By Ed Menninger, founding partner, Communicating@CulturalContext

If I were to quickly rate and generalize about our agency business, I'd say that in managing clients most agencies get an "A" or "A-". We care. It shows and more often than not, the results go from very good to outstanding. If I were then to go on to the financial scorecard, I suspect we don't do as well—but certainly good enough to average a "B" to "B+". OK there some "A" grades. But if I were to go the people equation or, how well do we develop and retain our people, the number of "Cs" that show up wouldn't really surprise anyone.

People development is one of the hardest tasks for the agency world. A perspective: I've talked to a number of people who have come to the agency world from other disciplines and other parts of the PR world—corporation, government—nutrition—environment. We come across as… shall we say "brusque"? We are under time pressures and billability pressures and we tend to want people to "get to the point" very quickly. There is the ubiquitous situation of the senior person returning from the very tough client meeting and confronted upon returning to the office by a junior person charging up to her and saying, "I need to see you, now!" She will usually be greeted by the gesture of raised hands, palms out and the stern voiced, "Not now"! This visual can be repeated time and time again—just a part of our business behavior— something we've all seen.

What's needed is not a change in the intensity level of our business or the on-going ability of all to "juggle" in order to survive, but rather a dedication by managers (mid-level as well as senior) to take a deep breath and think about how to make these individual players into a better team. Part of our job is developing our people. We must coach them to be better team members and that starts with respect for you the manager and that respect is grounded in trust. No trust—no coaching—no people development—no retention. To be trusted one needs to come across as: competent, communicative, caring and consistent. If the person isn't competent (even if nice) it's hard to trust that person. If the person doesn't communicate except on his/her laptop or blackberry, you don't know what they are thinking. If the person doesn't show any interest in other human being, it also makes trust impossible and finally, if mangers are not consistent, i.e. Democrat in the AM, Republican in the PM and Libertarian after nightfall, then the employee can't figure out which one he'll meet when he goes to talk with that supervisor. OK, you have trust, now coaching begins. Its elements are fairly simple: Think about and record the performance of the employee. Learn to listen. Seek agreement on what needs to be done and plan to reward good results and note failures and the steps needed to be taken for improvement. Look for results that the employee can achieve and you can monitor. It may take time but it's time well spent.

Finally, a few simple thoughts to make managing easier: (1) Take time to listen; (2) Give good examples; (3) Don't pull rank; (4) Care about the person; (5) Keep people informed; (6) Encourage people; (7) Stretch people; (8) Give praise when a job is well done and do it close to the time of the action for which you are praising them. Most importantly: when the job's not well done, focus the conversation on behavior not personality. Isn't this common sense? Well yes, but I don't think it's common practice. Let's turn it into common practice and those grades in "people management" will move right up through "B" heading for "A".

Ed Menninger is a founding partner of the New York City based consultancy, Communicating@CulturalContext specializing in the people equation. He conducts workshops, speaks and writes on this subject and does individual coaching. He is a former Burson-Marsteller Managing Director and EVP and is a PRSA APR and Fellow. Ed can be reached at edmenninger@aol.com.