Finding a balance between respect and loathing

Let’s face it, being a leader puts you in a precarious position.  Some people are going to like you, some will hate you, and others will pretend to like you but secretly hate you.  There just is no other alternative.

Being in a position where you have to evaluate people and reprimand them, they won’t always agree with what you have to do or say.  Sometimes their reaction can be downright hateful.

But that’s just part of the territory.  Being a leader isn’t all fun and games and telling people what to do.  You’re not going to be everyone’s friend.  And if you are, you won’t last long.

Ultimately tough decisions are going to come.  And you have to be as personally detached when making them as possible.  You certainly can’t mix your personal feelings with business decisions.

I run into situations all of the time where I am forced to reprimand or fire someone who may not even really deserve it, or maybe they ran into a little bad luck.  While I have personal feelings about the situation, I keep that completely separate when making the final decision.

Unfortunately some of those who work under me don’t always follow this philosophy.  I am certain that there are those who feel like I’m a heartless shell of a man, who only cares about the bottom dollar.

But the bright side to all of this is that those who do their jobs, and do them well, respect you more when you make the tough decisions.  After all, not everyone wants to be in a position where they have to face a lot of pressure and confrontation.

But in the end you have to be consistent in order to maintain that respect.  And the fact of the matter is that everyone handles being reprimanded different from others.  Some take it in stride and make a vow to improve, others threaten you or slam the door and throw some expletives your way.

Bottom line is, not matter how they react, just keep plugging along.  In the end your workforce will be better for it.

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Teaching your employees financial responsibility

The economy is in pretty rough shape, and people everywhere are losing their jobs and their homes.  Most personal finance experts are holding out hope that Americans will learn from their current mistakes and emerge from this recession with new and improved spending and saving habits.

And those that played it smart and went against the grain of spending more than you earn and buying more house than they could afford haven’t really felt the effects.  It’s a fact of life that what goes up must come down, and what goes down will eventually come back up.

The key to surviving the financial roller coaster is to prepare for the worst even when things are going great and you can’t possible see anything going wrong.  Those who were prepared barely felt a ripple the last couple of years.

Those of us lucky to have such foresight and to be employed with a company that has survived the current crisis have to feel pretty good about ourselves.  After all, we resisted group thinking and passed on a lot of the temptations around us.

I learned from an old pro that I used to work with the value of saving and investing wisely.  With his help I learned how to maneuver the money that I had invested in my 401K around so that I could better realize gains.  Sure, my portfolio has experienced a 40% drop the last two years, but if you’re twenty years out of retirement like I am then there is no reason to worry.

As a matter of fact, I am enjoying the current market.  I actually increased my contributions since I view my situation as an opportunity to buy stocks on sale that I may never realize again. 

But the important thing here is that someone more experienced than myself took the time to teach me the in’s and out’s of managing my money when I was new to the game of management.

Back then I was pretty young and had never made the kind of money that was starting to roll in.  Through college my attitude was to spend what I made, sometimes more.  Having someone who had been there and done that helped me move away from that stage of my life.

To this day I make it a point to help my team form the same type of good decisions, new or old.  Besides the young who tend to leave their money all in one company’s stock, I find a lot of older folks who still have their money in stocks even though they plan on retiring in two to five years.  Imagine the shock they experienced when they are looking at that 40% loss and realize that they may have to keep working indefinitely.

Most companies don’t offer any kind of financial training, and that’s a shame.  Situations like this could really stand to benefit a lot of employees, and make for some happy workers.  But that doesn’t mean that you can’t take what you’ve learned and share it with them.  Who knows, maybe they’ll appreciate it and gain a little more respect for you since you’re helping them out!

Technorati Tags: personal finance,management,leadership,teaching,training,financial responsibility,employees,associates

Automating your job

Ever feel like you have entirely too much to do?  Are people knocking down your door with problems and complaints, taking up all of your precious time?  When you’re in a position of leadership, there is a simple process to rectify all of this.

You have to start off by teaching and training those who work for you.  Prepare them to have the capability to perform your job.  The best people to start with are those that express a desire to be promoted or are top performers, then you can move on to everyone else.

Create a level of leadership beneath you.  Groom those who directly report to you to be able to handle day to day tasks and issues that you currently deal with yourself.  Not only will it help to develop them but it will create a layered structure of management so that you don’t have to *gasp* micromanage.

Communicate both in the short and long term.  You have to have structure.  Let it be known what you want to accomplish today and in the long run.  Stay focused and keep your people focused.  Show them progress and results, and let them buy into what you are selling.

