Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – why do my employees come to work at all?
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall – why do my employees come to work at all?
Having even one employee coming to work unmotivated and only marginally productive will have an effect on the bottom line.
But before we as Managers, Owners and/or Team Leaders rush into cracking the whip or looking for replacements for these slack people, there are a few questions that need to be asked:
WHY is this person not performing anywhere near their potential?
Is this a recent phenomenon, or have they always been this way?
If they have always been this way, why did we not pick up their laissez-faire attitude at the recruitment phase?
If it is a recent decline in productivity – what happened to cause the problem?
As an ex Personnel Manager and Human Resources manager, I am absolutely passionate about people. I believe that every single employee WANTS to get up in the morning feeling great about coming to work. I also believe every single employee would LOVE to be part of an awesome team. I also know that the best ideas often come from the shop floor (or office floor)…..so if performance anywhere, isn’t what it could be or should be, questions need to be asked.
What prevents employees from being able to be great as individuals and also what prevents our teams from being fabulous?
The first place to look is often the mirror. And for most Managers and Team Leaders this is the last place they would consider looking. However, if in the first instance you are willing to look at your management style, and having been brave enough to do that, if you are then also willing to look at what you have set up in your department or organization, you may find a few clues for you.
Sometimes we over-manage our people. We breathe down their necks every second of the day and then wonder why they make so many mistakes. Don’t you make mistakes if someone is looking over your shoulder?
Or we may be one of those who micro-manage….we don’t give any information, don’t let people know how well (or not) they are doing and then wonder why their performance doesn’t improve. It is very difficult to perform in a vacuum! People are not mind-readers. If you want something you need to let your people know; similarly if you DON’T want something, you also need to let them know. And being this honest is often hard to do.
You see today your role has changed beyond all recognition. Your role now as well as being a MANAGER also needs to be that of coach and mentor. And if you have never had a coach or a mentor you don’t know what that looks like; feels like or how it happens.
So here are a few things you can do to start your role as coach and mentor, and motivate the late, the lazy and the terminally uninspired employees in your team.
Firstly you can ask each employee these four questions:
1.Where would you like to be in 5 years?
2.What skills do you need to get there?
3.How can I help/coach/mentor you (and delegate one of my boring jobs to you) in order for you to achieve that goal?
4.When would you like to start?
In the Industrial Age our organizations were set up in what I call parent/child….manager
in parent – employee acting and reacting in child. It takes a lot of time and too much
energy to keep working in this strange fashion. Even the lowliest employee in every
organization has a brain…tap into that. Every organisation is wrestling with trying to do
more with less, to work smarter not harder and yet we are masters (and mistresses) of our
own demise. Employees are the answers to our ‘next-giant-leap-in-thinking’.
In summary – create an environment where employees are not encouraged to bring
forward ideas for improvement and they won’t. Create an environment where they are
expected to leave their brains at the door and they will.
Ricardo Semlar (author of Maverick) improved employee productivity from $10,200 per
employee per year to $96,000 per employee per year. He did it by telling them what the
goal of the company was, what their part in that was, when they were doing well and
what they were not doing well. He encouraged people to speak up, to put forward ideas
no matter how strange those ideas were, and he encouraged people to
come to work and take ownership of their part of the business…the results speak for
themselves!
And I would like to leave readers with a thought:
‘I’ve come to realise how deeply employees long for a place where fun, energy and productivity drive out stress, boredom and burnout.’
Can you look in the mirror?
Mirror Mirror on the Wall why do my employees come to work at all - To learn more about this author, visit Ann Andrews's Website.
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Never before has it been so vital to deal with less than fabulous performance in our employees. Every organisation has to do more with less, every single day, as competition grows and customers are faced with endless choices.
Having even one employee coming to work unmotivated and only marginally productive will have an effect on the bottom line.
But before we as Managers, Owners and/or Team Leaders rush into cracking the whip or looking for replacements for these slack people, there are a few questions that need to be asked:
WHY is this person not performing anywhere near their potential?
Is this a recent phenomenon, or have they always been this way?
If they have always been this way, why did we not pick up their laissez-faire attitude at the recruitment phase?
If it is a recent decline in productivity – what happened to cause the problem?
As an ex Personnel Manager and Human Resources manager, I am absolutely passionate about people. I believe that every single employee WANTS to get up in the morning feeling great about coming to work. I also believe every single employee would LOVE to be part of an awesome team. I also know that the best ideas often come from the shop floor (or office floor)…..so if performance anywhere, isn’t what it could be or should be, questions need to be asked.
What prevents employees from being able to be great as individuals and also what prevents our teams from being fabulous?
The first place to look is often the mirror. And for most Managers and Team Leaders this is the last place they would consider looking. However, if in the first instance you are willing to look at your management style, and having been brave enough to do that, if you are then also willing to look at what you have set up in your department or organization, you may find a few clues for you.
