eager he's a four now but he wants

to learn

and so he may have the potential of

being a nine or a ten

so if that's the case then the

supervisor once we kind of have these

roles outlined and where people are

where our team members are in each one

of those roles

the supervisor in that situation would

want to spend more time training

ben on that specific um

responsibility so that he is more likely

to reach his potential

sooner he's not going to go and train

joan for custody she's already

awesome at it so he's not going to spend

a lot of time training the whole team

he might pull ben aside and say hey

let's see if we can help you in this

area and now

the the supervisor is helping ben become

more productive so really good

supervisors are able to identify where

their people are and where they need

help

and sometimes it's just a matter of

organizing it in a way

so that you can find the right solutions

at the right time

so the last skill that is really

important for supervisors

is people skills because supervisors

they they

have to stay in rapport with both the

team member

and the management all the time which

can be

really really challenging by the way

we'll kind of talk about that but before

i get into that let me

let me i recently heard a quote from

dave ramsey he's the guy that does the

uh the

radio program on financial plan teaches

people how to get out of debt really

really smart guy

and on one of his shows he he made this

really profound statement about

education and people skills and and he

basically said

he said i think the lie we've told

people in the marketplace is that a

degree

gets you a job a degree doesn't get you

a job

he said what what gets you a job is the

ability to carry yourself into that room

shake a hand and look someone in the eye

and have good people skills in the

process those are the things that cause

people to become successful and i

couldn't agree

more with with that statement um because

for supervisors especially as the as the

conduit between

management and the team members we have

to really stay

in rapport with both of those groups and

this is going to require that you have

great people skills right human nature

tells us that when someone

slights us we've got to respond in anger

you know some somebody

oh my god i can't believe that person

did that to me right um however a person

with really good people skills will

often kind of pause

and then think about a proper response

there's a real big difference between

reacting

to something that somebody said or

something that they did and responding

and ultimately the more trust that the

other person has in you

the more the other person is going to

like you as well

i i'll give you a really good example

from my own kind of personal experience

this is like from my younger days

but my first boss um this is back when i

was in

high school and uh and but my first boss

was a guy named jeff

and he was a retired military officer i

liked him a lot and

everybody did everybody that worked for

him and he basically

after he retired from from the army he

uh purchased a

franchise and and i he hired me as as

one of these employees

so as a retired military officer he knew

the value of building his team members

so he and his wife they were partners in

the in the company and they created this

really

fun rewarding environment we were

growing

um as as people and and it was a real

friendly place to to work and and the

folks

that worked for for the for these two

folks um really and we enjoyed going to

work

even though the work was kind of hard it

wasn't really the work itself wasn't hun

fun but the people that we worked with

were fantastic right

well a year or so after i had um i'd

started working for the the company

um jeff sold the franchise back to the

company and he retired again

so the the company that um that owned

the franchise is they decided to use

this location

as a as a training ground for new

managers since it was now company owned

they started sending in some of their

managers that had just graduated from

from college or from their from their

internal school

and each of these managers by the way

had

four years of university university

training

in this specific industry so they were

totally qualified

to to run this franchise the problem was

is that

none of them really had any real

practical experience

supervising anyone so they were they

they were basically

skipping the supervisory

level and jumping right into management

and so they hadn't yet built that

rapport

with their team members and the the

contrast and environment was just

absolutely torturous probably the best

way to say

it because morale just plummeted and

within

six months the entire staff that i

worked with that had turned over almost

100 percent the only there were maybe

one or two people that that stuck on

those are folks that have been working

for the same company for like 20

plus years or so and it was their career

but all of the part-timers like myself

the high school kids

man we were gone we we jumped ship

pretty pretty

um early because it was no longer fun we

didn't enjoy it

um so the the key thing to keep in mind

about this

is that is that the the people skills

that we have

the the better we are at building that

trust and building that rapport with our

team members and also with management

the better of a conduit we're going to

be between those two entities to make

sure

that we're we're keeping morale high

that we're keeping

um that that people are are having fun

and we're creating that that team

culture

and so if you happen to be a business

owner and you're seeing challenges

within your organization if you're

seeing

situations where where morale is down

or there's conflicts repeatedly in your

organization

it's quite quite possibly means that the

supervisors that you have probably need

to be

retrained they need they they're going

to need some help and the more help that

you can give them

the better morale is going to be so next

week by the way we're going to conclude

the series

on soft skills and i'm going to do an

entire session on

interpersonal skills or people skills

basically what we've covered in the last

couple minutes

we're going to cover and we're going to

cover by the way some of the challenges

that

the managers in training that i just

mentioned what they what

they created and i'm going to show you

some really cool ways to to fix that

so we'll see you next week on high

impact leaders bye y'all

you