Develop a team of associates work in an atmosphere of self reliance.  Encourage employees to make decisions.  When someone asks you for your advice on how to do something, in turn ask them how they would do it!  You’ll be surprised to find out that they already have an opinion, they’re just looking for your acceptance.

Teach your employees the philosophy of just doing it.  After all, it’s a lot easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.  If they fail, take the failure and turn it into a learning experience, not a negative one.

Always give your employees more to do than they possibly can accomplish.  This way you continually raise the bar and get the most productivity.  The human mind won’t acknowledge it’s true capabilities until it discovers them.  Everyone has doubt.  Erase that doubt and show people that they are capable of doing anything.

Be relentless.  Don’t give up on anything, and don’t let your associates give up.  Repeat yourself often, and be consistent.  Have clear goals in mind and make sure everyone knows them. 

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Rinse and repeat.  You may grow weary of the process, but success is just around the corner.

Coping with underperforming peers

There is simply nothing more frustrating that having to work with peers that underperform.  You may find yourself having to shoulder much of the workload while they kick back and surf the web all day in their cubicle.

Your blood pressure rises daily because of their poor work habits, and your workload increases.  All the while your boss isn’t doing anything about it, for whatever reason.  Maybe it’s because they hang out outside of work, who knows?

As maddening as this scenario can be, you have to find peace within it.  Getting mad only leads to bad things happening, and you don’t want to lose what you have built over someone else’s poor decisions.  And since they are your peer, you can’t very well hold them accountable.

One way to accomplish this is to think of having an underperforming peer as an opportunity.  It only makes you look like more of a superstar when you accomplish so much and your peers accomplish so little.  Don’t be afraid to increase the gap.

You could also

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take advantage of opportunities to make well placed comments.  Not talking about how crappy your peer is, but slight boasts about how well you are doing personally.  For example, say something like “I generated twelve new accounts this month, how many did you get?”  Sometimes this gets your point across without having to blow up the situation.

Unfortunately, most of life’s slackers are slacking for a reason: they have no further ambition.  Climbing the ladder isn’t for everyone, and lots of people may be just happy and content where they are.  The problem is that comfort eventually sets in, and comfort leads to decreased productivity and an employee who cares less by the day.

You basically have two ways of dealing with this.  You can blow up and prove a point (at the possible expense of your own career), or you can accept it as a fact of life and move on.  Either way, don’t let it stress you too bad.  No matter where you work or what you do, you will run into underperformers.

My mission for personal responsibility

Personal responsibility is a big thing in my opinion.  You hear a lot about it these days in regards to adjustable rate mortgages and the people who weren’t able to afford them.  I like to relate it to the business side of things, and the workplace.

To me, companies have policies and rules for a reason.  And it is up to us as individuals to follow them.  If your workplace has a dress code, then it is your personal responsibility to follow it.  Should a manager really have to address something so basic?

I tailor my management style along the same philosophy.  I see many managers running around trying to get their employees to do basic things such as follow a dress code and do their basic job duties on a daily basis.  To me, those are basic expectations that I hold people accountable for not completing.

To me there is no sense in allowing such things to happen.  When you are hired, trained, or promoted, you are given job responsibilities.  How can you expect to be allowed to continue to work and not at least meet those responsibilities?

The positive side of a bad thing like our current recession is that it creates a more competitive job market.  This is beneficial to those who are seeking high performance individuals.  Now is the time to weed out your non performers and replace them with good folks who may have lost out not because of their individual job performance, but the short sightedness of the companies that they formally worked for.

Somewhere along the way we lost the pride and competitive advantage that we had in this country.  And a lot of it spawned from people who developed the ideal that someone would take care of them.  It’s time that we shift personal responsibility back into the workplace, as well as our personal lives and take advantage of a rare opportunity.

Technorati Tags: recession,employment,job performance,personal responsibility,policies,procedures,rules

Finding the right person for promotion

Discovering talent is often a lot like searching for a needle in a haystack.  Just how can you see potential?  Oftentimes our opinions can be skewed for a variety of reasons, like how well a person talks or your personal opinions of them.

Real leaders look beyond these petty nuisances.  What you really should be looking for is a burning desire to succeed.  All the knowledge and talk in the world can’t replace desire.  Not to mention that someone who wants to succeed often will, at any cost.

I have been in many situations where I’ve had both types of candidates to choose from.  You will always have someone who looks to be very qualified for your position, and they talk the talk.  But anyone with half a brain can talk their way into a job.  What really matters is results.

