How to manage performance upwards and downwards are popular

Editor’s note: This article comes from WeChat public account “ Yong She “ (ID: yongshe01), author Yong She.

A friend told me on the weekend that he had some work confusion recently (hereafter called z). He is the design backbone of the n department of a front-line Internet company. He switched from the n department to the m department six months ago. The reason for the change is because the n department has limited upward development space. Now he has assumed the role of team leader in the m department.

Recently, at the end of the year, his leader talked to him to express a little dissatisfaction with him, but he still had some expectations. The leader hopes that he will assume more management roles in the design team and make some achievements. He felt that he was airborne from a department elsewhere, coming later than the people in this team, hoping to get everyone’s recognition from the design profession first. When he was integrated into this design team, he found that he didn’t give much advantage in the profession, and the post-90s in the team were all excellent.

Now what he does in his work is the execution of daily requirements. In management, he is responsible for organizing the next weekly meeting, weekly report, allocating daily design requirements, and coordinating design time.

He feels a little confused recently. On the one hand, how can he get everyone’s recognition from the design profession, and on the other hand, how can he make this design team more cohesive and do something successful? In the end he didn’t know where to start?

After listening to this, I feel very sympathetic, because I have encountered these problems. I can understand the difficulties he encountered, but there are actually three aspects:

On the one hand comes from his own positioning. Another are from the leadership, limited management authorization. The last aspect comes from the members of the team, not united with him.

I summarized the above three aspects, and what he wanted to solve were these three problems:

  • 1. How to locate yourself?

  • 2. How to manage upwards and understand the goals of leaders and departments?

  • 3. How to get the recognition of the team members to improve the motivation and cohesion of the design team?

    At present, each of these three questions seems to be independent issues, but they are actually related to each other. This is also the reason for his confusion and he can’t figure out what he should do first. In communication, z has been saying that he wants to get everyone’s approval first, but in fact ignores the essence of the problem:Change of role, trust of superiors, designer recognition in team.

    01, role change-recognize your positioning

    z The first-level design management at the grassroots level did not sort out its own positioning clearly: switching from the “executive” role to the role of team management with people, but also lacked awareness of grass-roots management positions.

    Basic management is the executive for superiors, accomplishing the goals and performance of superiors, and the manager for ordinary designers. In the design department, it is mainly uploaded and delivered to convey leadership goals and directions, and the implementation results are actually implementation-oriented. However, Z has not changed his mind since he took office at the grass-roots level. He continues to complete the task along the old work philosophy and methods. Now that you have done management, you must first have some sense of the overall situation. In management, you are particularly taboo that you still put yourself in the role of design and implementation in the past.

    How does a new officer make a role change? First, he needs to do two things:

    First thing, go beyond the original way of working and understand the current department design process, business and core work from a global perspective? Familiar with each working procedure, sort out all the problems encountered in the work, list them one by one, and find out one or two points that currently affect the work efficiency, come up with a solution in a short time, and quickly open up the management work situation.

    Second thing, how about understanding and familiarizing each designer and design ability on the team? What are you good at? What are the characteristics of the character, how long to join, and so on. Understanding everyone in the team actually lays the foundation for completing the work goals in the future, better distributing work, and placing the right people in the right places.

    02. Manage upwards for performance, downward management is popular

    In general, there are two situations in which new grass-roots managers in the design team: airborne and internal transfers. These two types of managers will encounter different management problems during their initial tenure: internal callers will be dissatisfied with once-level competitors, and even attract old colleagues to crowd out new managers, making their work difficult. Airborne managers will encounter two management issues: superior management and subordinate management.

    Z was originally a professional backbone of department n. He belonged to the company and was promoted to department m. For colleagues in department m, he was the airborne leader. He encountered two difficult problems.

    Manage performance upwards

    Although the leader has positioned him as a team leader, he does not actually have management authority. What is called management power can determine the stay, salary, performance appraisal, etc. of team members. Without the management role assigned by the management function, it is difficult to perform in the new team. In this case, I recommend that you communicate more with your superiors and build trust, To find the help of his superiors to formulate relevant management rules, set short-term goals, and produce related results, remove the wait-and-see attitude of the superior, give him more management authority, and further promote follow-up work.

    Down management is popular Down management is popular, in short, it is actually to gain the trust of team members, establish cooperative relationships, fully communicate, give play to the advantages of designers in the team, and give More space for growth.

    Emerging managers understand how team members can get started quickly: One-on-one communication .

    Set a few points of communication in advance, and meet people in the team in a certain order to understand the current working methods and problems they encounter. And find out who is the key opinion leader in the team. During the conversation, ask the people in the team a set of questions about the design process, business, etc. In this way, the obtained information can be compared, the obtained information can be placed side by side, and the correlation among them can be analyzed.

    Second, classify the people in the team to classify them, so that they can be targeted one by one.

    Set the x-axis as positivity at work, and the y-axis as ability at work. The first quadrant is highly motivated and has good ability. Such people are effective members of the team. The second quadrant is not highly motivated and has good ability. Some people who are new to management will show pride and unfriendly reaction. The third quadrant is not capable or motivated. The fourth quadrant is highly motivated and less capable. After new management, classify the people in your team according to these methods. What needs to be done is to give people in the first quadrant more space, and people in the second and fourth quadrants are transformed into the first quadrant.

    There are rivers and lakes where there are people, and the more complex problem facing downward management is human management. Ten thousand people have ten thousand ways of management, including those borrowing superior powers, those who have painted circles, those who have reason to move and affection, etc … But in the final analysis, it is to attract people’s hearts.

    There is not much management experience and no management authorization for the first-level management of a backbone such as z. On the one hand, people who emotionally draw the team to get everyone’s trust and approval, on the other hand, they need to be from the superior. Get directions and goals, work to get short-term results, get jobsThe performance is recognized by the team.

    03. How to improve the motivation of the design team?

    What kind of team is a good team?

    The team has a strong cohesion, the same goals, everyone has a high motivation to work, give play to their strengths and potentials, have a sense of responsibility and responsibility for the work results, only in such a team Outstanding results.

    Z started as a grassroots manager. How can I bring the team together? First, set consistent goals and arrange everyone in the right position. The process of turning superior goals into the ability of all people to act, ensuring that everyone is working in the direction the company wants. This process includes: turning goals into concrete things and tasks, turning tasks into everyone’s responsibilities, turning everyone’s responsibilities into behaviors, and turning behaviors into results. At the end of last year, the okr I proposed in the design team was actually dismantled based on the company’s big goal of Q4. For example, Q4 company will complete the year-end performance sprint, one of which is aimed at reducing costs. Our company is a mutual gold company. Every transfer of money from users requires a fee to be paid to the bank. Within a month, the company will bear hundreds of thousands of fees. Under this big goal, the design team has the same direction, and everyone is actively thinking of a better solution, and this problem is solved through a solution that optimizes the design experience of the page.

    Follow up

    After communicating with z over the weekend, he agreed with me that I had extracted several problems he encountered. He said that I helped him sort out his own management ideas. What surprised me was that he was extremely smart, thinking about the goals and results that the team needs to do after the year, and planned to communicate with his superiors with this plan.