Mary Spangler says
leading an administrative team is like coaching a
basketball team. An athletic
team must include many
different types of players
because if it had only one type,
it wouldn’t win or reach its
goals. Spangler says it’s the
same in business; you need
different types of people with
different strengths and
weaknesses to be successful,
and you need to help them
understand their contribution to
the team by playing to their
strengths and learning how to
improve on their weaknesses.
As chancellor of Houston
Community College — an
education system composed of
six colleges throughout
Houston with a fiscal 2007
budget of $225 million —
Spangler has encouraged her
5,391 employees to shine.
Smart Business spoke with
Spangler about how to be a
cheerleader and coach for your
team to help it keep reaching
goals.
Develop and encourage teamwork. Work with employees to say, ‘I
don’t have all the answers.
We’ve got a problem here, we
all recognize it as a problem,
but I’m not going to tell you
what to do. We need to figure
this out together; how are we
going about doing that?’
Don’t talk about members of
the team to other members.
When you start talking about
one person, then that person
says, ‘OK, when I’m not here,
is she talking about me?’ Be
consistent, fair and open.
In a big organization, it’s hard
if you’re deep in it to feel like
you are making any kind of
difference. Develop a vision
and identify key goals. Hold in
your head specific things, five
or six things that you need to
accomplish in order to achieve
the goal.
If everybody can grab on to a
piece of that, you can move
something so that people feel
that there’s energy and direction. Focus them on things you
have done, not on the things
you haven’t. Look at what’s
good that is happening.
Communicate often and in different
forms. You can’t say anything
too many times. People don’t
hear it the same way, and once
isn’t enough. Use as many
modes as you can to communicate that message; keep it
focused and ask for feedback.
Ask people, ‘Do you understand? Have I made it clear
that this is what we’re trying to
do? Do you understand what
we need to do about it?’
I like to set up forums where
I can sit around the table with
a dozen people or go into a
roomful of people where I can
stand and have them ask me
questions. They ask you, ‘Why
did you do such and such, and are we going to have to do this
and that?’ Answering their
questions clearly, directly and
with confidence communicates to them, ‘OK, this person
sort of does understand, has
thought about it, maybe does-n’t have all the answers but is
enough connected that he or
she can come into this environment without feeling nervous or defensive.’
Make good judgments. Watch
people make bad judgments. I
learned as I was moving up, I
watched the person who I
reported to and asked myself,
‘Did they handle that well? How
would I have handled that? Did
they say the right things?’ Look
at what happened and ask,
‘Would there have been a better
way to handle that?’
The more decisions you
make, the better you get at it.
When you make a decision,
the reason it probably works is
that you’ve made a commitment to it. Make a decision
based on the consistent principles of fairness, equity and
compassion, not making up
the rules as you go along but
having some guiding principles, applying them and making that decision work is how
you learn judgment. It’s a skill
to learn through practice.
Keep your promises. It’s critical
when developing trust to not
tell people more than you can
do. Don’t promise what you
can’t deliver. Maybe 90 percent
of the time you can deliver it, but they’ll only remember the
10 percent that you promised
and didn’t deliver. If you can’t
promise, then you say, ‘I can’t
make a commitment on this.
However, I will review it; I will
consider it,’ or, ‘I hear what
you’re saying; I understand
your concerns.’
Model behavior. Don’t expect
people to do something that
you wouldn’t do yourself. If
you want them to be good
team members or deliver on
their outcomes, you need to
demonstrate that yourself.
You can’t expect from them
what you don’t do. Those are
ways you develop trust, and
then they get to know you as a
real person and not as a name
on their check. It comes from
meeting with them in their environment, greeting them
and showing them, ‘Hey, I’m a
real person.’
Reward those who reach goals. Give feedback. You say, ‘You’re
doing a good job, keep it up,
don’t give up.’ You have to be a
cheerleader and a coach on the
sidelines. In a lot of ways, I
can’t play the game, but I’ve got
to watch all the moving parts
and try to maximize that effort.
Not everybody expects an
award or a pat on the back,
but when there is especially
good work done, and it comes
to your attention, it should be
reinforced. Focus on the positive, and when people feel
good, they’re more willing to
work hard.
HOW TO REACH: Houston Community College, (713) 718-2000 or www.hccs.edu
