Page 187 - Retaining Top Employees

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The Role of the Manager, Part 2 175

2. Build mission into the goals you set. Make sure your top
performers’ goals are aligned with the organization’s mis-
sion. Use the tools in the previous chapter (under “Setting
Goals”) to make sure when you meet with each of your
employees to set goals that they understand the mission
and its implications for their activities.
3. Keep a “culture checklist.” Most of us aren’t consciously
aware of organizational culture; it’s like the organizational
air we breathe—there, but invisible. Improve your chances
of communicating your organizational culture clearly by
keeping a “culture checklist” where you note down specif-
ic instances of how the culture works.
4. Work backwards from functional needs. Use the functional
interaction with your best performers to retro-engineer a
mission, values, and culture check-in. For example, if
you’re dealing with a sales team, you might use a major
account review to ask questions like these:
• “How does servicing this client help us meet our overall
mission?”
• “Are we servicing this client in keeping with our underly-
ing values?”
• “How does our organizational culture impact how we
service this client?”

The Manager as Leader
In retaining top employees, it’s very important for you to be a
leader. The topic of leadership is so important that many man-
agement books would lead you to believe that leadership is all
there is to management or that management is merely a subset
of leadership.
Actually, the two are separate functions, which may or may
not be connected, depending on the individual manager-
employee relationship. Management at its lowest level—supervi-
sion—requires limited leadership. At the top—at C-level (CEO,
COO, CFO, and so on)—management can often be 80% to 90%
leadership.