MANAGING: Why It IS Rocket Science!
By
James Grandillo,
Senior Retail Consultant
There’s a popular TV show in which
the actors use mathematics to solve crimes. By reducing human
activity and behavior to numbers and equations and assuming people
act in predictable ways, these folks finally manage to get one jump
ahead of the bad guys. Pretty neat, huh?
If only this was true…
In truth, our job as managers
(Webster’s definition: “…one who gets a group of people together to
accomplish a goal; one who influences the behavior of others.”)
would be easy if people acted in predictable ways or — better yet —
could be programmed to behave the way you want them to. Yet so far,
the invention of the fully-programmable Robo-Employee is many years
in our future. For now, we have to employ and manage flawed,
unpredictable, and difficult human beings – people just like
ourselves.
Every new employee wants to know
(from you, the Boss) what do you want me to do and when, how often,
and how well should I do it and what happens to me if I don’t and
what happens if I do? You can start a new employee down the path of
success if you answer — more or less continuously — those four
questions. Note: this works with children and puppies, too.
What do you want me to do? Employees
need to be trained, shown what to do, over and over again, until
their performance matches your expectations. They need to be coached
and given feedback, so they gradually get better and better at their
assignments —and they need to know how what they do is important to
the company’s objectives. Even if the employees work in building
maintenance, their supervisor has to tie cleaning the floors and
emptying wastebaskets into the overall goals of the company in the
marketplace — and a good manager does this constantly. Praise and
criticism are part of the manager’s personal toolkit; judicious use
of both helps mold the unpredictable performance of the new,
inexperienced worker into the good work habits of a top performer.
What happens if I do/don’t accomplish
my goals? What’s in it for me? Discussion of the consequences of
good or poor performance is an important part of a manager’s
continual dialogue with his employees. Because people do things and
work hard for their own reasons not yours, it is important to
understand that what motivates the manager or business owner does
not necessarily motivate the rest of the company. If you understand
what these things are you can work to align the employee’s personal
goals with the company’s goals. Since each of us defines success
differently, the careful manager, by respecting these differences,
can ensure that everyone achieves a measure of that success, both
corporately and personally.
Let’s face it, unless you have the
deep pockets of a George Steinbrenner, the odds that you will hire
fully competent and totally committed employees (what Ken Blanchard
calls M4’s) are slim to none. What the manager actually hires is the
employee’s potential — the ability to develop in time into the right
person for the job. This does not happen automatically. It takes a
willing employee with substantial potential working with a manager
who has the skill and patience to train and coach him until he
develops the competence necessary to succeed at the job.
Of course it would be nice if were
could hire Programmable Employees and just download into them what
they need to know. Our success would then be assured. But we
know…this isn’t happening. We’re just going to have to do it the
hard way, like it’s always been done — with caring, training,
evaluating, managing and planning.
If it were easy, the rewards wouldn’t
as great, would they? |
