Manage My Employees

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Short Article #43

There’s nary a day that some imperative about the need to change doesn’t come across my monitor.

For good reason, I must admit. Change is arguably no longer periodic but continuous.

Change can also be quite startling when your company is the one caught off-guard. There are a number of possible reasons why change staggers even the best-made plans, sending leaders scurrying for a brilliant response…

• A new competitor slips in one night, launches a web site that offers virtually identical product for half the price.
• A once nascent technology now threatens to lop off your company’s market share in a nanosecond of the time it took to gain it.
• In a matter of weeks, you lose some or all of your largest customers’ business and sales drop dramatically.
• You get a letter one day announcing that your bank refuses to extend the customary line of credit.

The kind of change we’re witnessing is precipitated by our turbulent economy and the rapid introduction of new technology, as well as expanding globalization. Not much control over that, is there?

Change, inordinate change, begs a nimble response by the most adaptive organizations.

However, this requires leaders who are no longer confounded by change, but rather, embrace revolutionary transformation as the new norm. Consequently, they develop cogent, coherent strategies in response.

I’ve collected a few quotes on ‘change’ over the last couple of months. I certainly like how they mentally nudge me to consider new perspectives and ideas. I’d be interested in what you think of these 10 Quotes on Change:

• “Be the change you want to see.” Mahatma Ghandi
• “Having common purpose is the best way to predict outcomes in an unpredictable situation.” Jessica Flannery, founder of Kiva.org
• “It is not good to have zeal without knowledge.” Proverbs
• “The world is becoming less and less an extrapolation of the past.” Gary Hamel, author

Read more »

Short article #42

High unemployment has created a situation for employers whereby they now have many more applicants for job openings than previously. In effect, shifting bargaining power to employers.

Unfortunately, one unintended consequence of high unemployment may be that it has given some managers the belief that they can be more demanding or controlling of their employees.

I’m hearing managers say things I haven’t heard in a long time. Things that bespeak of an underlying and troubling attitude. 

For example:

• “I can have you replaced with a dozen just like you by noon if I want!” Read more »

Short article #41

In his book, The Future of Management, Gary Hamel contends that the current management model centered on control and efficiency, no longer suffices in a world where adaptability and creativity drive business success.

Hamel’s perspective is credible. As well as being a bestselling author he is ranked the #1 Influential Business Thinker by the Wall Street Journal. Some points from his book:

There will be new challenges to competitive viability and profitability: In a world of immediately accessible information, there is less room for mediocre products or services. 

Modern management needs to change its model for the future. "Modern management has also stymied the opinions and free-spirits of human beings by getting them to conform to rigid rules and procedures, and in so doing squandered creative problem solving or innovation. It has brought discipline to operations, but imperils organizational adaptability."

Management innovation can bring significant advantage. In studying over 100 management breakthroughs across two centuries, Hamel notes that major advances in managerial practices often

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Short article # 40 

The article from BNET (link below) makes an apt point regarding employee praise, a point that should be common knowledge for any manager or leader: 

• Principle: deserved praise is critical to feelings of connectedness, employee loyalty, as well as ongoing contribution of uninhibited effort.

One of my own consulting engagements closely mirrors the story told in the article: A small business client was suffering from accelerated turnover, and inexplicably, several professional staff level employees had resigned only months prior to collecting sizeable bonuses.

Can lack of praise or lack of relationship with one’s manager be a significant enough factor to prompt an employee to leave an employer, moreover, can it actually cause them to walk away from tens of thousands of dollars in bonus money? According to my first-hand experience, yes.

Thanks for the Bonus — I Quit! | The View from Harvard Business | BNET

Short Article #38 and 39 (parts one and two)

I like this observation by business authors Fahey and Randall:

“A major limitation of most strategic planning is that the thinking and recognition of opportunity take place within the confines of a mental box – the limits of the historical mindset. Often, signals of change or threat are simply not recognized by the upper leaders involved in the planning. Middle managers often contribute to the problem by focusing on the activities that best fit the mindset. Front-line managers may be subtly discouraged from challenging the status quo. In other words, the mindset exerts a limiting role on the analysis and implementation of the plan.” Liam Fahey, Robert Randall

What thoughts do you have based upon the observation above? Please leave your comments below if you’d like to chime in.

Here are some views I have on the topic of the limiting historical mindset, based on my experience:

• In the pursuit of constancy, consistency and congruency most organizations are unable to get past status quo.
• Management is often instructed by leadership to "adhere to the course we’ve laid out” and “don’t rock the boat.” Employees are often told by management to “just do what we tell you,” and “don’t ask too many questions.”
• Organizations too often say on the one hand that they want change, yet still vehemently resist it.
• As individuals, we may truly want what’s better for ourselves, our careers or our families, and yet we stay stuck in our all too comfortable mental ruts and habits—consequently little change occurs on any front.

I find that good questions often have pertinence when it comes to carefully considering our own possible historical mindsets.

Here are 10 Questions I Often Ask Leaders and Managers to Answer:

-Why do we yearn for change but yearn to resist it?

-Why do we look at the same data, the same markets, the same balance sheets and income statements month after month, and come to the very same historical conclusions?

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Short article #36 and #37 (combined)

It all started three or four decades ago with the ubiquitous employee suggestion boxes. For the most part, those antiquated  methods of getting employee input never really worked very well. Why?

Mainly, employees sensed that management really didn’t want their input. Two things in particular tipped them off.

