What two things drive employee performance?

 

We often hear that the most baffling part of a manager’s job is the people part. The same leaders who can easily manage their inventory, manage their facilities, manage their books, and manage their profit margins, are often the same ones who find themselves at a loss when it comes to managing the behavior and performance of their employees. “Why can’t they just do what I tell them to do?” is the management cry heard around the business world.

Let’s remove the mystery about employee engagement once and for all. If your employees aren’t performing with excellence in every way, every day, with no exceptions, there are only two reasons why:

1) They can’t.

2) They won’t.

There’s no mystery really, no psychological complexities, and no complicated management theories. There are just two simple root causes. Either your employees lack something essential which prevents them from performing with excellence, or they don’t achieve excellence because they simply don’t want to.

Managers need to think of these two root causes as separate disorders which require accurate diagnosis and appropriate treatment. Just as band-aids won’t fix a broken bone, a how-to training class won’t fix a broken spirit. Successful leadership requires more doctoring and less managing in order to keep the people part of the operation healthy.

Employees Don't Because They Can't

No matter how much you request, demand, cajole or beg your employees for a certain level of performance, sometimes they don’t give it to you because they can’t. If you’ve been a manager for more than a week, you know there are some employees who put no creativity into their work except when it comes to excuse-making. These are the masters of “can’t.”

It is a huge mistake, though, to assume that every “can’t” you hear is nothing more than a justification for laziness. There are some (usually many) legitimate barriers in every operation that make it difficult or impossible for employees to complete their tasks, make their deadlines, and generally meet your expectations.

Identify Barriers to Excellence

You can separate legitimate barriers from unfounded whining by asking your employees one simple question: “What makes it difficult or impossible for you to do your job with excellence every day, in every way, with no exceptions?” The legitimate barriers that your employees identify will fall into four categories:

·         Physical Barriers

·         Time Barriers

·         Wherewithal Barriers

·         Know-how Barriers

Identifying these barriers is an extremely easy task. Your employees think about them, get frustrated with them, and talk about them behind your back quite frequently! If given the opportunity to communicate without fear of recrimination, your employees will help you compile an extensive barriers list with ease.

Eliminate Barriers to Excellence

Eliminating “can’t” excuses from your operation is then simply a matter of eliminating the legitimate barriers. This is usually a much easier undertaking than most managers would expect. Why? Because your employees have already formulated solutions in their heads which usually sound something like, “If I was running this place I would…” Ask your employees for their ideas, and empower them to implement the solutions. Give them a second chance if the solution fails, and praise them in public when they succeed.

Some Employees Just Don't Want To

The best thing about supporting excellence by eliminating barriers is that it leaves nothing for the slackers to hide behind. When you remove the "can's," all that's left in your operation are employees who excel and employees who obviously need to be replaced.

Replacing employees is not a pleasant task, but don't procrastinate. High-performing employees have no tolerance for just-get-by co-workers and neither should you. Cutting underperformers loose is a necessary part of managing excellence. It raises the bar of performance for everyone, and it's a surprisingly tangible way to reward those who have been picking up the slack for the slackers.

Supporting Success is Managing Excellence

The people part of a operation is not as puzzling as it sometimes seems. When you set your employees up for success by listening to their challenges and eliminating their barriers, the work you receive from them in return will take away most of the mystey of human resources management.

All the success!

PM in the AM

Beware these leadership pitfalls

Beware these leadership pitfalls


Smart leaders know that leadership is about influence, not power.

Resist the urge to exploit your authority by recognizing—and steering clear of—these common management mistakes:

• Status. Too many leaders become obsessed with maintaining their position and protecting their careers. To avoid this, you need to put the good of your employees and your company ahead of your own ego. Challenge yourself to help your team double last month’s sales, for example, or to bring a new product to market more quickly than before.

• Popularity. Everyone wants to be liked, but in the long run, neither your employees nor your supervisors will like you if you don't achieve results. Aim for earning workers’ long-term respect by making tough but necessary choices. For example: Terminating an employee who isn’t productive may alienate some people, but in time your employees will recognize the benefits of working with top performers.

• Harmony. A workplace without disagreements is quiet, but it can quickly become sterile. In order to grow, an organization needs exchanges of ideas even if they lead to conflicts and controversies. Urge employees to share their opinions with one another. Brainstorming meetings are a good way to start doing this.

Keep your crediblity and influence intact by avoiding these leadership pitfalls.

10 Things Every Leader Should Know

10 Things Every Leader Should Know


In working with companies over the years to develop programs for new supervisors/managers - there are some skills, knowledge and competencies that rise to the top of "must have's" for someone in a management role. These are in no particular order, but all are of equal importance to be successful in a leadership role.

1. Planning: The ability to effectively plan projects is important for any manager. This requires sharing the vision with others, getting them on board, creating plans to implement the vision, and ensuring timelines are met and budgets are managed.

