Mar/090
Get More Done, Have More Fun – Part 2
Have you ever noticed the difference between an Olympic sprinter and a marathon runner?
The sprinters are pound for pound, some of the most in-shape athletes around. They are lean, muscular, and quick. They have muscles that I didn’t even know existed.
Marathon runners on the other hand look skinny and malnourished, like walking toothpicks.
Why is that?
Well, sprinters train hard and they run hard. They exert an enormous amount of energy and then they rest. Marathon runners continuously run at an even keel pace. If your life were an athlete, would it look like a sprinter or a marathon runner?
Is your life malnourished and moping along at a boring and steady pace? Or are you fully engaged like a sprinter, muscular and fit?
Now you and I both know that life is a marathon, but did you know that you could be much happier, feel better, and have more energy if you lived your life in mini-sprints?
Our bodies aren’t designed to live the way most of us currently live right now. We aren’t supposed to run at 50% one hundred percent of the time.
When we work, work at 100%. When we relax, relax at 100%.
This is where we get things confused. Do you find yourself thinking about work at night when you should be sleeping? Do you find yourself sluggish and nodding off at work?
Well this happens to us when we aren’t fully focused in what it is that we are doing. Many times we have way too much on our plates and we don’t have a predetermined plan for getting any of it done. We just do it as it comes to us.
Well imagine if we nailed down the 3 major things that we have to do each day, before the day even started. In reality, 3 things is more than we’re getting done now, but we like to lie to ourselves and say “we’re soooo busy”. It’s actually a good thing in our society to say we’re slammed.
Your district manager walks up to you and asks, “how are things going?” Your response of course is, “busy man, runnin’ around like a chicken with its head cut off.”
“Keep up the good work!”, they reply.
Imagine the next time they ask you that same question. Only this time you reply, “Well, I’ve never felt more relaxed in my life. The store is running smoothly and I’m getting so much done that I actually have free time at the end of the day to add to our customer experience.”
Then what happens? Your boss thinks you’re lazy!
There is something terribly wrong with this picture. We are all becoming masters of appearing busy, but are getting nothing done.
So hopefully this has sparked some ideas to help you with your life. Remember to focus your time. Instead of doing fifty things at once, try to focus on one thing fully, and get it done with the best of your ability.
Multi-tasking is evil and is just another word for doing everything and nothing at the same time.
Remember to relax as much as you work, so that when you are working, you can give it all you’ve got. Work hard and focused for an hour and a half, and then take a nice walk or something to wind down. Do this for thirty minutes and get fully focused for another hour and a half.
Stir and repeat, cool then eat?
Mar/090
Recognition can get you more for less
You don’t have to watch the news to know unemployment is on the rise to an all-time high. A down economy means that your store, at some point soon, will be forced to do more with less.
But how is this going to work when we are already overworking ourselves?
This answer is fairly simple…engage the best members of your staff at a level they have never seen before, allowing your store to produce double the effort with less people.
In tough times stores tend to put engaging and rewarding on the back burner. They never consider the damages they are inflicting by playing it safe. Engaged employees dramatically improve any company’s performance. On the flip side, disengaged employees do much more damage than just the work they don’t do.
Disengaged employees can actually be like a poison running through your store. They require more of your energy to keep them motivated to work and they drain your good staff members by complaining and spreading pessimism.
As managers, we have a tendency to encourage and reward people that we feel need the extra push. Why aren’t we rewarding and encouraging the people we don’t have to encourage all of the time? What about those great employees that can motivate themselves and that consistently outperform their colleagues?
Let’s admit to ourselves that we have the following categories of employees:
Stars – people that perform day after day, at full potential, and that don’t need a daily pep talk.
Roller coasters – people that you never know how they’re going to perform day-to-day. Some days they’re genius, other days they’re “Dilbert”. You have to motivate them every other day because you know they “have it in them”.
Polly paycheck – people that are clearly only there for a paycheck. They do the bare minimum and throw a fit if asked to go the extra mile for anything.
Oxygen stealers – people that could care less about anything. Yeah, they want a paycheck, but they wouldn’t be heartbroken if they didn’t have a job with you. They just want to go home and play video games.
Okay, so this may seem a little silly, but is it?
Imagine having a store full of stars. Imagine a world where you have piece of mind and you don’t have to use your energy motivating the same people over and over again. You can focus only on making your store, and the customer’s experience, better and better.
