What’s the most overlooked tool in a manager’s toolbox?

The voice.

The way we speak largely determines whether peers and employees will heed our directives and level with us honestly. If your vocal tone clashes with the other speaker’s tone—or if you’re habitually too loud (or soft)—you make it harder for others to listen to the substance of your remarks.

Emergency responders appreciate the power of the voice. Charles Harris, a former New York Fire Department firefighter who’s now a JetBlue flight attendant, told The Wall Street Journal that he learned to modulate his tone and volume to gain compliance from individuals in a state of peril.

“Taking someone down a ladder, they can freeze,” he said. “You have to vary your voice. If you keep yelling at people the same way, they freeze.”

Use your voice to rivet others’ attention. Speak softly to emphasize a key point. Slow your tempo when explaining a complex concept. Turn up the volume to instill excitement or radiate enthusiasm.

Your voice is a powerful device. Don’t waste it.

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Here’s the single best tip to make performance reviews more productive: Involve employees before, during and after the formal review meeting.

Beforehand, ask them to evaluate their performance based on a host of pre-set criteria. They should already know your expectations (hopefully, you’ve explained the standards– and what constitutes substandard and superior performance). As a result, rating themselves on specific competencies and behaviors shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to them.

During the meeting, engage in a dialogue. Welcome their input and explore ways to develop their skills and careers. Invite input on your management style as well.

Don’t fall into the trap of talking too much or looking down the whole time at a three-page form you’ve already filled out. There’s nothing like an overly complicated form to dehumanize a performance appraisal.

After the session, ask employees to draft a summary memo. Instruct them to share their impressions of the performance review in writing and submit it within 72 hours of your meeting. Suggest that the memo cite the employee’s areas of agreement or disagreement with your assessment and set expectations for goal attainment and performance improvement in the months ahead.

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Some managers mistake politeness with effective supervision. They treat their employees the same way that retail workers treat walk-in customers.

When you walk into a store, you may hear “How are you?” greetings from every clerk who walks by. Or they might say, “Let me know if I can be of any help.”

That’s fine. But a better service strategy is to ask more targeted questions such as, “Are you finding what you need?” or “Hi, would you like to know our specials today?”

Similarly, managers might think they’re being friendly by going up to employees and saying, “How’s it going?” The smile painted across their face and the weirdly overwrought eye contact somehow seems inauthentic—like a technique taught in a $69 half-day management training seminar.

To converse effectively with your staff, ask smart questions that engage people and encourage them to reveal more of themselves, their attitude and their work habits. Examples include, “Are you getting through your to-do list today?” or “How would you rate how full your plate is today?”

Politeness is nice. But it’s creepy sometimes if it rings of falsity.

Stick with more substantive (but still friendly) inquiries if you really want to build rapport with your team.

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Smart managers sometimes impose silly rules that govern how they operate. As a coach, I’m often urging them to abandon self-limiting rules that impede their progress.

Here are some recent examples. I worked with the owner of a fast-growing business who wanted to organize his time better. He’d meet monthly with his five board members to solicit their input. He had a rule that each meeting would consist of a structured discussion of only one or two strategic challenges. That’s it. If a director raised a third issue, the owner would table it for another meeting.

As a result, his meetings flowed quickly and ended on time. But he failed to extract the most insight from his directors. They felt slighted if they wanted to veer from his tight, inflexible agenda.

In another example, a manager insisted on always applying the “feedback sandwich” technique: Give employees two pieces of praise with a dollop of criticism in the middle.

You surely know this, but I’ll remind you anyway: The feedback sandwich is stale. It’s so 1980. Today’s workforce is savvy enough to understand you’re merely using a technique rather than communicating honestly.

It’s better to come right out and say what you mean. If you want to give positive input, go ahead. If you need to dish out criticism, speak up. As long as you’re fair and you deliver plenty of solid, well substantiated feedback in a supportive, constructive tone, you’re fine.

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Kip Tindell, the CEO of the Container Store, hires superstars. Yeah, I know. You try to hire superstars, too.

But he goes a step further. He believes one star can be as productive as three good workers. So his company pays its employees (who are hired for their superstardom) 50 to 100 percent above industry average, as Tindell told the New York Times in a recent interview.

“That’s good for the employee, and that’s good for the customer,” Tindell told the Times. “But it’s good for the company, too, because you get three times the productivity for only two times the labor cost.”

Do you pay far above industry norms for superior employees?

