“Pick Your Own Manager”

This morning I was delighted to get an email (subject line “….eek!”) from a colleague at one of the UK’s major facilities management companies: “Yesterday we put out a communication to our helpdesk employees that they can… Pick their own manager!”

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The Idea is Spreading

I’ve written before on the idea of letting people choose their manager, as they are going to be best placed to know who could really motivate and challenge them. I’m delighted to see the idea spreading. Several organisations we’ve worked with at Happy People now let their staff choose their manager. And all report that its created a better and more effective workplace.

After a recent talk I gave at London Business School, in which I called on the audience to let people pick their manager, somebody came up to me and explained that at Accenture (one of the world’s largest consultancy firms), where she worked, you could choose. Apparently they do have a manager on each project they work on but long-term support comes from a mentor that they decide on.

If it works for Bradley….

Reading Bradley Wiggin’s autobiography, My Time, one thing that struck me was that a key turning point was when he decided to drop his coach and choose another one. If he hadn’t been able to do that, he might never have won the Tour de France.

Do you want your people to get the coaching and support – and challenge – that they need to become a champion? Of course you do. I always come back to a shocking survey CMI finding, that 49% of the UK workforce would take a pay cut to have a different manager and that 47% left their last job because they were badly managed.

There is a very simple solution, one that more companies are trying and finding that it works:

Let your people choose their manager

Try it in your organisation, and let me know the result.

Learn the 10 core principles to create a happy and productive workplace in Henry Stewart's book, The Happy Manifesto.

Support your aspiring and current managers to be empowering and confident leaders with Happy

Happy offers leadership programmes at Level 3, Level 5 and Level 7, from new managers/supervisor level all the way up to senior leadership teams and CEOs. These programmes are based on the ideas of trusting your people. They are practical and based on applying what yo’ve learnt. We aim to inspire and ignite change in your organisation, as well as giving you valuable management skills such as business strategy, decision-making, negotiation and project management.

We also offer programmes tailored specifically to people from Global Majority backgrounds. The content is the same, but have been designed to give new and experienced managers the skills they need to navigate organisational culture with a clearer perspective on their own potential, as well as building their confidence and expanding their professional strengths.

Henry Stewart

Henry is founder and Chief Happiness Officer of Happy Ltd, originally set up as Happy Computers in 1987. Inspired by Ricardo Semler’s book Maverick, he has built a company which has won multiple awards for some of the best customer service in the country and being one of the UK’s best places to work.

Henry was listed in the Guru Radar of the Thinkers 50 list of the most influential management thinkers in the world. “He is one of the thinkers who we believe will shape the future of business,” explained list compiler Stuart Crainer.

His first book, Relax, was published in 2009. His second book, the Happy Manifesto, was published in 2013 and was short-listed for Business Book of the Year.

You can find Henry on LinkedIn and follow @happyhenry on Twitter.