At this point you may be saying to yourself, “yeah that sounds great and all, but I can’t afford to have only stars”.
My reply to that goes something like this.
Every manager has turnover already built into their business plan. Start now and get rid of the oxygen stealers and the Polly paychecks. They do more harm than good.
As far as stars go, there are stars everywhere, you just have to be on the lookout. Good people are looking for more than just money. The number one thing people look for in their jobs is a sense of contribution.
People just want to work for a person that will listen to them and that will let them contribute their ideas. Also, they want to be rewarded for their contributions with a token of your appreciation.
The more stars that you bring into your store, the more “non-stars” will be headed out. It just requires a recruiting effort on your part.
Focus on the stars you already have and engage them to get involved. Ask them how they operate if they were in your shoes. Ask them what they would do to make the customer experience better.
The final step of this whole process is to use your recognition program to its fullest potential. This will require you to fully endorse and support the effort, making it an integral part of the store’s culture and tying it directly to the store’s goals and values.
When the program is truly embedded into the day-to-day workings of a company, recognition can literally turn a company inside out, for the better.
Establish clear objectives and ways to measure performance, and then reward that performance as it contributes to the company goals and mission. With a greater insight into how employees regard recognition and the company values, a manager can then manipulate the social structure of their store to better achieve goals and cultivate an atmosphere of stars.
Til next time,
Josh Long
Feb/090
Top 5 Indicators Someone Is About to Quit
Employees with a potentially high risk for turnover send out the signs before they leave, but managers and executives must know where to look:
1. The Unclear Manager.
If employees report that their manager’s tasks, procedures and operations are unclear; or that their manager doesn’t supply the appropriate equipment, materials, or resources; or that opportunities for growth and development are few and far between, watch out: You’ve got a jumper.
2. Complaints That They Can’t Shine.
Another sign your employee is about to jump is when they report that they don’t have the opportunity to do what they do best.
Contrary to what most managers or bosses may tell you about today’s workers, employees really want to feel like they are contributing. Each individual feels they are uniquely genius and that they need surroundings that will challenge them and will give them the room to do something great.
3. Coworkers Not Committed to Quality.
Watch for employees who perceive that their coworkers are not committed to a high standard of work.
If your employees observe everyone around them doing “just enough to get by”, they will feel that their standards are obviously too high to be working in your establishment. Everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing and not doing on a job, and if you allow that behavior it can become a virus.
Your good employees will not feel fulfilled with a company that settles and is content with poor craftsmanship, and they will move on to a world-class company.
4. Disengaged Employees Asking for More Pay and Benefits.
Engaged employees are far more likely to feel that they are being paid what they are worth (43%), compared to employees who are disengaged (15%) or disengaged on purpose (myspace, book-readers, etc) (13%).
Pay and benefits become a big issue if employees feel that their coworkers aren’t committed to quality.
In some sick and twisted way, employees that are bored have the time to look for problems. If they are unhappy and bored, they feel that they should be paid for their misery.
If they don’t have the opportunities they need to feel fulfilled, then they think it is your fault for causing them half of the life they could lead.
5. Lack of Connection to the Company or to Management.
Another indicator that turnover is just around the corner appears when employees become disconnected to the company’s mission or purpose or even its leadership.
If an employee doesn’t care about the big picture of the company, or feel that the company isn’t portraying that vision of that big picture, they will go to another company that has a purpose, a mission, and that is on the up-and-up.
We all want to feel like we are apart of something that is always getting better. We don’t want to feel complacent and that we aren’t contributing.
Conclusion
In conclusion, as a manger: Be clear about your expectations, give your employees the room they need to shine, reinforce your commitment to quality, keep your employees engaged, and always have a unanimous cohesion and comprehension on your company’s mission.
Set clear goals for your team members, track their progress, and use the Recognition Program to award their triumphs.
Encourage, Encourage, Encourage.
They want you to lead them, and the best way to lead is to make them feel they are accomplishing great things on their own.
Say “thank you” for their initiative and innovation, and they will love you for it.
Do these things and you will be successful, you will have a healthy working environment, and your own quality of life will improve.
Here’s to your Success!
Til next time,
Dec/080
6 Keys to Highly Profitable Employees
Are Your Employees Stealing from You?
Probably not… at least in an obvious or intentional way.
But, statistically speaking, they most likely are by “under-performing” at many aspects of their jobs, and that costs you big-time!
