Part one: Learning the power of conversation

At around 12:30 p.m. on March 5, Adriane Smith stopped by the desks of the three people who report to her and offered an apology. "I'm so sorry," she told her colleagues, who at first—not surprisingly—were puzzled. "I feel like I haven't given you enough time to talk to me about any concerns you might have. That's going to change."

And it did. Five days later, Smith, administrative specialist in the office of the director of Johns Hopkins University's Wilmer Eye Institute, initiated a series of 30-minute back-to-back meetings every Monday with members of the team under her supervision.

"I realize now that it's very important to give them time to express themselves," Smith says. "Before, I wasn't taking the time. Now we sit down, and I ask what's going on with them. It's not always about work concerns. It gives us the chance to deal with matters before they become concerns."

It was an important takeaway from Fundamentals of Feedback, the first of a planned series of five 90-minute workshops currently underway throughout the university known as "manager conversations." These are meant to strengthen the relationship and culture between supervisors and those who report to them.

Smith had just completed the first workshop when she rushed back to her office and put into practice one of its lessons. "When you have employees you give attention and time to, they will want to give you their best," she says. "On a larger scale, [this interaction] also demonstrates Hopkins' commitment to employee wellness on all ends, whether personal or professional."

That's the idea that drives the program, says Savio Franco, the inaugural director of Leadership Learning in JHU's Office of Talent Management, who oversees the series. "When conversations between managers and team members go well, the relationships are strengthened, and better relationships mean better culture," he says.

"The program is based on the premise that better conversations foster a positive culture, which, in turn, produces better outcomes," he says. "It's a hierarchy, with conversations being the smallest unit. Relationships are the larger unit, and culture is the sum total."

The overall goal is to ensure that JHU retains and attracts the very best talent by strengthening the bond between managers and those they supervise, Franco says.

"People choose to stay at organizations when their relationship with managers is positive and productive, and when managers make their employees feel valued, listened to, understood, and supported."

Each division organizes its own sessions and provides the people who run them. The program is expected to draw in the more than 5,700 managers at JHU, a number that includes both staff and faculty supervisors.

"We want to cover every present manager and those incoming or being promoted. They all will have the opportunity to learn about these critical conversations and be good at them," says Franco, who points to the School of Medicine's especially strong program.

Maryalice Meister, that school's senior director of Human Resources, says that the approaches taught at these sessions deliver "skills that managers can take back to their work environment and implement right away."

The sessions also bring managers together in a way that was lost during the pandemic years, says Doris Pendergrass, director of HR for SOM. "Being able to talk about common issues and policies has been welcome and refreshing coming out of a long period of not being able to do these kinds of workshops," she says.

Moreover, the hope is that managers will become more adept at navigating tough conversations and therefore be able to defuse potentially worrisome issues, she says. "If we are properly coaching people, they will have more opportunities to correct behavior before problems escalate. We should start seeing more problem solving and early engagement."

The focus of Fundamentals of Feedback is "how important it is to listen," Franco says. It covers "the basics of listening, asking good questions, and being approachable—and effective approaches to providing feedback."

It's the workshop that so affected Smith. She wasn't the only one.

"What helped me—and what I started practicing—was to listen," says Agha Mirza, an administrative manager in SOM's Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, who supervises seven people.

He says he's found that solutions to problems often emerge just by allowing his colleagues the freedom and space to speak. "You have to restrain yourself and listen," he says. "It changes your perspective—and, if you let them talk it out, the answer comes to them."

Anita O'Donnell, a financial manager in SOM's Wilmer Eye Institute, who took part in the same session, agrees. O'Donnell describes the two-minute role-playing exercise that showed the impact of listening:

"The speaker is asked to talk for two minutes about how she gets to work, while the listener can't ask questions or make comments. I realized how difficult it was to just sit there and listen and not say anything. Wow, in two minutes—if you don't interrupt or distract them—the person can tell you a really long story. You realize how much the act of listening is a power tool. It became clear to me how important it is for managers to step back and just listen."

Four more workshops will be forthcoming during the next two years. They are:

• Performance and Corrective Action. One of a manager's tasks is to provide frequent performance feedback, including when things are going well or wrong, and start corrective action when the latter occurs. A key objective of the course is to offer guidance on when to get HR involved. The workshop offers various scenarios and practical advice on how to do this, Savio says. These include flowcharts that guide the manager's choices at different stages in the process. The best approach is "to talk to that individual in private first and help them clarify their behavior, and its impact, and their underlying intent," he says.

• Leave and Accommodations. JHU offers many different leave policies and accommodations, and managers need to be aware of what is available to their team members, Franco says. "We have vacation leave, maternity leave, and a host of humane policies, and we want to do better in terms of how they make a positive difference in the lives of our employees," Franco says. "Having good policies is one thing, communicating them to employees and giving them support is another."

• Compensation and Benefits. "Managers have to understand how compensation is structured and [that] they have a part to play," Franco says. "HR has compensation criteria for different jobs and different levels, and the managers are the conduit," he says. "It's a complex dynamic. The managers need to know what to say and how to say it—and to listen. Advocating for their team members is a part of it, too."

• Employee Development. "We want to retain good employees, and the best way is to give them opportunities across the university," Franco says. "We want to train our managers not only to help individuals feel supported in their current role but to support their career development as well."

Although the sessions have only just begun, early participants say they already recognize their value. "I highly encourage other managers to take this course," O'Donnell says. "We need to take the time to remind ourselves that we are dealing with people—and it matters that we learn to be a better coach, manager, and mentor."

Mirza agrees. "I never know what I am walking into day to day and whether I will have to troubleshoot problems," he says. "But I know that I have to make sure my team members have the support they need. Everybody in these sessions is very accomplished, and it's useful to hear how they troubleshoot. We've all experienced the same things, although in different settings.

"As long as folks are willing to adapt and are flexible in learning new ways, [there's] always an opportunity to grow," he adds. "I've been doing this for many, many years, but every time I attend a session like this, [the experience] makes me a better manager."