Manage My Employees

Archive for the ‘Motivating and Inspiring Employees’ Category

Article #53

Micromanagement is often defined as “excessive control of people or projects” and it is popularly viewed as an evil not a good. But is it entirely?

I believe that the ambiguity comes when we try to get our arms around exactly what is excessive? Most micromanagers I have encountered do not realize they micromanage—but their people do!

I think you would probably agree that an appropriate level of control is absolutely necessary to run a solid enterprise. But what is an appropriate level of control? When does a manager cross the line and get too controlling or suppressive?

On the other end of the spectrum, however, a manager could be seen as weak, disconnected or ambivalent if they under-manage. They could get too little performance from their people precisely because they fail to provide enough oversight!

Do you find it challenging to balance being totally in control—with not being overly-controlling?

Balanced managers find just the right mix of connecting, supervising, measuring, oversight, autonomy, and keeping people accountable to results—all without being over-the-top, control-freakish, or heavy-handed.

4 Differences of Being a Balanced Manager Versus A Painful Micromanager

• Micromanagement kills the spirit and drive of people by obsessing about the minutiae. Balanced managers may initiate projects, set the goals or parameters for associates and then get out of the way—but they immediately re-engage whenever projects stall out or lag behind. Micromanagers get in the way because they can’t release control.

• Micromanagement clogs up the free flow of creative energies and inspired efforts. Micromanagers often manage granularly, meaning that they drive hard for results by ruling with an iron thumb. I coached an executive of a small family business on his micromanaging tendencies a few years ago. He admitted to me that he personally approved and edited all memos that his executive team wrote before they could be sent out! What a waste of time! But this is just like micromanagers, rather than want summaries or highlights of progress they immerse into the micro level of projects or tasks and snuff the very life out of people. In contrast, balanced managers want the bigger picture, want to be copied on reports, and receiving a recap of a project’s status is fine with them. However, when goals or metrics are not being reached they look to get things back on course, quickly—and they re-engage as much as needed to achieve outcomes.

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Article #52

I’m not a futurist, but, if you ask me to look through my plexiglass ball – I see 7 Major Trends that will impact most companies over the next ten years.

More importantly, I believe there is a link to those trends and 7 Ways to Engage Gen Y Employees to help your organization succeed better and faster at making changes to survive, even thrive in the future.

Based on a nationwide workplace study of Gen Y employees, here’s my prediction and extrapolations…

7 Ways to Engage Gen Y Employees to Help Your Company Survive Better and Faster

• Endless Efficiency. Business must find ways to streamline everything possible in order to be more productive, increase competitiveness. Gen Y has a penchant for finding ways to improve everything, reinvent, downsize or utilize technology better, faster, cheaper. Involve them early in the idea stage versus waiting until the plan is ready for implementation.
• Urgency in the Culture . Business must get employees on board with needed change, quickly, by turning energies and efforts loose on solving competitive threats and pursuing opportunities. Change is moving from periodic to continual and Gen Y employees want to be engaged. They are wired for ditching the status quo and instituting changes fast, switching direction altogether, or altering embedded processes to make things better.

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Article #50

Admittedly, I’m addicted to great customer service. I like to get it. I like to give it.

Whenever I don’t get great service, I’m disappointed. At times, it makes me boiling mad. Take the experience I had the other day around nine in the morning….

My Customer Service Experience Was Terrible

I stopped at a national chain drug store for a bottle of over-priced, filtered water—the kind that’s supposed to make you “smarter”—at least that’s what the label says. I could have gone to a convenience store, but in this case I knew they had what I wanted and it was handy.

Several bottles of the water were lodged at the back of the slotted holder, and it happened to be, of course, at the upper most shelf of the refrigerated unit. Since I couldn’t reach them without climbing on top of the unit myself, I turned to the rather tall, thirty-something-old employee (looked like he could be a manager) and made him aware of the problem (opportunity actually).

He looked at me briefly, and without smiling or saying anything he immediately stopped stocking the shelf he was working on and walked over. Still, without saying a word to me, he pulled some bottles from the back of the slot and started handing them to me, one… then a second… then a third bottle. “Whoa, wait I only wanted one,” I said. He took two bottles and put them back, turned and walked back to the shelf he was stocking just a few feet away.