Research shows that if they aren’t really loyal to you, they may be costing you as much as twice what you’re paying them.
To guide you in your challenge to motivate your team, we have turned to “20 years of management experience” to get the answers for you.
Here’s the success factors we know to be effective (and have verified) to stand the test of time…
1. YOU must create an “Atmosphere of Respect and Trust”.
One of the most important factors, in whether or not a team member is producing, is how “engaged” they are in their work.
A study done by George Mason University said that an employee’s greatest concern is whether or not they are “contributing”.
In other words, their greatest internal need is to feel that they are contributing something toward some “greater cause”, and that they get recognized for it.
By creating an atmosphere where you value their opinion, they will blow you away with some of the great ideas they can come up with. It’s like pulling the cork from the bottle.
The ideas will flow from any individual who knows you actually value their opinion. But… they won’t know unless YOU ask. That’s the key.
Every employee on your team will be much happier working for someone that listens to them. Take the time to… listen. There are no exceptions to this rule.
2. Measure and Track Employee Performance
“What you Expect, you must FIRST Inspect”. Read that again, because this one simple task will greatly determine how successful you will be as a manager.
Simply measuring employee performance has been proven to increase output by no less than 10%.
So, if every one of your staff were operating at 10% more output (or greater), what would that mean for store revenues, and your future pay raises?
Here’s an Example: If you have 100 employees and you increase each employee’s performance by only 10%, you will in effect have added 10 employees without adding one more dollar in payroll. The managers that accomplish this are your company’s future leaders. Imagine your profitability when this happens. Would that effect your salary, or annual performance bonuses? You bet!
The key here is to define what the important measures are, and then setup a system to track them. Measure your current numbers and add 10% for a baseline of what you expect.
What if you want to decrease the time it takes to get a task done by 10%? Watch someone do it, and then show them how to reduce the time to accomplish that task.
Our company has spent many thousands of dollars learning Kaizen (Japanese term for “continuous improvement”). Over the years, by investing in learning how to be more efficient in everything we do, we have been able to constantly improve our processes.
If you’re interested in improving your chances for success, I recommend the book “Becoming Lean” by James P. Womack as your start. Get the book, read it, implement it, and you’ll be one of most successful managers in your company… Guaranteed!
3. Know the “Strengths” of Each Employee
Knowing what your team member’s individual strengths are can enable you to position employees where they will give you the best return.
Also, people are ten times happier doing things they are good at.
All our lives we’ve been told to work on our “weaknesses”. But imagine how productive we would be if we only had to work with our “strengths”.
Note: If an employee excels at a particular task, let them teach that task to others. “Play to people’s strengths”. Let them shine.
4. Create “Systems” for Consistency
Many times, when someone does a poor job, we like to come down on them hard.
Sometimes we blame them for something that they just didn’t clearly understand. That’s our fault.
Michael Gerber, the great business coach, said that “if you ever have a poor performer in your store, look first at the system and not the person”.
If your systems are solid enough, there will be little area for employee error. Case in point: McDonald’s hamburgers are the same in New York as they are in Los Angeles. That’s a “system”…
“Systems Create Consistency”. Endeavor to make every aspect of your store into a system. Then, if one employee leaves, another already knows how to do their job. That also protects your company from “coming to a screeching halt” when someone is gone.
5. Know How to Hire, Know When to Fire
It’s been said, “Hire slow, Fire fast”.
One of the largest expenses in an organization is training new hires. It’s the same for every company.
Add to that the money that you lose by keeping a poor performer and you’ve got some serious profit losses coming your way.
When looking at your hiring process, always keep in mind that a miss-hire is typically 10 times more expensive than their pay and training costs.
The time costs and money paid out to everyone else involved adds up to much more than we typically account for. Know what those costs are.
6. Employee Recognition
This is the reason we are in business, so you would expect us to be biased towards this. Yes, we actually believe in it so much that we do far more than the average company. We currently have 36 employees, and we recognize three employees every month. That’s one employee “singled out” and recognized (once per month) for every twelve employees we have. So, how’s that working for us? We just finished 2008 with a 42% sales gain over 2007. Recognition works!
We all like to be recognized when we do a good job or “go the extra mile” for our employers. It’s a basic human need that we are born with.
That never changes.
Remember the last time your boss overlooked what you did? How did that make you feel? Remember THAT anytime you are considering whether or not to reward someone for a job well-done.
