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16 NewsBeat June 2019 something Gallup had seen before: a company's productivity depends, to a high degree, on the quality of its managers." But there's more — something that "no one saw coming." What Gallup found about managers is that they don't "just influence the results their teams achieved, they explained a full 70% of the variance. In other words, if it's a superior team you're after, hiring the right manager is nearly three-fourths of the battle." Gallup calls this finding, about the sheer impact of a manager on a company, "'the single most profound, distinct and clarifying finding' in its 80-year history." Wow! As Walker writes, "No other single factor, from compensation levels to the perception of senior leadership, even came close." This was such big news that it nearly "blew me out of my chair," recounted Jim Clifton, Gallup's CEO. Okay. Let that sink in. The biggest thing (70%!) separating your company and its optimal productivity isn't some big scary global trend outside of your control. It's just people — managers — and they way they treat other people. Managers who 'get it' do these 3 things And even though we often think big, complicated, expensive problems require big, complicated, expensive solutions, re- orienting managers — helping them "get it" — does not have to break the bank. As my hero, Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, says, "It's a way of being." So here are three simple and bottom line-friendly ways to help managers become managers who get it. The biggest threat to a company is how managers treat people, says an exec coach. Here are 3 budget- friendly ways they can get better at their jobs I n a recent WSJ article, business writer Sam Walker presents the challenge of growing our economy "back to the glory days of 7% growth." He writes: "Here's a crazy idea: What if it's something simple? What if companies could fix the problem by hiring better middle managers?" When I read this article, I immediately knew he was onto something. As I researched my book, "Bing You Human to Work," and spoke to employees across industries, I heard over and over again how much employees want to connect with their managers. Study after studey shows that better managers lead to less turnover, highter engagement, and a depper feeling of connection, which is what talent demands. And based on everything I was seeing, hearing and reading, I was getting a strong sense that by shining a ligth on managers, we'd be solving a big problem. But I wasn't 100% sure. Now I am. As Walker writes: "Five years ago, the Gallup organization embarked on one of the most ambitious deep dives it has ever conducted; an analysis of the future of work based on a decade of input from nearly 2 million employees and more than 300,000 business units. The results confirmed 1. Take the values off the walls and into the halls Managers need to know and understand a company's values. But that's just the beginning in today's workplace. According to Walker, "For most workers, the real company they work for is the team they're on.The only way to make a culture stick is to install middle managers who transfer it to their teams." In other words, these managers need to get the values off the walls and into the halls. Managers need to model the values and show employees what they look like, sound like, and feel like — and why it matters. Fast-growing luggage startup https:// www.awaytravel.com/shop/suitcases set up a Slack channel called "Team Love" to share stories about their values. On Team Love, managers and employees at any level can recognize someone for living the Away values by sharing a story about how an employee brought one of their values to life. To scale the values even more, a survey goes out each week in advance of the company's all-hands meeting, asking for examples of "core values in action," and each week five or six examples are shared with the whole company. The result is a living repository of values at work. By ERICA KESWIN

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