There was much talk on the Club Members’ Facebook Group in November about how to cope with staff that seem not to care and who let you down a lot. It was a very interesting discussion triggered by Jana Meyer and contributed to by many. I thought I’d give you the benefit of my advice here – because I am pretty darned certain that the issues highlighted on those posts wouldn’t happen in my business. Here are four reasons why:
1. I’m not their friend
Don’t get me wrong, I get on well with everybody that works for me at Botty Towers. But it’s a working relationship. Sure, we can have a laugh and occasionally we might even have a meal together (but only in a work context). I don’t socialise with any of my team and there is a respectable distance kept between us – and I believe that’s very, very important.
2. The frog in the pot
You’ll all be familiar with the story about how a frog can get cooked in a pot. A frog, of course, has the ability to jump quite high and if you take a frog and drop him in a big pot of boiling water, he’ll jump straight out. But, if you put the frog in a pan of room temperature water, he’ll stay there because frogs like water. Then, if you ever so slowly turn up the heat on the hob, he will sit there still, not really noticing the water getting warmer, and warmer, and warmer until – in spite of his God-given ability to save himself – he gets cooked.
I think this is how a lot of business owners get problems with their staff. The behaviour worsens gradually over time, little by little by little. Occasional lateness becomes frequent lateness; sloppy appearance goes from rare to occasional to routine; work not done goes from rare to occasional to common and the business gets cooked in the pot.
You need to have your standards and stick to them. Which leads me to…
3. Embrace confrontation
If you worked for me and you did something that I didn’t like or behaved in a way that I felt was inappropriate or was letting me down, I promise you, you would know about it. Straight away. I wouldn’t whinge about you behind your back and I definitely wouldn’t simmer silently. I’d call you into my office and we’d have a chat. I’d ask you how you would feel if you were in my position and what you think I should do. This little scenario alone has saved me so much grief, I’m certain, over the years. Once, many years ago, it triggered an outburst from the member of staff concerned who ended up walking out and never coming back. That was a good thing. No one is indispensable and if you are on my team, playing my game, you have to abide by my rules. If you don’t like those rules then you’ll have to go and play somewhere else.
Of course, if you do like my game and my rules (and most people do!) then the last thing you’ll want to do is cause problems. It’s a genuine win-win.
4. It’s written on the wall
And finally, of course I actually do have the Golden Rules of being on my team stuck proudly on the wall on every floor of our building. Every potential employee gets shown them when they come to visit and told really clearly that if you’ve got any problem with any of those then it’s best that you decline the job now.
Truth is, managing people successfully is an art, not a science and nothing I’ve talked about here is anything other than common sense. But I know it is a big challenge and does cause a lot of problems for many business owners.
To be clear, we do occasionally have problems and challenges in this arena ourselves but they are really quite rare and I think that’s because of the stuff I’ve talked about here. That’s the final word…
