Animal trainers have a saying “It’s never the animal’s fault” Because animals don’t speak, trainers need to find non-English methods to communicate what they want. If the animal doesn’t perform, they try to find a better way to communicate, they don’t blame the animal. It helps to take this approach with employees: if they don’t do what you want, think of how you can change what you’re communicating, how you’re following up, what incentives you’re using to reward results.

Most people react to that last sentence with something like: “But they’re people not animals and they do speak English and what’s more they’re adults. They SHOULD be able to do what I say.” So true. So true, and yet so remarkably ineffective.

Whenever you find yourself using the word SHOULD with another person in a fit of frustration take it as a sign to change your behavior not theirs. Your behavior is the only one you can control anyway unless the other person is small enough that you can pick them up. You can influence others not control them and only by changing your behavior.

I was talking to a client today who runs a small office: himself and four others. He’s so mad a two of them that he’s thinking of making it an even smaller office: himself and two others. And he’s got a right to be mad. They did some really stupid stuff recently. And so he’s upset with what they SHOULD be doing differently.

Taking my own advice about the SHOULD word, we looked at how he was communicating, and realized that he was not being much of a manger. If employees didn’t get it right the first time he said something, he never followed up. When it wasn’t done right, he either did it himself or let it go undone. Of his four people; one of them usually gets it – she’s been with him for decades. The others do most of their jobs right most of the time, but not always. And the company’s in a tough market right now. He’s been asking them to do different things to move the business forward. And for the most part they don’t. They stick with what they’ve always done and even though it’s slow and they don’t have as much work as they can handle, they don’t do the extra stuff.

Of course they SHOULD; but there’s that word again. So we talked about what he could do differently as a manager – what level of detail he needed to explain his request and how often he needed to follow up, and what incentives or consequences he could put in place.

And we talked about if he even wanted to bother. It would be much simpler to cut back and only have two employees. I still don’t know the answer to that one yet – he’s going to think about it.

If I may change analogies, let me tell you that when I was single and I lived alone, I never cooked. As much as I loved to eat, the cooking part was not something I wanted to spend the time doing or learn how to do well. After I got divorced I cooked, because I wanted the kids and me to have dinner time together. But I still didn’t put a lot of time into learning the nuts and bolts of cooking. I got a few meals down, and could follow a recipe or three and it was good enough. Now I’m married to a wonderful cook. She loves to eat as much as I do – maybe more. But she’s willing to actually be a cook. Not only can she follow a recipe, she can augment or even invent one. And her technique is outstanding. Of course she puts a lot of time into it, and she loves it. So why am I telling you this?

The situation with most entrepreneurs is they want to eat really well but they don’t want to learn the nuts and bolts of cooking. By that I mean they want the benefits of a well managed workforce, but don’t want to learn the techniques of managing, or put the time in to actually do the work of being a manager.

Here’s what it takes to manage: Direction, Support and Monitoring.

Here’s what too many entrepreneurs think is management:
For direction, they provide the vaguest set of directions in the fewest words, almost never written. “Hey, somebody just called from the Framus company about our account – handle if for me will ya?”
For support they never figure out what the employee needs and give it to them. Instead they expect people to get it done with stuff that costs less than it did last time. And what they do provide only shows up if the employee asks for it – hounds may be a better word than asks.
As for monitoring? They don’t check back till after the deadline’s passed and they get real mad if it isn’t done right.

A better manager handles it this way:

1. Direction. First you have to know what results you want. You have to describe them in terms of deliverables or behaviors (not attitudes). Think of what would happen if aliens flew their UFO into your facility at night and did the employee’s job perfectly. What would be different when you came to work in the morning? That’s what you need to describe to the employee. Until you can describe these results in detail, don’t try to manage anyone, spend your time describing results.

2. Support. Your next job as manager is to provide the employee with everything they need to do their job. This includes training, facilities, tools and equipment, time, reasonable expectaions and other people to provide the parts that they can’t do. Motivation and recognition is also part of support. Different people need various amounts at different stages in a given job.

