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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Related Businesses - Evan Elite Authors |
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Vwodek Wojczynski
Business Coach and Consultant Vwodek Wojczynski (pronounced Voy-chin-ski) brings fun, awareness, accountability and fresh perspectives based on his diverse experiences in life and business.
Born in Poland and educated in Greece and Canada, he is trilingual with 8 years experience in business development with clients in Canada, USA, Switzerland and Poland.
His approach is systematic and process-driven. He fuses the know-how of proven business methods with his commitment that entrepreneurs experience satisfaction and joy based on their values, motivations and strengths. He believes that businesses succeed based on their ability to generate value by providing what’s needed and wanted.
Ultimately, he trains executives and true business owners - people who work less, produce more, own businesses that run automatically after a while and make a difference globally.
His current research focus is the development of intelligent business systems and the application of emerging artificial intelligence technologies in business.
He is also an avid traveler, spoken word performer and visual artist. He resides in Toronto, Canada. - Visit Vwodek Wojczynski's Website |
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Dianne Crampton
Dianne Crampton is an Executive Leadership Coach and Team Building Consultant and creator of the TIGERS team development model. For the past twenty years she has helped leaders and teams achieve goals with high levels of collaboration and teamwork.
Crampton is a published author. Her contribution to Working Together: Diversity As Opportunity was endorsed by Stephen Covey. She has written for trade magazines. Merrill Lynch nominated her business for Inc. Magazine’s regional small business and entrepreneurial awards. Her work with Native Americans was recognized at a United Nations sponsored conference in 1994.
The TIGERS model passed two rigorous validation studies in 1992 and 1994. The TIGERS Survey is able to measure and track team development over time.
Dianne is also the creator and distributor of the TIGERS Team Wheel game. This game helps groups identify behaviors that build collaborative groups and behaviors that cause conflict, morale problems, production failures, and misunderstandings.
For more information, or to subscribe to TigerTracks, a free monthly leadership and team newsletter go to http://www.corevalues.com - Visit Dianne Crampton's Website |
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Ann Andrews
(Visit Ann's Website)
Ann Andrews, Dip Bus (Pmer), CSP, is the
author of four books:
"Shift Your But", "Finding the Square Root
of a Banana", "Did I Really Employ You?"
and "My Dear Franchisee".
She is also a contributor to five other
books:
"You Don’t Make a Giant Leap Without
Taking A Gulp", "Best of the Best", NZ
Entrpreneurs", "The Power of More Than
One", "Mum’s The Word" and newly released
"Golden Nuggets" - a book of tips and
advice for kids leaving home for the first
time.
Ann regularly works with teams and is
passionate about waste. Waste of people in
particular. She estimates that 40 - 60% of
employees fall into a
bored-and-see-no-future-this-place-of-work
category.
Ann is also a professional speaker,
consultant on team and franchise issues.
As the founder of the "Teams From Woe To
Go" franchise Ann realised that teams and
franchises were a lot alike – the problems
were the same, the solutions were pretty
much the same also.
To find out more about Ann’s teamwork go
to www.woetogo.
com .
To find out more about her books go to
www.thecorporatetoolbox.com
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Got a note from a guy in the audience of one of my recent conference talks. 
