Summary: Guido de Koning, Chief People Officer at NovaSource Power Services, discusses the importance of managers in unlocking top performance in organizations. He highlights the impact that managers have on employee engagement and the workplace environment. Guido emphasizes the need for strong leadership at the top to set the tone and values of the organization. He also shares insights on how to identify and develop effective managers, including asking specific questions about their approach to building trust and developing their team members. Guido believes that creating an environment where people feel valued and part of a team is key to driving results and getting the best out of employees.

Key Takeaways:

Managers play a crucial role in employee engagement and the overall workplace environment.

Building a strong workplace starts with developing effective managers one at a time.

Strong leadership at the top sets the tone and values of the organization.

Specificity in questions and looking for behaviors that demonstrate belief in people can help identify effective managers.

Creating an environment where people feel valued and part of a team drives results and gets the best out of employees.

Chapters:

00:03:00 Variation in engagement across teams within the same organization

00:08:00 Challenges and strategies for scaling effective management practices

00:11:00 Cultivating culture through leadership and setting a positive example

00:14:00 Good people leaders have a positive impact on managers.

00:18:00 Believing in people brings out their best performance.

00:21:00 Building a workplace one manager at a time is crucial.

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And that is really to focus on the manager. My name is CT from Mangage Rocket. And to help us explore this topic today is Guido de Koning which actually means Guido the King in Dutch, which is cool. He's the Chief People Officer at NovaSource Power Services, and he's led the HR function at private equity backed companies in software and healthcare.

Welcome to the show, Guido.

Guido de Koning: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

CheeTung Leong: So we're gonna, we're gonna start out with a new format, actually, which is going to be quite interesting. So we're going to talk about a few rapid fire questions, and we'd love your quick responses to all of these. So the first one is what's the accomplishment you're most proud of in your current role?

CheeTung Leong: That's awesome. And what's your moonshot project for next year?

Guido de Koning: The project I'm most excited about next year is probably related to the building of community. We have a very distributed workforce and some people work very individually. Live out of a truck almost because we're in the solar industry. And what I want to do is create small, almost circles like communities.

To create a sense of belonging, camaraderie, trust within an otherwise distributed workforce. I haven't figured all that stuff out, but that's what I would like to do and work on next year. I'm pretty excited about that.

CheeTung Leong: Very cool. And finally, what's the most fun aspect of what you do?

Those are usually the highlights of my day when I get to do that.

CheeTung Leong: Yeah. So I love how you've got that aspect of parenting and the whole idea of dealing with people. It's actually pretty, there's a lot of overlap in the role sometimes

Guido de Koning: absolutely. That's a good point. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

CheeTung Leong: So we were talking a little bit about top performing organizations and focusing on managers. So this is a topic that I know is so critical and at the same time, so under appreciated sometimes in in organizations. So why? Why is it that for you, the manager is that linchpin, that person that's so critical in unlocking top performance?

And it was always fascinating that even within the same division or business unit, within the same departments, two teams sitting right across the corner from one another, and the same workspace with the same budgets and the same technology, but massively different perceptions of what the workplace was like, the quality of the workplace was like.

Where one team was highly engaged they felt safe and healthy and all in. They felt the company cared about them and the other team right around the corner from them felt the exact opposite. They couldn't trust anyone. They felt not cared about, they felt not recognized. And the primary difference oftentimes was just, there's a different manager in those two different teams and the manager has.

But ultimately the stronger your group of managers, the stronger the workplace. It's really building a workplace, one manager at a time. And that kind of unlocks a little bit, the methodology. Also, if you want to build culture, it's really one manager at a time. You can have all these. Initiatives, company wide initiatives, but it was a manager rolls their eyes, rolling them out, how that's going to come across.

So yeah, managers I think are always key.

I believe the research was something like 70 percent that their experience is driven by 70 percent from the manager. And this was You know, what you mentioned earlier, building that workplace, one manager at a time makes a lot of sense because we often look outside the company for best practice when it comes to employee engagement.

But the variation in engagement across companies, it's so much less than the variation across teams. And so if you're looking for best practice, makes a lot more sense to just go after the team that's doing way better than you in the same organization, rather than trying to figure out the organization.

It is such an amazing way to identify that top talent at the manager level. And sometimes when you have a somewhat senior position, you're there, your own team, hopefully, you write, your direct reports, a handful of peers that you work with directly on a kind of day to day basis, but your reach is not always that deep.

And when you start to measure performance and you start to see the results of it and to see who, who is in the top decile or top quartile, you uncover people that you didn't notice before. And that's always fascinating. And I always enjoy doing that where you look at these results and you have this manager that maybe is new, or maybe you didn't really know very well and you sit down with him or her.