2. Feedback: Learn how to give constructive feedback; provide those who report to you with feedback on a regular basis about how they are doing.

3. Influence: Effective managers can persuade others to accomplish the organizational goals; just telling someone what to do doesn't work - even if they report to you. The most successful managers are able to influence others to move in the direction they need them to go.

4. Interpersonal understanding: Managers must understand those around them; not just their staff, but their managers and the other department heads/employees. The ability to understand how others think and what's important to them helps to ensure success in accomplishing your goals.

5. Motivate: Learn how to motivate those around you - what's important to your staff? Not everyone is motivated by the same things and a good manager understands their staff and what motivates them to come to work each day and do a good job.

6. Finance 101: Understand the basics of finance; know how to read a balance sheet, understand how to create a budget.

7. Team leadership: Team leadership requires ensuring the team - whether your own staff or others - understand the mission, goals and objectives before them. A strong team leader builds effective teams that can accomplish the goals of the organisation and enables the team to move toward a common goal.

8. Problem solving: Effective managers know how to understand a situation completely - they plan, they don't react. Understanding the root cause of a situation is necessary in order to effective problem solve the issue.

9. Communication - written and verbal: Strong communication skills is required of everyone, and especially of managers. The ability to effective and efficiently communicate changes, plans, next steps, the direction of the organization, etc. is required to ensure that staff understands where they need to head and how to get there. Effective communication builds trust.

10. Organizational awareness: It's important to understand how things happen within the organization and how things get done. What are the informal paths involved in meeting goals. What is the culture of the organization? How do departments work with each other? This "insider knowledge" about the organization is key to the effectiveness of the manager and ensures the ability to get things accomplished.

How Can I Grow as a Leader?

How Can I Grow as a Leader?

Personal growth and by extension, leadership growth, does not happen automatically because people are living or necessarily because they have experiences. Leadership development must be planned, deliberate and consistent. In other words, if we want to realize our true leadership potential we have to work at it daily.

There are three primary ways to develop  leadership capability.

The first is to study leadership and apply the lessons learned. In addition to Smart Development leadership classes there are plenty of of great books, magazines, CD’s and e-learning opportunities, (such as e-newsletters and pod/idea casts) for people to supplement their formal leadership education.

The second way is to learn from your experiences at work. For example ask to be assigned to a challenging project that will provide you an opportunity to exercise your leadership. Remember that leadership is about influencing positive change. Also, stay alert. Observe situations from different perspectives. Watch how different people handle leadership challenges. Have a teachable spirit and ask for feedback and be open to criticisms about your performance. And above all don’t be afraid to fail. You’ll learn more from failing once or twice than from succeeding all the time.

The final way to develop your leadership ability is to find a true mentor. The mentor should have experiences that you want to gain, a genuine willingness to help you along, and a positive relationship with you.

Why Should I Grow as a Leader?

Leadership expert John Maxwell identified a principle of leadership which he called the “Law of the Lid.”

The “Law of the Lid” helps people understand the value of leadership. If people can get a handle on this principle, they will see the incredible impact of leadership on every aspect of life. The “Law of the Lid” states that leadership ability is the lid that determines a person’s level of effectiveness. The lower an individual’s ability to lead, the lower the lid on his potential. The higher the leadership, the greater the effectiveness. For example, if your leadership rates an 8, then your effectiveness can never be greater than a 7. If your leadership is only a 4, then your effectiveness will no higher than 3.

Your leadership ability—for better or for worse—always determines your effectiveness and potential impact with others. Yes, someone can have success as a "supervisor," but it's only a fraction of the success they could have as leaders.

Leadership has many facets: respect, experience, emotional strength, people skills, discipline, vision, momentum, timing—the list goes on. As you can see, many factors that come into play in leadership are intangible. That’s why leaders, at any level, require so much seasoning to be effective.

The good news is that your leadership ability isn’t static. No matter where you are starting from, whether you are brand new to management or have had years of experience, you can get better.

The essential element of leadership is influence. If you are in a position to influence someone to move toward a worthwhile goal, you are engaged in an act of leadership.

In order to achieve tangible results with their followers leaders need to influence the intangibles like morale, motivation, momentum, emotions, attitudes, atmosphere, and timing. How do you measure timing before you do something? How do you put your finger on momentum? To gauge such things, you have to read between the lines. Leaders have to become comfortable—more than that, confident—dealing with such things.

Your leadership journey should be open-ended. Most people have no idea how far they can go in life. They aim too low.

The Leader's Digest Blog

Welcome to the Leader’s Digest Blog!


Our blog will help readers improve their leadership skills. It is intended to serve up a dose of insights, resources and tips to help readers leverage their influence with the people they lead. We will also bring you great information from other noteworthy publications and from a host of management and professional development experts. The blog will include quotes, anecdotes, and proven tools that will help you and your team develop your people.

Remember, “If you grow people, the people will grow the business.”