3. Monitor. Employees should know how they will be monitored. If you did a good job giving direction they’ll be able to monitor themselves and come to the same conclusions you do about their performance. But you need to do it more frequently than you think – especially when you’ve given someone a new assignment with changes their routine or they’re doing something they’ve never done before. You need to see how they’re doing in time to make changes and corrections and give more support before the stuff hist the fan. That way you can both be successful.

Takeaways:

• If management sounds like a lot of work – it is. There are whole professions dedicated to it and lots of schools give advanced degrees in it. Some people are naturals at it, but not many. The rest of us can learn.
• Without good management you can’t have very many employees without going broke.
• I know owner/CEOs who are not good managers, but they hire someone to be the manager. Then they give them the authority they need and the salary they deserve to do the job.
• With good management you can build a team that kicks butt.

[Tags] Management, CEO Skills, entrepreneur, small business, manager [/tags]

1. First, there are the things you know. This means you know the question and you know the answer.
2. Then there are things you know you don’t know. This means you know the question but you don’t know the answer.
3. And finally there are things you don’t know that you don’t know. This means you don’t even know what the relevant questions are.

In response to Seth Godin’s question “Tell me again why you’re a generalist?” I would answer that specialists are what is called for when the questions are known but you need the answers. When the questions are not known, who ya gonna call? The generalist.

In any of those situations, it’s possible to be wrong. When you’re wrong, reality has a habit of correcting you. This can be quite costly, but the costs increase with the tennacity with which you hang on to your wrong answers. Costs can become worse when you hang on to the wrong questions. Specialists (especially experienced and renowned ones) are often guilty of hanging on to the wrong questions. That’s another case when a generalist can help.

In business – especially when past performance is no guarantee of future results it’s easy to get the questions wrong. That means when you’re opening (or creating) a new market, launching a new product or playing at a level you’ve never played before. In cases like that – call a generalist.
Takeaways:

• It’s usually better to assume you’re wrong and have reality prove you right than to assume you’re right and have reality prove you wrong.

[tags] business, attitudes, learning, CEO Skills [/tags]

I got the blue plastic tub for free and turned it into a garbage can because it used to hold car wash soap so I didn’t want to use it for a compost bin and we turned the old garbage can into a compost bin. Do you know how much money they want for a compost bin?!?!? But I digress.

So the first time I used the blue tub for garbage it they refused to take it. I asked around and someone said it was over the limit. “What was the limit?” I asked and was told “It has to be able to be lifted easily.” A very logical limit. Also a very stupid one. Can you imagine the arguments and even law suits the city would get into if their limit was so vaguely defined? They’d have arguments from customers, from sanitation workers, from people who didn’t get hired as sanitation workers and even from their workers comp insurance company.

So I looked it up. The rules are: Can no larger than 42 gallons weighing less than 60 pounds, the garbage has to be bagged and the lid of the can cannot be hinged. My can violated 3 of those rule. I didn’t do my job. And the sanitation workers just didn’t take it. No fuming or yelling, no covering for my lack of performance. They just did their job and moved on. I’ve seen them be lenient about the hinged lids and also about the no bagging rule many times in the neighborhood which I appreciate, but I don’t begrudge them their decision to enforce the rules in my case.
Why am I telling you this?
This blog is supposed to be about business – your business – not my garbage problems. The point is that I’m familiar with too many business where the performance standards (rules if you will) are vague, even if they are logical. Things like “able to be lifted easily” which begs the question by whom? And how easily? For the record, I’m a middle aged, overweight guy who doesn’t work out and even I can lift that blue can easily, but I don’t want do to their job.

And so there is a lot of confusion and frustration in the work place about whether someone is doing their job properly. My garbage man and I have no such disagreement. My job is to put the trash out by 6AM on Wednesdays, bagged in a can less than 42 gallons weighing less than 60 pounds and his job is to take it away. The end.

Takeaways:

• If good job performance is not as clear to each employee as it is to you there will be problems
• People should not cover for another’s lack of performance under normal circumstances
• Everyone should be able to self-monitor their job performance against unchanging standards
• Some people won’t want to perform under that level of transparency. Set them free to work elsewhere.

[tags] entrepreneur, small business, CEO, Management [/tags]