How to get and keep great staff (1)
How to get and keep great staff (1)
The most important factors that determine how happy an employee is in her job and how effective and productive she is in it are:
Does she feel she has the opportunity to do what she does best, every day?
Does she feel she is given plenty of opportunity to get even better in her areas of strength?
Does she know what is expected of her at work, every day?
Does her immediate supervisor have regular, structured, meaningful interaction with her that incorporates constructive feedback and acknowledgement?
Other research into management styles and developments in the field of “positive psychology” indicate that people develop certain distinct, innate talents, early in life. These talents become strengths as they grow older and more experienced. Other areas don’t develop as talents and because of that they don’t ever become strengths. No matter how much training and practicing you do in those areas, the best you can ever hope for is that you learn some skills, and learn to “get by”.
Small business owners
Taken together, these are powerful insights for us small business owners. All of us are good at some things, and not so good at others, and worse, we actually hate doing those things. So we employ staff to do those things for us. But how do we find staff that have talent and strength in our own “non-talent” areas, and how do we get them to really excel and stick around for the long haul.
To have a workplace where staff love to work and perform at excellence all the time you need to start at the beginning:
What comes naturally to you, what are your strengths, your talents? Be as specific as you can be. Write it down.
What do you always struggle with? Specific and detailed. Write it down.
Now put all the jobs that are part of your role in two columns, called talent (strengths) and non-talent (non-strengths).
Detail the talents and strengths you need for the jobs in your non-talent column. Again, get as specific as possible, don’t be tempted with HR jargon; “People skills” for example is not a useful descriptor.
Now find someone strong in those talents specifically. (someone who already works for you or when hiring a new employee) Look for indicators of their strengths, not their experience. Passion for something is a good indicator for example, as is willingness to learn. If someone has a talent for something they will learn very quickly. Hire for talent.
Give them the role, and make sure they can use their strengths as much as possible.
Spend time with them to help them develop those strengths further and further.
Don’t waste time training them up in areas of their “non-talents” it will make them feel unmotivated and you frustrated. (obviously there is some room for flexibility in this rule)
Delegating
In a following article I will talk further about how to make sure that you can get on with your own work confident that your staff are doing theirs, and how to give regular meaningful feedback to your employees.
These are some of the secrets that ensure that an employee will answer with a strong Yes to the 4 questions above. When she does, she will love coming to work and getting stuck into it……and so will you!
This article is based on my own experiences and insights as well as on the following books amongst others:
- “First break all the rules” and “Now discover your strengths” The Gallup Organisation and Marcus Buckingham
- “The one minute Manager” series by Ken Blanchard
- “Learned Optimism” Prof Martin Seligman
How to get and keep great staff 1 - To learn more about this author, visit Roland Hanekroot's Website.
Like this article? Share it with your friends
Research all over the world carried out across many different industry sectors, ages, genders, races and cultures consistently indicates that people are primarily not motivated by how much they get paid.
The most important factors that determine how happy an employee is in her job and how effective and productive she is in it are:
Does she feel she has the opportunity to do what she does best, every day?
Does she feel she is given plenty of opportunity to get even better in her areas of strength?
Does she know what is expected of her at work, every day?
Does her immediate supervisor have regular, structured, meaningful interaction with her that incorporates constructive feedback and acknowledgement?
Other research into management styles and developments in the field of “positive psychology” indicate that people develop certain distinct, innate talents, early in life. These talents become strengths as they grow older and more experienced. Other areas don’t develop as talents and because of that they don’t ever become strengths. No matter how much training and practicing you do in those areas, the best you can ever hope for is that you learn some skills, and learn to “get by”.
Small business owners
Taken together, these are powerful insights for us small business owners. All of us are good at some things, and not so good at others, and worse, we actually hate doing those things. So we employ staff to do those things for us. But how do we find staff that have talent and strength in our own “non-talent” areas, and how do we get them to really excel and stick around for the long haul.
To have a workplace where staff love to work and perform at excellence all the time you need to start at the beginning:
What comes naturally to you, what are your strengths, your talents? Be as specific as you can be. Write it down.
What do you always struggle with? Specific and detailed. Write it down.
Now put all the jobs that are part of your role in two columns, called talent (strengths) and non-talent (non-strengths).
Detail the talents and strengths you need for the jobs in your non-talent column. Again, get as specific as possible, don’t be tempted with HR jargon; “People skills” for example is not a useful descriptor.
Now find someone strong in those talents specifically. (someone who already works for you or when hiring a new employee) Look for indicators of their strengths, not their experience. Passion for something is a good indicator for example, as is willingness to learn. If someone has a talent for something they will learn very quickly. Hire for talent.
Give them the role, and make sure they can use their strengths as much as possible.
Spend time with them to help them develop those strengths further and further.
Don’t waste time training them up in areas of their “non-talents” it will make them feel unmotivated and you frustrated. (obviously there is some room for flexibility in this rule)
Delegating
In a following article I will talk further about how to make sure that you can get on with your own work confident that your staff are doing theirs, and how to give regular meaningful feedback to your employees.
These are some of the secrets that ensure that an employee will answer with a strong Yes to the 4 questions above. When she does, she will love coming to work and getting stuck into it……and so will you!
This article is based on my own experiences and insights as well as on the following books amongst others:
- “First break all the rules” and “Now discover your strengths” The Gallup Organisation and Marcus Buckingham
- “The one minute Manager” series by Ken Blanchard
- “Learned Optimism” Prof Martin Seligman
How to get and keep great staff 1 - To learn more about this author, visit Roland Hanekroot's Website.
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Linda RichardsonLinda Richardson is the Founder and Executive Chairwoman of Richardson, a global sales training and performance improvement company. As a recognized leader in the industry, she has won the coveted Stevie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Sales Excellence and she was identified by Training Industry, Inc. as one of the “Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals.” Ms. Richardson is credited with the movement to Consultative Selling and is the author of ten books on selling and sales management, including Sales Coaching — Making the Great Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, and Stop Telling, Start Selling. She teaches sales and management at the Wharton Graduate School of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton Executive Development Center. Linda is a frequent speaker at industry and client conferences, has been published extensively in industry and training journals, and has been featured in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Nation’s Business, Selling Power, Success, and The Conference Board Magazine. Learn more about Richardson's sales training and performance improvement solutions at http://www.richardson.com web - Visit Linda Richardson's Website |
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