A few minutes of your time can mean the world to your team members, and to your bottom line.
Also, remember to always reward them based on the numbers that you get by tracking and measuring their performance.
This will allow you to avoid the “popularity contest” mentality of recognition, and your team will respect you more for being objective in your praise. Popularity isn’t a factor in whether or not an employee does better than another. Remember, “Reward what you want more of”. This is the key to effective employee recognition.
NOTE: We are doing everything we have suggested for you to do in this short article. It works if you will only implement it.
Thank You
I just want to say “thank you” for another great year of being our client. Our relationship with you literally means the world to us. Without you we would be nothing, and if there is anything we can ever do to make your life better please let us know. You and I are just real people trying to always do the best we can, and together… maybe we can make the world a better place.
I hope you enjoyed this article and I want to wish you a happy new year. Finish out 2008 with style and friendship, and I’ll see you on the other side.
To Your Success,
Josh Long
Sep/080
Managerial Feedback, Associate Performance, and 11 Positive Feedback Rules
Introduction
It has been well documented that associate (employee) performance is directly and positively related to supervisory and managerial performance. In fact, managers and supervisors often have more impact on associate job performance than they realize. This suggests that if the work group is not performing up to par (i.e., has the ability to significantly improve performance), the responsibility likely belongs to the management team. Therefore, an important key to improving associate job performance involves improvement in managerial-supervisory human resource management skills and practices.More specifically, an important managerial performance area that greatly impacts associate job performance levels involves managerial feedback. Given this situation it is important that all managers and supervisors recognize the followin:
- The three basic and alternative types of feedback that managers can provide to their associates.
- Precisely what each type of feedback communicates.
- The associate performance responses that are most likely to result from each type of feedback.
Feedback Alternatives and Associate Performance
The managerial feedback alternatives are negative, none, and positive. An examination of each alternative indicates what each communicates and what worker performance changes are most likely to occur when managers use each type of feedback.
Negative Feedback
Negative feedback obviously communicates manager dissatisfaction with associate performance. The performance change that is most likely to occur may not be as obvious. What managers and supervisors tell the authors is that (assuming the worker wants to retain his job) performance will likely improve. However, this improvement will likely be only to the minimum satisfactory level and furthermore, it will quite likely be temporary. That is, after a short time the worker often reverts to the previous unsatisfactory performance level that encouraged the negative feedback. This results in the manager having to again step in with more negative feedback. It is also suggested that the reprimanded associate may look for opportunities to “get even” with the management and the organization.
No Feedback
Providing no feedback may possibly be the worst course of feedback action for managers. Yet, most workers indicate that their managers have a tendency to ignore their good performance. It may be related to the managerial attitude that “I should not have to praise them for what I hire and pay them to do.” Without feedback, associates make assumptions about their job performance, and these assumptions may not be consistent with the managerial performance perceptions. Some potential worker interpretations of no feedback may include my performance is okay; my performance must not be important, or the manager would say something; and the manager does not care about my performance. No feedback, therefore, does communicate something to associates. The problem is that a manager cannot be certain how his associates perceive the lack of communication. Furthermore, it seems likely that performance will remain the same, or decrease, if there is no feedback from the manager.
Positive Feedback
Positive feedback obviously communicates managerial satisfaction. Under this circumstance the worst result will generally be no change in performance. It is anticipated that positive recognition for good performance will result in performance improvement to a higher productivity level. This often occurs because research (Spitzer, 1995) indicates the following:
- In a nationwide survey of 2000 workers by the Gallop Organization, 69% indicated that receiving praise and recognition from their bosses was more motivating than money.
- Four out of five workers said recognition or praise motivates them to do a better job.
- Many managers have a tendency to ignore the good and satisfactory performance of their workers.
- Most (75-80%) workers say they can be significantly more productive.
Positive Feedback Rules
It has been suggested that given the three managerial feedback alternatives, positive feedback is the only one that will consistently result in the type of performance that managers and organizations want. It is the only type of feedback that will generate and maintain performance above the minimum acceptable level. Furthermore, based upon worker feedback it is generally recognized that most managers and supervisors do not provide enough positive feedback. There is a managerial tendency to ignore significant amounts of good worker performance. Managers, who are committed to both increasing their levels of positive feedback and not ignoring good performance, have a need to understand the basic positive feedback rules. Eleven of these rules can be identified:
- Earned: Positive feedback must be earned by the associate. Providing positive feedback for unsatisfactory performance will destroy managerial credibility.
