One of the keys to you becoming a good manager is keeping a finger (or many fingers) on the pulses(s) of your employee's workload, because you want to give them JUST the right amount of work to be able to feel satisfied and challenged, right in their happy zone. Too little work and employees may become unhappy; too much work and the employees are going to feel overburdened. So you want to get it right in the happy zone.
But what about the changing landscape at work? Each employees' happy zone is different, and the zones will often change for the same employee over time. Zones are not just different between individual employees, but also vary between different time periods of the employees' life. So to become a good manager, one must absolutely keep a gauge on the employee' pulse(s) at all time, and make sure they're feeling challenged but not under-motivated. That, in a nutshell, is one of the best keys to being a manager.
Why is this important? This is coming out of the situation with me at Daimler AG.
Mid-2016, I was really feeling under engaged and underutilized and this was a really big decision factor in me choosing to want to look for something new. So I guess I have felt personally what it feels like when people are not getting enough work. And it is not a good feeling.
KEYWORDS:
multiple layers
small team
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communicating
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professional
people
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business
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miscommunication
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training
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