Sometimes we over-manage our people. We breathe down their necks every second of the day and then wonder why they make so many mistakes. Don’t you make mistakes if someone is looking over your shoulder?
Or we may be one of those who micro-manage….we don’t give any information, don’t let people know how well (or not) they are doing and then wonder why their performance doesn’t improve. It is very difficult to perform in a vacuum! People are not mind-readers. If you want something you need to let your people know; similarly if you DON’T want something, you also need to let them know. And being this honest is often hard to do.
You see today your role has changed beyond all recognition. Your role now as well as being a MANAGER also needs to be that of coach and mentor. And if you have never had a coach or a mentor you don’t know what that looks like; feels like or how it happens.
So here are a few things you can do to start your role as coach and mentor, and motivate the late, the lazy and the terminally uninspired employees in your team.
Firstly you can ask each employee these four questions:
1.Where would you like to be in 5 years?
2.What skills do you need to get there?
3.How can I help/coach/mentor you (and delegate one of my boring jobs to you) in order for you to achieve that goal?
4.When would you like to start?
In the Industrial Age our organizations were set up in what I call parent/child….manager
in parent – employee acting and reacting in child. It takes a lot of time and too much
energy to keep working in this strange fashion. Even the lowliest employee in every
organization has a brain…tap into that. Every organisation is wrestling with trying to do
more with less, to work smarter not harder and yet we are masters (and mistresses) of our
own demise. Employees are the answers to our ‘next-giant-leap-in-thinking’.
In summary – create an environment where employees are not encouraged to bring
forward ideas for improvement and they won’t. Create an environment where they are
expected to leave their brains at the door and they will.
Ricardo Semlar (author of Maverick) improved employee productivity from $10,200 per
employee per year to $96,000 per employee per year. He did it by telling them what the
goal of the company was, what their part in that was, when they were doing well and
what they were not doing well. He encouraged people to speak up, to put forward ideas
no matter how strange those ideas were, and he encouraged people to
come to work and take ownership of their part of the business…the results speak for
themselves!
And I would like to leave readers with a thought:
‘I’ve come to realise how deeply employees long for a place where fun, energy and productivity drive out stress, boredom and burnout.’
Can you look in the mirror?
Mirror Mirror on the Wall why do my employees come to work at all - To learn more about this author, visit Ann Andrews's Website.
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Leanne Hoagland-SmithAre your sales where you want them to be? Will you be one of the few who achieves sales or business success or one of the many who have failed to change? Are you tired of being told you are like everyone else? Then you may find my first book on sales of interest. Be the Red Jacket in the Sea of Gray Suits, The Keys to Unlocking Sales available at Amazon or at http://www.processspecialist.com/red-jacket.htm. This book is a reflection of my no-nonsense approach to improving sales to overall business results. If you are truly committed to making sustainable changes, then I can help you secure a positive return on your investment because I focus on executable solutions not telling you the problems you already know you have. From training to corporate (group) coaching to executive one on one coaching, my approach is to assess, create awareness, build a goal driven action plan and then execute. The bottom line question is "Not do you or your employees know it, but do you or they want to do it?" Please call for a free strategy session at 219.759.5601. - Visit Leanne Hoagland-Smith'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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Cheryl MatthynssensCheryl is a life skills coach, licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor and a 20 year entrepreneur. Cheryl's dedication to achieving a life of balance led to her expanding her teaching from the simple managing of life's daily challenges to adding financial well being as well. A direct marketer with DrinkACT, she is gaining ground in the online community with her concepts of making sure business owners, entreprenuers and employees have well rounded life styles. She opened up a small affiliate site - The Balance Guide- to help others find resources for mental and emotional well being. Visit Cheryl's blog to see more of the diversity beyond business she has began offering online at www.thebalanceguide.blogspot.com - Visit Cheryl Matthynssens's Website |
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Dianne CramptonDianne Crampton is an executive leadership coach, team culture consultant, author and president of TIGERS Success Series, Inc. Dianne has been helping CEO's and Executives connect their employees to their core values and goals for over 20 years using the trademarked TIGERS team culture process, which stands for trust, interdependence, genuineness, empathy, risk and success. To download a free white paper on behaviors that build strong teams and behaviors that will predictably tear them down go here. Dianne's contribution to the 2010 Pfeiffer Consulting Journal (an imprint of John Wiley and Sons Publishers) entitled TIGERS Hearted Teams is available in November 2009. Her new book TIGERS Among Us: 5 Winning Business Team Cultures And Why, Three Creeks Publishing will release in March 2010. To receive publishing discounts, subscribe to the free TigerTracks Newsletter here. - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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