The 3 questions all new managers should ask

If you have been asked to manage a project then effective communication with team members is always an essential ingredient of a successful project. You can learn the best practices in project management by attending a project management course, but this article focuses on the 3 key questions all new project managers should ask of their team.

1) Who are you?

Getting to know your staff is the most important step towards successful management.

Understanding their motivations, their fears, their strengths and their weaknesses will prove invaluable when making important management decisions.

For example, when you need to delegate an important or delicate task, it is vital that you know which staff member is best equipped to handle it. Even more vital is that you communicate your decision with sensitivity, so that suspicions of favouritism or unfair treatment don’t erupt.

Consult your staff about the best way to achieve your team objectives. Often they will know better than you how to manage their own work territory. An open and receptive manager will turn staff input into staff involvement.

Your goal is to have your staff feel that they have something invested in the project, so that they will work hard to achieve your objectives.

Just as important is knowing yourself: what motivates you? What situations make you stressed? How do your emotions affect your behaviour?

Understanding what makes you tick enables you to deal with frustration and fury in more appropriate and fruitful ways than a red-faced explosion at the front of the office. You and your staff will get along better, and respect each other more for it.

2) What is the point?

Know your objectives. The short-sighted manager will appear illogical, ignorant and autocratic – with good reason. Understand and communicate why you are assigning certain tasks to your staff.

Without full consideration of the end-goal, you will not be able to efficiently manage your staff, and your staff will not be able to deal effectively with the tasks you set them. Your team will lack motivation and direction, and your project will fall apart.

3) Does it matter?

Before you correct, instruct or reprimand your staff, ask yourself one simple question:

“Does it really matter?”

Different methods and wrong methods are not the same thing. Sure, you might have backed up your work or been more tactful in an email or written a report in a more formal style – but your job is not to turn your staff into clones of yourself, but to manage a team of individuals to maximum achievement in their own ways.

The “Does it matter?” question is important when staff approach tasks in a way different from your own. It is also essential when dealing with mistakes.

Some mistakes need correction, and some need criticism, but there are some that have such an insignificant overall effect that they can be safely ignored.

Ignoring mistakes does not mean that you are a careless manager: it means that you can tell the difference between an important mistake and a trivial error. You make your own mistakes: allow your staff to make theirs.

A good manager questions everything. Good communication is a two-way process: inform your staff of your objectives and expectations, but also ask them about theirs. Advise them on how best to approach a task, but also listen to their input and ideas. Successful management is a collaborative learning process and needs the participation of all involved.