You Created This Monster

In the name of culture…

You always hear “it’s a culture problem” and most of the time it’s true.

But did you ever consider the source behind why 75% of people leave their job is because of a poor manager falls primarily on the company?

I can tell you why.

Training and development for managers (and employees in general) tends to be viewed as a “luxury.”

Ask your HR department how far down the list manager training falls.

Why is that organizations readily spend on: recruiting, interviews and onboarding, yet skimp on training?

That’s like a couple investing in a wedding, but not caring about the marriage.

Micromanagers are created monsters at your company because they’re promoted for skills they don’t translate towards leading people.

For example, if you’re a high achieving individual contributor, you’re most likely great at sales, technical expertise and strong performance results.

Those are all excellent qualities, but they don’t directly align with managing people.

Leadership skills such as managing egos, understanding communication styles and delegation are needed.

So who is responsible for closing the gap for new manager skills?

Your company.

Now before you assume I’m taking the responsibility off the new manager, I’m not.

But if ownership hired/promoted an individual contributor without prior managerial experience it’s the employer’s liability.

You should always be proactive about identifying leadership potential in your people.

But there needs to be a next step: training and development.

The Bible calls this discipleship and the concept translates well to the corporate world.

Companies need to show new leaders how to do the job effectively through modeling.

• The reason why micromanagers are so rampant amongst organizations is because they lack training and are left to figure it out on their own.

• What’s strange is executives or frontline workers never get that treatment, but for some reason it’s acceptable for middle management?!

If we go back to the culture argument, new managers lack on the job training.

60% of new managers fail within 24 months of being hired and to belabor the point, if a manager stays past 2 years the amount of turnover continues to rise.

Here’s the good news: this problem can be reserved with regular, ongoing training.

Investing in your people results in a 415% annualized ROI or $4.15 made for every $1 spent on training!

If numbers speak to you, this should make you silent for a moment.

Consider the top 1% earners in the world invest in professional development, so why aren’t you?

Once you start implementing training and development as part of your company’s culture, retention and productivity will be positively impacted (24% more profit).

So if the bottom line matters to you, look at the stats above.

But if you truly care about impact and culture, training your leaders is necessary, not a nice-to-have.

The new year is around the corner and the best resolution you can set for your people is to invest in them.

Here’s the case for hiring an external person like me, or you can prioritize it internally (but they might already be overloaded).

Do something about it.

Remember you’re responsible for the monster creation or removal.

God Bless,

Scott

If you found this helpful and you’re looking to improve your soft skills as a leader, here are ways to work with me directly:

• 🗣 Hire me to speak at your company or next event (watch my speaking reel here)

• 🎤 Invite me to lead an interactive training workshop, remotely or in-person (depending on location)

• 🤝 Start 1:1 coaching with me as a new manager, current leader or executive (I once managed 30 people 1:1 weekly❗️)

Also, you can help me out by forwarding this to friends whom would benefit from it! Thank you!