If you don’t, at least let your stars know that you value them. I just spoke with a manager who routinely tells his top echelon of workers, “I’d like to pay you more, but money is tight. But I can…”

Then he serves up a nice gift—from a quarterly cash bonus to a paid day off.

When you make exceptional employees feel exceptional, they stay put. Whether you pay them a higher salary or regularly express your appreciation in small but significant ways, the key to managing a productive staff is showing that you value their contribution.

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A manager recently told me, “I’m not very good with praise. My employees hear from me when something’s wrong. Otherwise, they don’t hear from me.”

The manager knew this wasn’t exactly a shining example of enlightened supervision. But still, he didn’t seem determined to change his behavior.

More than ever, praise matters. Whether you employ Gen Y workers or Baby Boomers or someone in between, rest assured these workers crave positive feedback. They want to know what they’re doing right—and that you notice and care.

Why is expressing praise such a struggle for so many managers? Here are three reasons (not excuses!):

1) Bosses don’t want to appear soft. And they assume praise equals softness. They fear that if they convey satisfaction with an employee’s performance, it’ll breed complacency.

2) Harried managers are too busy putting out fires to acknowledge when things go right. They’re so preoccupied by mishaps, conflicts and tension that they overlook evidence of success.

3) If a manager was rarely praised as an employee, he or she might adopt the same habit as boss. Because praise has always proven in short supply at many workplaces, many of today’s rising managers lack experience working in a culture that values pointing out the admirable and the good.

If any of this sounds familiar, I urge you to revamp your strategy and outlook. Dish out praise regularly. Track your progress. Give yourself weekly goals to identify what’s going right and to let people know that you’re pleased.

Then watch morale soar. And wonder why you didn’t act sooner.

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Here’s a dirty little secret that most managers know, but most employees don’t realize or don’t accept: Administering salary is separate from evaluating performance.

Sure, sometimes they’re linked. More often, the two processes advance on different tracks and barely intersect.

You can have a great performer who understandably expects a hefty pay hike every year or so. But if payroll is tight, your maneuverability is tighter.

Open-book management helps address this potentially explosive problem of angry workers who feel underpaid and under-appreciated. If you educate your team about payroll—how much you have to work with, how you divvy up precious dollars (and benefits)—at least you take the mystery out of it. People will see there’s a method to the madness.

While some employees may stew in resentment, your attempt at transparency might mitigate their discontent. They’ll face facts and conclude that your options are limited. They’ll crunch the numbers and tally all the expenses of operating your business. And even if they complain about their pay, they’ll know from your heartfelt praise that you value their contribution.

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As the economy recovers, more employees feel an increasing sense of job security. But that still leaves some anxious workers.

A new survey by Right Management finds that as many as 75% of employees say they’re secure in their jobs. And 40% of managers feel “very secure” (more than any other group).

Nevertheless, roughly one-fourth of employees do NOT feel secure at work. That means if you supervise 40 people, it’s possible that 10 are worried about their job. That’s bound to undermine productivity (even if the overall gloominess in your workplace has lessened from a year ago).

Reassure your team about the future. Level with them about the organization’s financial performance and its strategic plan for capitalizing on the recovery. If possible, provide benchmarking data to show how your employer beats its industry peer group (in terms of sales, revenues, efficiency metrics, etc.). Open the books so that everyone has access to the key numbers and critical ratios that drive your organization’s operation.

In this environment, information is your ally. Shower people at all levels with data and they can decide for themselves whether to feel secure with their job—or not.

Remove the mystery that swirls around the questions, “How’s our financial health?” and “What’s our outlook?” Then reap the rewards as morale grows and worries ebb.

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Managers, like political leaders, thrive when they remember it’s not enough to be for the people. You must be of the people.

Are you of the people?

Here’s how you can tell:

1) You volley back compliments. When you hear praise, you acknowledge it and then think of something sincerely nice to say about the speaker. (You don’t elaborate on why you deserve the praise!)

2) You listen more than you talk. Egomaniacs are rarely quiet, sensitive listeners. Usually, they monopolize conversations and look bored when they’re not the center of attention.

But you limit the blabbing and me-based sharing. Instead, you let others steer conversations. You show interest, stay engaged and ask questions.

3) You make sacrifices that you ask of others. If you ask employees to work on Saturday, where are you? If you’re working alongside them, you’re of the people.

All of these actions reflect humility. They strengthen your management by reminding everyone that you succeed through others—not by bossing others around.

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