To hear from a manager, their story. And you almost instantly pick that up. When you ask them some questions, you can almost ask them anything. Tell me about your team. Tell me about your journey. Tell me how you spent your time. It almost doesn't matter what question you ask you, you get a response where the manager starts talking about his or her team and what they do to elevate the level of performance.

Within that team. And then the beauty often is, can you can you share that story across a broader platform?

Guido de Koning: The scaling is the challenge because you would like it to scale and you would like to bottle the magic and just spread it across. And then you notice that is incredibly difficult, hard work and it doesn't work very perfectly precisely because. It takes a bit of a, it takes a talent, it takes a talent profile.

And sometimes a mindset that is just very difficult to replicate. I've done this across a number of different companies. And I think there's a few elements that are really important for one. Naturally, you want to spend some time with the range of managers. Training them, educating them, exposing them I, I believe you want to at least give people a swing and see if they step up to the plate and say, okay, here are the tools here is what it's like to have a very effective one on one with a person here is what you do to hold the person accountable.

But then there's more to it. I think there is an accountability factor as well, because when you have, particularly when you have good data, but even if you didn't have good data, if you would simply ask around leaders to say, what managers are you concerned about? And you get some feedback from employees say, Hey, talk to me about what it's like to work here.

Even if they start to show kind of mental challenges emotional challenges, so to speak. You start to see kind of safety incidents, for instance, go up. So you can pinpoint where this is not working and where you might not have a lot of potential to turn it around because the person who's managing the team really shouldn't be managing the team and it's too much of a stretch to turn the situation around.

And sometimes you just need to also be honest and say, you're such a great. technician or engineer or accountant, or you fill in the blank and managing a team of people is really not your cup of tea. Let's find a role where you can be successful. And sometimes people feel so liberated too, when you make that change, but that's an, that's a necessary step as well, that level of accountability.

To do these type of reviews, where is this working well, where is this not working? Do we believe that this person can be successful? And sometimes it takes. A couple of years before the leaders of a business unit or country realize, yeah, you're probably right. This is not going to work for this particular manager.

And then they're willing to make the change. But I think that's always an important element as well. And then I think the other element, I think that's really important is. How are you cultivating your culture? And I think that's also where leadership comes in. What tone are you setting when you are the leader of a business unit?

I think that robs off on people, not on everyone, because some people might not latch onto that, might not care about that. But I think you set a tone. I think that this. For instance, the CEO of a company always has a large influence over the tone and the values in a company and how you treat people as one of those, right?

Do you yell at people, do you blame people quickly, or do you take ownership as a leader to say, it's actually my responsibility as a CEO to make sure that we have good systems, good training, that we set people off for success. If a person makes a mistake, that's not always immediately on the person.

Because the organizational development or HR team. Can push all they want or challenge all they want. But if that conflicts with how the leadership portrays themselves and the values that they cultivate, then that becomes very contradicting and it doesn't work.

CheeTung Leong: This ties in very closely with what you mentioned earlier about scaling good leaders and good managers. It sounds like this is an important point of leverage where if you're putting a good people leader into leadership positions. Naturally, that role modeling has a positive impact on all the managers under them, so you get almost automatic scaling process without, that, that sense that you're pushing uphill to be able to transform some of these management practices and behaviors.

Guido de Koning: Yeah, I think that's right. And that's the, maybe the contrast a little bit to the premise that you build a great workplace, one manager at a time, when you have a strong leader the math that a players hire a players. And B players hire C players. So you hire a mediocre leader.

You're going to have maybe even more mediocre, mid level managers that are not inspired to do the right thing. Don't treat people with respect or dignity. And the reverse happens when you have a really good leader. They're going to have high standards. They are going to expect a lot.

And are you doing that with a certain set of values, looking for a certain set of values?

CheeTung Leong: That's the alchemy of HR, right? Because choosing someone like that it's not something that you can see on a resume. Okay. You can see that some guy has like amazing track record, all the different achievements, but how they treat people that's so different.

So how are there any tips that you have methods that you have used yourself to unlock some insight into this question? Like, how do you know if this guy's a good leader or not?

Guido de Koning: Sometimes it's hard to find out, to be honest. Naturally you got to ask good questions and not generic hypothetical question, what would you do? Because that's way too easy. But I try to ask questions about, give me an example of a person on your team that you developed. How did you go about it?

But the other thing too is how do they treat the recruiter? How do they treat the assistant that scheduled the interview? You always get good insights. A long time ago I worked in a really large hospital and the recruitment coordinator always walked out the candidate, otherwise they would get lost in the hospital.

