“Who is responsible for the team?” I asked. “Who is responsible for the performance of the team, and all the things that affect performance?”
Melanie looked around her office, as if someone was going to appear.
I continued. “If it’s not you, as the department manager, if it’s not you, then who?”
Melanie’s eyes stopped skirting the room. No hero appeared. She floated her excuse, “But how am I responsible that one of my team members quit?”
“That’s a very good question. How are you, as the manager, responsible that one of your team members quit?”
“What, am I supposed to be clairvoyant?” Melanie snapped.
“That would be helpful,” I nodded. “But let’s say you don’t have supernatural powers. How could you, as the manager, know enough about your team, to have predicted this departure?”
By being engaged with them. If you don’t know their plans for the next 1,5,10 years, then you’re not engaged enough. Just knowing who they are is not enough, you also have to know what is important to that person.
I recently had someone leave my team but I had been expecting it for over a year. I knew that his kids were about to go off to college. I knew that we could not pay him enough to stay. And i gathered all of this by being engaged with him. Understanding what was important to him outside of the office was just as important as keeping him effective at work.