The man never smiled, never made a comment in my direction, never apologized for the inconvenience, nor did he make any attempt to thank me for my business.

Impersonal. Indifferent. He made me feel like he could care less about my business.

To make matters worse, when I walked to the front to pay, the employee (a young lady maybe in her late twenties) was leaning on the counter with both elbows, scowling.

She was gloomy, indifferent, and uninterested in me, her customer. She was just going through the motions of ringing up my merchandise and going back to being mad at the world, or feeling sorry for herself. Who knows?

What I do know is that she didn’t greet me, didn’t smile. She didn’t say thank you—she did nothing to make me feel like she could give a rip about my business. I even had to ask for a bag.***

There Were 5 Vital Points These Employees Had Not Bought Into:

• The most important activity that can ever go on in any business is when the customer calls or comes in to buy something. Contrary to popular belief, this trumps “real” job duties like stocking or straightening shelves, sweeping, doing paperwork, filing, typing, looking something up on the computer… or TEXTING. Heaven forbid!

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Article #48

Is your company attracting then retaining bright, younger workers successfully? Is your community keeping its best and brightest or are they moving away for greener pastures?

This begs the question: What do Gen Y workers want anyway? And what exactly do they expect from a boss in terms of managing work efforts, effectively?

To prepare for a meeting with city leaders, I recently met with an interesting Gen Y/Xer (she’s between the demographer lines) who works in a professional staff position in my city.

Our city, like others, is attempting to understand how we can do a better job of keeping our best/brightest talent here—and not move away to your city, for example!

When this young lady shared with me how much she had enjoyed working at a previous position in Washington, D.C. (prior to moving to my city of Springfield, MO) especially how she had loved working for the management at that organization, I was really curious. I asked her to explain exactly what the management had done to make it such a great work experience.

Her answer was insightful, it also serves as a good reminder for what many Gen Y workers want today.

What Gen Yers Wish Managers Knew About Managing:

• Shed titles. Contrast that with managers who use a title (and its authority) to control others. The managers at the Washington organization weren’t interested in ‘controlling’ but in collaborating with employees more effectively, hence they shed the formality of their titles and got on her level. While they still held a title, of course, they didn’t allow those titles to create distance or tension—as in I’m over you and I’m your boss so I do as I say.

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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 #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.

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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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Blogger Jason Christensen linked to a recent BNET.com article interview I gave regarding “Can’t Pay Your Employees What You Like? Praise Them Instead“

You might want to check out Jason’s article on motivating and building the morale of remote employees, I found it pertinent. He offers up a number of useful ideas especially if you have employees scattered about. See: ON A BUDGET: Motivating your team, bolstering loyalty & elevating morale. (Full Series) « “Life as a Remote User”

Motivating, managing distance employees presents a few unique challenges like…

• Less face time to create open dialogue about work goals, problems, feedback, updates, etc.
• Communication is relationship and distance can impact building relationship and trust.

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Short Article #29

“What do you think?” asked the manager to her employee. Surprised, the employee responded, “Well, I don’t know if this would work or not but I think…”

Those four words posed in the question, “What do you think?” may be more telling of one’s management style than any other sign.

Why? Here are four possible reasons, you may want to add one in a comment yourself:

• It’s a sign of whether you genuinely care to hear the opinions of others, or just want to appear like you do.
• It’s a sign of whether you lead by “getting others to want to do” OR “getting others to do” what you believe should be done.

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Short article # 28

Is there a difference in disengagement and low morale? Perhaps, as author Terry Kabachnick asserts in her book, I Quit But Forgot To Tell You.

Low morale is not disengagement. Low morale occurs when an employee gets frustrated with the work load, the work environment or their supervisor. Disengagement occurs when an employee ceases to care, ie. Their heart’s just not in it anymore…!

How bad is disengagement? A Gallup poll a few years ago revealed that 74% of American workers admit to being disengaged, this costs U.S. organizations $350 billion annually in lost productivity.

What are some of the signs of disengagement?

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