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Managers need to be adept at handling
difficult people and tricky situations. And
yet these skills are often lacking. In recent
Festo research, we found that over one
third of managers suffered stress and
anxiety because of a conflict with
someone they were managing.
So what can managers do to deal with the
challenges?
• Take a step back and
dispassionately analyse the
situation.
• Break the cycle. It’s difficult
for managers to understand
that it is usually their
behaviour and attitude that
needs to adapt and change
first.
• Have courageous
conversations. A manager
needs to be firmly committed
to helping their employee.
• Develop a coaching culture. If
employees feel respected,
supported and valued they are
more prepared to change their
own behaviour.
• Speak to the problem.
Address the problem, rather
than criticising the individual.
• Always follow-up. It’s unlikely
that a single conversation will
have a miraculous effect on
behaviour.
Change is often seen as a negative so it’s
no wonder that business leaders,
managers and employees view any type
of change with a degree of trepidation.
There is, however, tremendous potential
in any change project. Change is never
delivered solely from the top of the
business. It needs to engage leaders,
managers and the whole team. To do this
you need to consider how you
communicate. You need to put in place a
communication plan that starts when
you’re mapping your journey and
continues all the way through and beyond
the change project. And for
communication to be successful, you
need to communicate more than just facts
and figures. You need to engage people in
why the change is necessary and you
need to be there to guide people through
the change. We call this communicating to
the head, the heart and the hand.
We are facing the fourth industrial
revolution. It will alter the very trajectory
of manufacturing and engineering. We’ve
already seen many customers fail in the
last 20 years because they have been
unable to adapt to changes in the
environment.
Driving change through a business in a
way that makes us agile, with people and
the organisation willing to adapt, is the
new challenge. Managers are critical to
steering and delivering change. Get them
on board and only then can we set
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Over one third
of managers suffered stress and anxiety because of a conflict with someone they were managing.