One of the most challenging areas for any manager is managing the most intelligent members of their team effectively. Managing clever employees can be a complex issue, as it requires an understanding of clever people’s key motivators in order to create an environment within which they can flourish. These tips will help you to manage your talented employees more effectively and help them to reach their full potential.
Identify their needs
It’s important to work out what sort of environment best suits your clever employees. For example, do they work better in a team or primarily alone? Do they feel happier reporting their progress to you on a daily, weekly or monthly basis? Getting this right will get any work or project off to a strong start.
Empower your creative people
Remember that clever people don’t react well to micro-management,so try to adopt a ‘hands off’ approach. You can empower your creative people by setting parameters for them to operate in, but ensuring they have enough freedom for their creativity to flourish. Give them task responsibility. Schedule regular updates but make it clear you trust them to progress in the way that suits them best.
In managing clever people, it’s also important to recognise that they often don’t want to be led.This can sometimes be a source of conflict. Laying down rules, regulations and guidelines for them to follow can often be counterproductive.Instead, you should try to take a step back, but still be on hand to offer support and reassurance where necessary.
Challenge them
Remember that overly repetitive tasks which require little initiative will quickly bore and demotivate clever employees, so it’s important to ensure they remain challenged.This means involving them in complex tasks and projects that require dynamic, strategic thinking, and which call upon their specialist skills and knowledge.
Put creative minds to work by involving them in solving the biggest problems and complex challenges facing your team. Clever people often respond well to demanding tasks as they are energised by these situations. When allocating work, ask yourself: will these tasks challenge this employee?
Focus on goals, not tasks
Clever people (especially in technical disciplines) enjoy finding solutions to tricky problems.When you have identified the end goal, they will work out how to achieve it. Explain to the employee what you want to achieve but leave the ‘how’ of achieving it up to them.
Regularly review workloads
Clever people tend to have low boredom thresholds, so avoid giving them too many routine tasks.Consider any upcoming work or new projects which they may be suited to. By doing this, you will make sure that they are consistently challenged, which will help to maintain their motivation and productivity levels. Try to give clever people as much task variety as possible.
Recognise achievement
Clever people react well to praise for a job well done. While they might prefer to be left alone to get on with a completing a particular task or project, it’s important to recognise their achievements once the work is done. Make sure that this praise reflects their level of achievement. Clever people often seek recognition from their peer group. Why not try asking them to publicise their efforts by taking part in a peer-to-peer presentation of their work?
Encourage failure
Creative, clever people are, by their very nature, highly experimental.This means they won’t always deliver the anticipated results. Don’t worry if they have the occasional failure. Encourage them to be experimental, to explore and play around with different ideas and options. Create a ‘safe’ environment where they can make mistakes and let them know you are more interested in their successes.
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