Manage My Employees

Posts Tagged ‘Leadership’

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.

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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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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 # 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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One industry, healthcare, has all but escaped the draconian impact of the economic recession. However, healthcare is, as other industries are—battling low employee morale.

According to a survey by CareerBuilder (referenced in this article: Healthcare employers battle low employee morale | Healthcare Finance News) nearly 4 of 10 healthcare employees report low motivation and 1 in 4 say they have no loyalty to their employers.

Losing good employees costs the leaders of any organization dearly. This is especially true in healthcare where job knowledge and experience is valued so highly (or it should be).

What can healthcare employers, or any employer for that matter do to ramp up morale:

Get innovative about employee incentives. Think in terms of low-cost but meaningful rewards. Don’t stop your recognition program just because the budget doesn’t permit you to reward like you once did, instead revamp.

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Recently I was asked in a media interview whether losing employees was something businesses really needed to focus on that much, today. The reporter (from CBS) was curious whether or not employees, given the current 10 percent-plus unemployment, would really be looking around that much for another job?

I told him, “There’s always the threat of losing your top performers, they’re more marketable, and savvy competitors may be waiting for the right opportunity to lure them away.”

I also shared with him that businesses simply cannot afford to lose better employees, the cost is exorbitant and the damage left behind can be devastating to the bottom-line with a ripple effect sent throughout the team.

Here are four of the points he and I discussed in that interview (see what you think about them and comment back if you like):

Lost expertise. When good employees leave you, they take their ideas, knowledge, problem-solving abilities, relationships, and creativity to another employer.

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Adapt your business to the changes for 2010. Mainly I’m referring to:

• Uncertain economies (we ‘hope’ the recession is giving way to better times… but we don’t know yet).
• Cautious consumers + cautious business owners and executives means more hesitancy to spend or invest.
• Customer power. Customers, have more suppliers pursuing their business than ever before and consequently enjoy more leverage.

To me, this establishes the need for revamped customer care strategies in 2010. Here are three pertinent strategies that have immediate merit:

Reassess the steps your customers must customarily take to purchase from your business. Honestly assess whether those steps are designed to make it easier or more efficient for your operation, versus make it more pleasant and time efficient for your customer. There’s a delicate balance between the two—make sure you’ve taken this into account in 2010.

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I’ve selected some quotes on leadership I consider inspiring and thought-filled. If you have a favorite leadership quote please pass it along, I may use it on a future post. I welcome your comments on:

• “When you blend the old with the new, you get new again.” Walt Disney
• “It’s not the length of life but the depth of life.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance a lot less.” Tom Feltenstein
• “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” Albert Einstein
• “There are many angles at which you can fall, only one on which you can stand.” Unknown
• “Give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.” Christian Larson Read more »