First, nothing was ever acted on as a result of the input. Secondly, management never followed-up with employees later to discuss the ideas. (I realize ‘never’ is a big word… but it’s the word I most often hear from employees).

Thank goodness, many employee suggestions boxes, often located in the lunchroom or break room, went away. (I think they were turned into kindling wood, or hidden away in the closet by embarrassed managers).

Unfortunately however, suggestion boxes have now been replaced with more modern, but still largely ineffective methods for gathering employee input, such as:

• An “open door” management style which seemingly encourages openness from employees but rarely gets it.  
• Employee forums. Such forums often turn into gripe sessions (at least that’s what I’m told by managers who don’t like doing them anymore.)
• Monthly or weekly staff meetings (aka “huddles” or “departmental meetings”) where the employee perspective is rarely  garnered because such meetings are often monologues instead of productive, honest dialogues.
• Employee performance reviews. Too often reviews are one-way communications of arbitrary scores and ratings that have nothing to do with improving performance or building value into people. Secrets to Giving Employee Performance Reviews.

What’s wrong with the aforementioned methods for acquiring employee ideas and suggestions. Nothing! As long as, employee suggestions or ideas are handled effectively.

Highly effective managers are good at getting a steady stream of helpful, open dialogue from employees. Ideas they can use to cut costs, improve efficiencies and increase profits.

One of the best ways to start generating more useful employee input is by making sure you avoid the 6 Most Common Fumbles Handling Employee Input:

• Manager says they want input, but really doesn’t. He/she believes that the people in the company with all the answers are the people who hold titles, not the employees, because employees have a limited perspective.

Read more »

Short article #35

Many managers I’ve interviewed loathe giving performance reviews. But that can’t possibly compare to a likely overwhelming majority of employees, who think the whole appraisal process is pretty much flawed in their organization.

There are a number of signs I’ve identified from client engagements over the last twenty years which point to performance reviews that fall way short of being the management tool they could be.

Here are 5 of the most common signs:

• Managers avoid doing performance reviews, so they’re often late.
• Managers invest too little time preparing, instead they try to get them over with as fast as possible. To expedite, managers use past performance reviews to copy/paste “wording” — and to make fast modifications to scores/ratings instead of stopping to carefully consider each criteria.

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Short Article#34

I was interviewed by Kevin Gray at BNET (a CBS owned top-tier business web site) for the article: Can’t Pay Employees What You’d Like? Praise Them Instead. BNET is a great site for articles on management, strategy, marketing and more.

Personally, I’ve been struck by how many insightful comments have been posted to this article. You can see what I mean when you go to the article then scroll down and read the comments from some very well-informed readers.

Some have taken exception to the title of the article, or the article’s supposed impetus. However, I take a different view. As for "praise" itself, the point that shouldn’t be lost in the title of the article or the article itself (I hope you read it), is that more praise is generally needed in the workplace. And really, the definitive argument I’d make is that both praise and pay need to be at appropriate levels.

Too many seasoned managers, in my view, tend to follow the outmoded MBO style of managing people–where the priority focuses on projects not people, on tasks versus trust, on cost control instead of communications. In the last five years I’ve been encouraged by some progress, albeit empirical, but we’ve got a long way to go…

How do I know? I’ve personally interviewed over 2,000 employees and managers/supervisors in over twenty industries. Employees in large measure believe they are not given enough feedback, especially positive reinforcement, encouragement, appreciation.. whatever label we give it. In contrast, when they foul up or fall short they often hear about it immediately, and then it’s drudged up again and again in their appraisal.

**CASE: The employees of a retail chain I advised told me during interviews of how supervisors routinely did critical "write – ups"… which were placed in the employee’s file anytime they fouled up.

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Short Article #33

To recap Monday’s Short Article #32 Interruptions Threaten Time Management:

Interruptions can be enormous drains on productive time. The time wasted most commonly affects activities like project management success, hitting deadlines consistently, or maximizing selling time for the sales force. 

There’s no doubt in my mind that wasted time due to unnecessary or ill-timed interruptions add up quickly:

• There’s the amount of time the interruption actually takes and…
• …the time for ‘recovery’ which represents the amount of time required to get our concentration and focus back on to the work we were doing when we were interrupted.

Both factors, can and often do, reduce our personal productivity by thirty minutes, an hour or more.

I advised a large sales force on improving time management and increasing selling time a few years ago. Do you have any idea what the single biggest killer to selling time was in that company?

Answer: salespeople shooting the bull with one another on unnecessary conversation.

Surprisingly, the salespeople admitted that it was not uncommon for HOURS of time to be wasted on unnecessary conversation, every week. Wow!

No wonder the sales manager sensed that his team needed help with time management.

Here’s the good news… after implementing a few of the steps below, the company could ‘free up’ over 1,000 hours annually of additional selling time across its sales force. That translates into more sales and more profits.

Try these steps whether you’re a busy manager, leader, small business owner or salesperson.

5 Steps to manage unnecessary or ill-timed interruptions and increase productive time:

• Hold your calls for a specific amount of time. Read more »

Short article #32

Interruptions, whether they are necessary or unnecessary, represent definite productivity killers.

Unnecessary interruptions, and interruptions which are important enough to make their way to your desk but are ill-timed, could often be handled at much better hours of the day. (Like when you’re not in the middle of really critical work or pressing deadlines.)

Successfully managing interruptions presents three immediate benefits:

One: helps us achieve higher levels of personal productivity.

Two: we can get more done at the office in less time, on time.

Three: we can get more done at the office which helps contribute to healthier work-life balance.

How much time does an interruption actually waste?

Read more »