By Bennett Fisher
How It All Started
In a previous life I was the co-founder and CEO of a venture backed company in the energy analytics space (Retroficiency). The company grew quickly to almost 50 employees and millions in revenue.
Then things started to go sideways. I was a first-time CEO and really had no idea how to run a company. The board made it clear that I had a very short time to figure it out or they were going to make a change.
Luckily, a friend of mine introduced me to a local CEO coach and he spent the next year teaching me how to effectively lead an organization. We covered everything from implementing mission, vision, and values to aligning the company around key objectives and cascading goals to doing regular 1-on-1s, team meetings, performance checks, and more.
He gave me a crash course on how to manage a team and a company by plugging in a structured, easy to follow, and effective operating system. This operating system not only saved my company, but it changed the way I thought about team management forever.
Most importantly, I realized that this problem was much bigger than just me.
Most Managers Struggle at Managing
Even the really good ones. And one way to make them struggle even more is having them manage a virtual team.
Yet that’s the new reality for most businesses today. Many companies and workers are now wondering why an office is necessary, or at least why they should be in one every day.
Business leaders and HR executives feel this management pain more deeply than ever. They want aligned, high performing teams even if everyone is working from a bedroom or garage.
And managers at every level want to perform well, help their people and help the company. But many struggle -- and really struggle when faced with the challenge of not being able to see their teams in person.
It makes complete sense. Think of how most managers become managers. They prove they are great at a skill – like coding or finance – then they get promoted to manage a team. But being great at a skill is not even close to the same as being great at team management.
Training might help, but it is a moment in time, not a constant presence during the workday. It’s a lesson, not a coach. And training takes time and is expensive so most companies don’t do it. And so winging it, especially in this newly virtual world, becomes endemic.
The Manager Proficiency Gap
Companies of every size and flavor suffer from such a manager proficiency gap. It leads to low productivity, attrition and lost opportunities. Any company with a manager proficiency gap will lose to a competitor that improves its daily management by even a little.
There are companies that offer software that’s supposed to help with management. Most sell performance and engagement tools that give a company a way to see where problems lie. But these are just measurement tools and implementing and configuring these complex systems takes an HR team, IT, and consultants. They don’t fix the manager proficiency gap. It’s like trying to fix a damaged heart by listening to a stethoscope.
So the manager proficiency gap lives on. It lurks inside all companies. There has been no good way to remedy it. No good way to give managers the ongoing, everyday, by-your-side help they need to make their teams as productive and aligned as possible. There has been no good way to help managers wherever they may be, virtual or at the office.
Until now.
Introducing Pulsify and manager augmentation, the future of effective team management. Pulsify provides a simple, structured, and predictive, and automated way to manage your team's goals, feedback, meetings, 1-on-1s, performance checks, and more.
And the best part is – you can try it with your team for free today!