Submitted by jay2k on
in
Forums
Over the last few months I've had this increasing feeling that my staff's trust in me is begginning to fade. When I first started to realize this, I pulled a couple of my staff members aside and asked them for some feedback. They indicated that they didn't feel they were being communicated with enough, that essentially we hadn't built the relationship.
I then starting racking my brain on how I could communicate better, offer my employees more resources, and become more effective. I found manager-tools and I believe I've started to find some solutions. I'm starting O3's next week and my staff seems hesitant but intrigued.
My question is, I'm re-orging my department to take my 20 direct reports and divided them up among two Team Leaders who will directly report to me. I'm still going through all of the beaurcracy in HR to get this finalized. Once finalized I'm going to have an All Hand's meeting to announce the changes and talk about what this means to our organization. One thing, among many, that I'm concerned about is starting the O3's with everyone and in a few weeks turning them over to the new Team Leads. Does anyone have any recommendations?
Handing O3's Over
For my experience, I wouldn't do O3 with NON direct reports.
PierG
Handing O3's Over
jay2k,
It might help if we can understand a little more about your proposed changes. Are you moving to a two team structure to reduce the number of direct reports you have? Will they be managing team leaders or functional i.e. will the staff in each team actually report to the team leaders or are the team leaders being put in place as senior technical peronnel? Is the reporting line through them? If not, I would still be doing the one one ones myself. I don't believe it's fair to put that responsibility on someone unless they also have the authority.
Do you [i]trust[/i] the team leaders you're putting in place? I would hope so - and given that, why can't you trust them to execute the one on one's effectively? (Especially after giving them some coaching/training on doing one on ones.) I get the feeling that this might be part of the reservation you feel. Might it be worthwhile delaying your org change until you have developed better links with the individuals through the one on ones?
Just some thoughts - tell us more!
Don't forget Skip levels
Having just listened to the Skip Levels podcast, I'd say think about doing these updates on a regular basis - that way you're still talking to your former directs, whilst letting your directs (i.e. their new managers) directly manage them.