What Google Can Teach Us About What Makes a Great Manager

Transcript

Hey guys, this is Blair from BravaTrak, the future of contact centre coaching.

I've been thinking about what makes a great manager. And fortunately, Google has been doing the thinking for me.

In fact, Google once tried to prove it didn't need managers at all. Their hypothesis was that the quality of the manager didn't matter. At best a necessary evil, at worst a useless layer of bureaucracy. So they tried to move to a flat structure without any managers.

And the experiment was a disaster. Employees were left without any direction or guidance.

So they pivoted to extensively study the opposite - the common characteristics of their best managers - which has been referred to as Project oxygen. And what did they discover? That the number one characteristic of the best managers is they are 'a good coach'.

The question then arises, "What does a good coach do?" Well, I've worked with thousands of contact centre team leaders over the past two decades. So I've seen a lot of good ones, and a lot who weren't so good.

The best, by my observation, invest their time and energy to help and motivate their agents, to fulfill their potential and maximize their performance. That's a big chunk of being a good coach.

The rest? I've also noticed that the best team leaders and managers act as facilitators, not fixers. That is, they ask questions, they don't just give the answers. They help their people to expand their point of view, rather than simply giving it to them.

That's my take on what makes a great manager and team leader. What's yours?