We all know who Google is, right? 

Well it turns out that they like data and they like processing data.  What this means for managers is that Google spends their time collecting  data about how managers are using their manager skills to manage their  teams and then they process that data. They used to think that the  smartest people made the best managers, turns out that they were wrong –  they needed to get some manager training. It’s the people who do the best job of working with people. Google’s been collecting data for quite some time and they have recently gone back and taken a look at their data. 

Four new characteristics of a good manager have shown up.

There are a lot of parts of being a manager that are tough. 

One of the most challenging is when it comes time for us to hire someone to join our team.  The world is filled with a lot of people and there will probably be  many who want to get a job at your company working on your team. As a  manager, it’s going to be your job to use your manager skills to sort  through all of the candidates in order to find the best match. This is  not an easy thing to do. 

However, there are three key secrets that you need to keep in mind when you are looking for that next new hire.

Sure you are enjoying your manager position, but wouldn’t you like to  receive a raise? 

There is a problem with getting a raise: when it comes  to using your manager skills to ask for a promotion or raise, most of us  focus the conversation around the same thing: ourselves. All too often  this does not get us the outcome that we want. 

What we really need to do  is to listen to what social science research has found out about how we  can make it one more rung up our career ladder.

When a manager goes interviewing for a job, they may find it odd to be  on the other side of the interviewing table. 

We use our manager skills  to do a lot of interviewing as a part of our job; however, when we go  looking for our next job we need to know how to use our manager training  to do so successfully. 

What’s the best way for a manager to get the job  that they are interviewing for?

In order to become better managers, we all realize that there are a  number of ways to make this happen. 

We can go seek manager training and  try to develop the manager skills that we know that we need. However,  there is another way to go about becoming better: get a mentor.  

If you decide to go this route, right off the bat you’ll be faced with a  difficult question: what should you look for in a mentor?

As managers, we are often presented with opportunities to switch jobs.  

We may be presented with a new job that catches our attention and we  may start to seriously start to think about switching employers.  However, as attractive as a new job may appear, it might be in our own  best interest to not rush into taking a new job. 

One of the big  questions that we have to use our manager skills to answer before making  any jump is to determine what the culture of the new company is.

Life is complicated and, yes, there are times when it is inconvenient to tell the truth.  

It can be as simple as one of you friends asking if you like the outfit  that they are wearing (you don’t) or your boss asking if that report  will be done by the end of the day (it won’t). It can be very easy to  “bend the edges” or tell white, gray, or even black lies when we are at  work. 

Our manager training does not teach us how big of a deal this really is.

Managers who have built a successful team are always worried about one  thing: are their workers going to stay? 

As more and more of our teams  are being built using members of the millennial generation a lot of us have become worried because we don’t have any manager  training on how to get people to stay. The typical description of a  millennial worker is one who moves around a lot looking for the next  best thing. 

Should managers be worried that their team members are going to be moving on?

Ok, hopefully we can all agree that the basic management stuff is pretty easy for just about anyone with manager skills to do:  sign time cards, have an annual review, keep things on track. 

These  things don’t require a great deal of manager training. I like to think  of management as being the process of having everyone work on what they  are supposed to be doing when you are in the room. However, then we move  on to that tricky thing: leadership.  I think of leadership as getting the people who are a part of your team  to be so committed that they keep doing what they are supposed to be  doing even when you are not in the room. 

Now how is a manager supposed to make that happen?

Let’s face it: we’ve all been through a lot. 

Life may have been quite  busy before, but then that pandemic thing happened and things just sorta  went out of control no matter how good your manager skills are. Now  that life is getting back to normal, it’s perfectly ok for you to be thinking about perhaps quitting your job and looking for a new one.  Although this is an acceptable thought to be having, before you pull  the trigger and submit your resignation there are a few things that you might want to consider.  

You want to make sure that any major change that you make like this is  the right thing for you to be doing at this point in time.