From the Free Guide – ‘Are You Annoyed by How Little Line Managers Support the Skills Training of Their Teams?’
Many organisations promote people based on their technical knowledge and achievements, rather than their people skills. This is known as the ‘Peter Principle’. Therefore, many Line Managers don’t know what great actually looks like when they’re trying to support their team’s development.
Explore the topic of what great looks like with the Line Managers. Ask them what they think a great Line Manager does to support Learners during their learning. Also, what a poor Line Manager does. The answers won’t be all that new to you, but they will encourage Line Managers to set a good example.
According to Ebbinghaus’ Forgetting Curve, your Line Managers will forget quickly. In 10 days, they will have forgotten the discussion about great and poor Line Management support. Therefore, you need to prod their memory with a 1-minute video reminder, or a 1-page scorecard, or a simple email of the 3 main points discussed.
Action
Show Line Managers what great looks like and remind them about it 10 days later. Ideally again 30 days later, so that it sticks in their memory. Share with them that Google’s famous analytics team examined data from thousands of employee surveys and performance reviews and concluded that ‘Coaching’ was the skill that best characterised an effective Line Manager.
This Forgetting Curve shows how much we remember over time and the effect of retention.