On the other hand, you may have someone who doesn’t know the job they are interviewing for, but they have the desire to do it.  Oftentimes these are the types of people who step up and produce results consistently, they just may not have a shiny degree or lots of qualifications.

I always prefer the latter.  I’ve been down the road where I picked the person with the knowledge and experience and it never worked out too well.  Not to say that the experienced person isn’t always going to lack desire, it’s just hard in the world today to find people who have both of these attributes.

If you do find someone with experience AND desire, by all means give them the job.  The problem I’ve seen, however, is that oftentimes those who have been there and done that tend to be a little less motivated than the hungry person who is out to prove them self.

The added benefit of it all is that you will look that much better when you promote the underdog who no one believed in but you, and they turn out to exceed expectations.  There’s nothing better than a little homegrown talent!

Technorati Tags: promotion,promoting,leadership,management,moving up,experience,interview

Holding your employees accountable

Accountability is a powerful thing.  The act of holding someone accountable is normally an unpleasant experience that most people generally like to avoid.  Confrontation is something that most normal people don’t feel comfortable dealing with.

But when you are in a leadership position, confrontation and accountability are just part of the job.  Unfortunately you are going to have employees who make mistakes and sometimes do the wrong thing and it is up to you to make the right decision on how to handle it.

Most companies have guidelines and rules or policies that are pretty easy and clear cut.  Miss work too much, make a decision that is detrimental to the company, or poor performance will more than likely end up with some type of reprimand.

Your role in this process is critical.  Do you think that Joe, who is always calling out sick, will magically change his ways and start showing up every day unless you take action?  Doubtful.  Attendance is an easy and straightforward issue to deal with.

Knowing where to draw the line on performance can be a little more tricky.  Normally you will want to keep good records and documentation of a poor performer if you want your actions to stick.  There is nothing that will make a good accountability session blow up in your face than if you don’t have good documentation of the action they took (or didn’t take).

A bad judgment call can also be hard to reprimand someone for.  I usually look at it in terms of what it cost the company.  If the associate made a decision that was poor in judgment and cost the company money, I’ll pull the trigger nine times out of ten.  Again, just make sure you have the documentation that supports your decision.

Typically as long as you follow the guidelines and policies set forth by your company and treat the employee with respect throughout the process, you don’t have to worry about your superior overturning your decision.  Don’t make it personal, and remember that it’s only business.

One of my favorite things to tell people is to never mix business and personal, only state the facts.  Not only will your associates respect you more, you will have a better chance of keeping this already difficult situation calm and under control.  Not to mention that the outcome of your actions will (hopefully) result in an improvement in the associate’s behavior.

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Hiring the right person for the job

Hiring in general can be a dubious task.  It’s simply amazing how great a person can seem during the interview process, yet they can very well turn out to be a dud just as easily as they could turn into an all star.

While there is no secret formula for success in hiring the right person, there are methods you can use to increase your success rate.  It is very beneficial to hit the mark when hiring, as the whole process is time consuming not to mention costly.

The first thing that I look for is a solid work history.  While there are exceptions in some career fields, I prefer a short employment history with a decent length of time spent at each job.  A “job hopper” who has worked at twenty different places and was employed at them on average three months or less is a sign that the person lacks loyalty.

Next I examine the types of jobs they have had.  Some people tend to make dramatic career jumps, and this can be a sign that the individual still hasn’t decided what they want to be when they grow up.  I recently interviewed someone who owns their own business, and has past job titles including accountant, marketing, prison guard, and store manager in retail.  Needless to say, I did not hire the person.

Another important thing to look at is why they left their previous job(s).  I’ve seen some legitimate reasons over the years, and I’ve seen some pretty hilarious ones.  I once saw “left job to drive across the country in my van” listed as a reason for terminating employment.  It’s a telling sign when someone has a consistent history of getting fired or quitting for various reasons.

You may be surprised at what I don’t consider important when reviewing an application.  One factor I don’t worry about is what type of salary the person is looking for.  I wait until after the interview to discuss money.  Oftentimes I find that if they really want the job, they are open to negotiation anyway. 

As you can see, hiring people is sort of like a mind game.  The interviewer is trying to see the person for who they really are and what type of employee they would be, and the interviewee is trying to sell themself either as the type of employee that they are, or what they are trying to be.  It’s a high stakes situation, so do your homework before the interview and pay attention to how they speak and their body language during the interview.

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