April 15, 1:40 pm
Management skills must include ‘translation’
By Daniel Bobinski
CEO, The Center for Workplace Excellence
One of the most important management skills a new supervisor must learn is translation.
Think about the different levels in an organization. People in leadership roles are usually flying at 40,000 feet, looking at the big picture. They see the forests and regularly look out at the horizon. Then, after deciding the best direction for the company, they set goals and communicate those goals to the managers.
Managers must not only be able to interpret those goals accurately, they must be able to translate them and dice them up into specific action-items for the front line employees working among the trees in those forests. That’s not always an easy job. The reason? Many leaders forget what it’s like to work among the trees and they don’t speak “tree” language anymore. They speak the language used to describe forests and horizons.
The job of translating is therefore very important. Most front-line employees do not get up in the leadership airplane and look around at 40,000 feet, so they’re usually unfamiliar with the vernacular used to describe the nuances of “forests” and “horizons.”
For that matter, most managers don’t spend much time flying at that level, either. Therefore, learning how to translate an unfamiliar language is a task managers must learn. Leaders must work with their managers on this, or trouble will surface.
The bottom line: Managers must correctly interpret the vision given them by leadership, convert it into manageable pieces, and delegate tasks accordingly. Do not gloss over this vital management skill. Teach all of your supervisors and managers how to translate vision into specific action-items.
Filed in Training, Management, Leadership, Team Building, Corporate Culture, Coaching
Powerful post Dan! So often we expect leaders to eloquently articulate their vision, that we fail to recognize the import skills a manager must posses to translate the vision into actionable goals and task.
Thanks for reminding us all of this important skill!
I have featured your post in my weekly Rainmaker ‘Fab Five’ blog picks of the week (found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2009/04/the-rainmaker-fab-five-blog-picks-of-the-week-2.html) to share you message with my readers.
Be well Dan!
-Chris Young