- Immediate: Positive feedback should be provided immediately after or during the good performance. The longer the time period between the performance and the recognition, the less effective the feedback will be.
- Personal: Be personal when providing positive feedback. That is, use the personal pronoun “I” rather than the more impersonal expressions of “we,” “the company,” etc., which will help positive feedback be perceived as sincere (Rule 11).
- Improvement: Managers should not wait for perfection to provide positive feedback. In fact, any time a manager sees improvement, the improvement should be recognized. Otherwise, without feedback the improvement may disappear. Please note it is the improvement that is being recognized, not the overall performance level, which may not yet be up to standard.
- Individualized: Individual one-on-one positive feedback is more powerful than group or team feedback. This does not mean that managers should not recognize the group for team accomplishments. It only suggests that individual positive feedback should be included in the feedback process.
- Often: Some research (Latting, 1992) has suggested that to create an optimal work environment, managers should be providing a positive to negative feedback ratio of 4 to 1 (4:1). What is your feedback ratio? Most managers fall considerably below this ratio and furthermore, much of the positive feedback they do provide is not heard by their associates (Rule 8). The secret to achieving this 4-to-1 positive-to-negative feedback ratio is provided by Rule 7.
- Task Specific: Make positive feedback very task specific. That is, avoid the “good-job” syndrome because it is too general, lacks specificity, and can more easily be interpreted as lacking in sincerity. By recognizing specific tasks that are being performed satisfactorily, managers have the opportunity to achieve the 4-to-1 positive-to-negative feedback ratio. Furthermore, when the term “good job” is used in the recognition process, associates are more likely to assume that all of their job activities are being performed with excellence.
- Pure: When providing positive feedback, keep it pure. Do not mix positive with negative feedback via the “but” or “however” words. For example, “You did a good job today, but. . . .” Associates only hear what comes after the “but”. They do not remember the first part of the feedback statement. By mixing the positive with some negative, managers do not receive credit for the positive portion, as it tends to fall on deaf ears.
- Vary Timing: Do not allocate a specific time or day (e.g., Friday afternoon) to provide positive feedback. To do so is a violation of Rule 2 and is likely to be associated with the lack of managerial sincerity (Rule 11).
- Vary Style: Most positive feedback is provided verbally. Look for alternative ways to deliver the “good” news. Examples include letters, memos, telephone, fax, email, etc.
- Sincere: Associates have a knack for recognizing when their manager is just going through the motions, when he is not being sincere. Therefore, for managers to be able to harvest the rewards of providing positive feedback, it is important that they are genuine, and truly believe in the process.
Conclusion
This article has examined the relationship between managerial feedback and associate performance. It has identified the three alternative types of feedback, what each type communicates, and the most likely worker performance levels associated with each type. The conclusion is that positive feedback is the only one that will consistently generate the type of worker performance that managers and organizations want. The eleven rules of providing positive feedback were then discussed. Via the application of these rules, managers can create a work environment whereby associates will be motivated to perform at higher levels of productivity.
References
Latting, Jean Kantambu. (1992). Giving corrective feedback: A decisional analysis. Social Work 37 (5, September): 424-427.Spitzer, Dean. (1995). How to motivate employees without using money: Unlimited motivation. Available on the World Wide Web at http://www.employer-employee.com/motivat.htm . Date visited: 2/03/02.
Credits:
1. This is EDIS document HR 026, a publication of the Department of Food and Resource Economics, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL. Published July 2002. Available of the World Wide Web at http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu.
2. Allen Wysocki, Assistant Professor; and Karl Kepner, Distinguished Professor; Department of Food and Resource Economics, Florida Cooperative Extension Service, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL.
... your program boosts morale, not only for the person getting the actual recognition, but also for the rest of the employees because they see that the company values their contribution."
- Louie Muniz
FedEx Home Delivery #3327
...this incentive program is the most efficient and user friendly I have ever used and for the first time in 30 years I have kept our employee of the month recognition up to date, every month without fail for the last year. Keep sending the fax as a reminder this has truly been helpful."
-Steve Wessman
Chevys Fresh Mex
-Scott Stegall
Chili's Grill & Bar
-Virginia Trentacosta
Century 21 Properties Plus
-Norman Spiesky
Corner Bakery Cafe
-Becky Ketelaar Olive Garden