And it was usually a few minute walk to walk them back to the parking lot. Super low key, really easy to connect to type person. And this candidate would always unload all of their perceptions and all of their stories onto this candidate thinking that the interview is over, right? So I can tell you like whatever's on my mind.

What's that candidate like? And I, because that's sometimes when the candidate might think no one's watching, and if you think that the person who's scheduling the interview that I don't have to be nice and polite and collaborative and cooperative, or I don't really have to get back to that person, I think that's when you see the difference between a more remarkable person with strong values versus someone who is.

Just trying to show well, but isn't always doing that very consistently. To me, that always makes a difference. I always ask the people that have been involved in the process, what do you think of these candidates?

We're coming short in time, but I want to explore that question because such an interesting one and tells you so much.

Guido de Koning: Yeah. It's an interesting one and a very difficult one, but sometimes you wonder what is it about great managers or what is it about great leaders that sets them apart? And is there something, a principle or a mindset? That differentiates them from others. And I think one of those things is, do you believe in people?

And it, when you first ask the question, and I don't usually actually ask the question, because I, it comes across as too superficial of a question, and it's too easy to say, yeah, of course. But I think when you dig a little bit deeper, a couple of layers deeper, and you're trying to see the behavior of people you get to detect, do you truly believe, In the talent and the strength and the capabilities of others.

I'm not just interested to tell you how I think you should solve this problem. I want to hear how you want to solve this problem, because I want to hear what's on your mind, what you have to say, because you are equally, if not more talented than I am. So wouldn't you have something good to say? You have so many environments where you have a whole range of controls in place.

Metrics tons and tons of training, perhaps even audits or compliance like program where the whole work environment is really about compliance, about you following the processes of the company. But that's not a very good demonstration of, I believe in people. And I know you, you sometimes have to do that when you have thousands and thousands of people.

Do you truly give them a level of freedom, a level of extended Where it's not just about my opinion, what I want to do as a manager. It's about creating this environment where you're asking people to step up, come up with ideas, come up with solutions. And I think it just changes everything.

It is very hard to teach that particular mindset to me is actually very hard to find as well, because I think so many companies. Are too much focused on trying to establish a sense of control, which doesn't really exist. It's art, artificial with the metrics procedures, the handbooks, everything else.

There is a level of trust and a level of collaboration that happens that to me really brings the best out of. And I think a lot of that magic that we were talking about earlier about what top performing managers do. It's related to that. And so that's so so even if it's hard to find those type of managers, just think about your own experience.

Who did you have in your life? That looked at you and said, you have a lot to offer. I am going to build on you. I want your best thinking. And I want you at the table because I believe you can do remarkable things here in this company here together. And that's a remarkable shift that you get just by that mindset.

And the second thing that stood out is You can scale that and supercharge it by installing strong people leaders, first and foremost, at the top. Top down, it's not command and control top down, but it's put someone who respects people and inspires everybody else. And then, the way to do that is point number three, which is...

You may not necessarily ask this question, but how do you think that this person would approach the question, do you believe in people? Does this person actually genuinely believe that someone can do the job and perform and do their best at work? Did I miss anything? Is that, is there anything else that you would add to that framework?

If you are ever in a role where you have the privilege to lead a team or a function or a company or a business unit, what difference are you making? What is. What are you cultivating in your environment? And when your team goes home after a long day of work, what do they mention to their spouse or kids?

They feel part of something, small sense of pride for what they did and they can go home and they are a slightly better husband or dad or neighbor or friend, then you've made things a little bit better. And I think that's what leadership is about because. Yes, of course, it's also about driving the results of a company and building but the results they follow when you cultivate an environment that gets the best out of people, because no one will work harder than those exact people that feel that they are valued, that they feel part of the team.

They feel that they make a difference. That is what gets the best out of them. And I think that's that quest for leadership, right? So how are we doing at that? That's at least how I. Try to attend my job each day.

CheeTung Leong: That's super cool Guido. And there's so much to unpack from here. I feel like our conversation really just began. But

Guido de Koning: We'll have to do another one.

Guido de Koning: probably through you. So I don't know if you get those type of requests I'm more than happy to host something together with you where we where we do that. I don't have a website. I can be found on LinkedIn. That's probably the best way if anyone wanted to find me. So

CheeTung Leong: that's perfect. Thank you so much for hanging with us today, Guido. Really love this conversation. And for those of you who are listening, I hope you've enjoyed the show as well. Come over to www. engagerocket. co, all one word, slash HR impact and tune in next time on the show where we'll have more great insights and sharing from top HR leaders around the world. Thanks for listening. My name is CT and see you next time.