Are you a manager? A team leader? A business owner? Well read on, hopefully you’ll find this as useful as I did.

1. Your team wants context.

Suzanne explained that you can’t just make decisions without explaining them–most of the time–because your team simply won’t be motivated without understanding the context. Giving them the bigger picture helps keep motivation and productivity up!

2. Develop a real plan, be careful with measurement.

Oftentimes, Suzanne said, the hardest part is figuring out how you need to measure your progress and success. Make sure you’ve laid out a real plan for success, and pick the measurements that make the most sense for what you want to achieve.

3. Ensure people have the proper tools.

This one is a no-brainer. If people don’t have the tools, they can’t get the job done!

4. It’s important to practice situational leadership.

“Consistency is overrated,” said Suzanne. Not every person is the same, and they shouldn’t be managed as if they are. Don’t worry about consistency, worry about being effective.

5. Frequent feedback is incredibly important.

It’s all about being immediate and being repetitive. Suzanne said that oftentimes you really do just have to drill feedback into someone’s mind to get it to really sink in. It’s also important to make sure you’re giving feedback in the moment. Don’t wait until April to give someone feedback for a meeting that happened in March–they can easily say “well yesterday I did _____” to contradict your feedback. And that just leads to a “war of anecdotes,” says Suzanne. Not fun.

6. Performance reviews are a necessary evil.

Like them or not, performance reviews are important to make sure things are on the right track. But they also need to be done right. As a manager, you need to make sure you’re giving a review on time, because it’s simply disrespectful to keep a staff member waiting and worrying over a review that was supposed to happen a week ago. You also need to be participative. Make sure you’re involved in the review, don’t just fill out a form, make a quick 10 minute meeting and then be done with it. Be involved in the process of reviewing, it’ll make the process easier for both sides.

As a side note, Suzanne offered the suggestion to do performance reviews backwards. The tendency is always to give the encouragement and good news first, then move on to the “but…”. “Put the ‘but’ first,” said Suzanne–it’ll leave you both feeling positive at the end of the meeting, and ensures the positive feedback won’t be pushed out of the way by the negative.

7. Understand people’s triggers.

Similarly to number 4 up there, keep in mind that different people will be motivated by different things, will react differently to certain actions, and might need different incentives or even punishments, if the occasion calls for it. Learn these and know these, you’ll need them to get the most out of your team.

8. Understand how people learn.

Some people learn by reading. Others need to be briefed. Still others might need a visual representation to really “get” a concept. Make sure you know how your team learns, and utilize every method available to make it as easy as possible for them to do so.

9. Manage conflicts constructively.

This one was particularly interesting to me, and she made an excellent point: “There’s no way you’re that smart that everyone always agrees with you.” If that’s the case, chances are there’s something keeping your team from giving you real input–input that could be incredibly valuable. Make sure they know that a conflict in ideas, opinion, or otherwise is all perfectly acceptable, and can be easily managed. And once it’s managed, learn from that (both sides!) and use that to build upon your managing experience up to that point.

10. Don’t wait too long to fire someone.

Firing is no fun. That’s pretty much a given. Obviously I’ve never had to do it, but I’ve always heard it’s one of the hardest parts of managing. Suzanne says don’t put it off, just do it as soon as you realize it’s the right thing to do. She says she’s never regretted firing anyone, but it’s always for the best.

A couple side notes on this one, too: First, understand the law when it comes to firing–make sure you aren’t doing anything unethical, and certainly not illegal. Secondly, make sure you’re good with discretion. No reason that the conversation needs to go past the walls of your office (unless it comes from the fired worker’s mouth) and it’s the only respectful thing to do. Finally, make sure you’re good at communicating the development to the team. You don’t have to give details, but make sure they understand that employee is gone, what the next steps will be to replace him or her, and to continue keepin’ on keepin’ on.

11. The first thing is to hire the right people.

She saved possibly her most important point for last–make sure you hire the right people! If you’re not doing the hiring right, you’re going to have to deal with just more problems down the road. Some recommendations: be quiet and stoic during the interview, listen more than you speak. You want to get to know the candidate. Also, start with the question, “what do you know about this job?” It’s an easy way to gauge their expectations and see if they match what you envision for the position. Finally, be consistent–don’t ask different candidates questions in different orders. With some questions, candidates might be given clues from other questions earlier on in the interview, and it doesn’t do you any good to give one candidate an unfair advantage.