Power to Your People

I don’t know a thing about you, but I’ll bet if you’re a manager, then you probably think you’re pretty good at your job. Some managers seem to think that they should know everything about the job that their team members do, and be better than them at doing it.

I can remember, in the past, working for managers like that; they gave the impression that they knew everything and were far better than I would ever be at doing the job. This, of course, didn’t motivate me at all.

The Motivational Manager accepts that members of their staff may be better at doing the job than they are. Their staff may be better salespeople, better at customer service, better administrators or better engineers.

I’ve had salespeople working for me who were better at selling than I was, however, that made me no less a good manager.

Sir Alex Ferguson, the manager of probably the world’s most successful football club, Manchester United, had a pretty undistinguished career as a footballer. He did at one time play for Glasgow Rangers but could hardly be described as a star footballer; he is now, of course, a star manager.

If you manage or supervise other people, have confidence in yourself. Accept your limitations and don’t feel bad if you don’t initially know the answer to every question.
Ironically, it isn’t motivational for your staff, if you come up with the answers to all of their problems or queries.

Encourage your staff to come to you with solutions, not problems.

If you spend your time solving problems; you’ll spend your time solving problems!

When someone in your team asks you what they should do, even if you know the answer, reflect back the question. Ask them what they would do; ask for opinions. What do they think is the best course of action; why do they think it’s the best? What are the consequences of this action, for the customer, the business and the team member?

Empower, support and congratulate them on their decision. If they feel that they’ve made the decision, they will have more confidence in themselves and be more motivated to do the job even better.

What you’re essentially doing here is utilising the knowledge, skill, experience and motivational power that is already with in your team.
Believe me, once you apply this, you will have a highly motivated team who respect and trust you as a manager.

Sell Don't Tell

I'll always remember the first sales course I ever attended. The definition of selling was drummed into my brain. "Selling is the art of creating a desire in the mind of a buyer and satisfying that desire so that buyer and seller benefit."

Now this notion may seem a bit old fashioned for many of today's salespeople but this article isn't about selling. I believe the principle still holds true in many situations, especially when you want to achieve a 'win-win' outcome.

If you want one of your team members to do something, how do you approach them? You can 'tell' them what you want, but 'telling' just makes your job a lot harder. The Motivational Manager gets 'buy in', so everyone benefits. There's sometimes a case for 'telling' but it's hard work. Sometimes you have to keep telling them if you want results.

Here's how a Motivational Manager would do it:

• 
  Recognise that your team members are your 'internal customers'. You need them to 'buy' from you in order to get the job done. And in order to get them to buy; you need to be a good sales person. I'm sure you've heard the phrase - 'get buy in.'
  
• Get better results by selling not telling. Use good sales and persuasion skills when dealing with your team, your colleagues, even your boss. The sales or persuasion process is very much part of our world, and it's far better to sell than to tell.
  
• Focus on achieving a win-win outcome. Any good salesperson or negotiator knows, a 'win-win' outcome is what you should always aim for. If you want one of your team to do something and they see a benefit for them, or they're just happy to do it, then you have a 'win-win' situation.
  

"You can get everything you want in life if you just help enough other people to get what they want" - Zig Ziglar

Now you've no doubt noticed that I've started to talk about sales people and buyers. It's because I believe we're all sales people and buyers from the moment we enter this world till the moment we leave it.

A baby crying for food, attention or a change of nappy is trying to persuade you to take action. If you don't respond to this initial 'request' then they step up the volume until you do. Because we love that child, because we care, we are very open to their persuasion.

It follows throughout our life; if people care about us, if they respect us, if they have good rapport with us, then they're more likely to respond to our persuasion.

If people understand the benefits for them, then they're more likely to respond in a positive manner. You're on to a winner if you benefit as much as the other person. If you get into a 'win-lose' situation, then you may not have used selling or persuasion, but manipulation, control or coercion. A win-lose situation doesn't benefit anyone in the long run.

So whether we like it or not, selling and persuasion is going on all the time. You need to utilise these skills if you are to be a successful Motivational Manager.

Motivation – You don’t need a carrot or a stick

The term, Carrot and Stick alludes to enticing a horse or a donkey to move by dangling a carrot before it, so urging it forward.

The term should really be Carrot or Stick; the carrot being offered as a reward for moving forward and the stick used as a punishment for refusing to do so.

Some organisations and managers still use the Carrot or Stick approach to motivate their people. They reward good behaviour and punish bad behaviour.
However, that's not what motivation is all about because, you don't in fact motivate people; you create the environment where they motivate themselves.

So how do you do this? It's quite simple really; here are 3 points to think about:

1. Spend some quality time - You need to get to know the individuals in your team better and they need to get to know you. You'll gain a much better understanding of them and how they're handling the job. It will also give the impression that you care about them and show that you're there to help with problems both personal and business.

2. Give feedback and coach -You need to regularly tell each member of your team when they're doing well and when not so well. Some managers still believe - "Why should I praise people when they're only doing what they're paid to do." The Motivational Manager knows better! It's also important to tell people when they're not performing. There are too many managers who either ignore poor behaviour or come down on the person like a ton of bricks when they do something wrong. There are particular ways to give feedback and coach the individuals in your team and they need to be learned.

3. Be a believer - You need to empower each individual team member. It's important to utilise the knowledge, skill, experience and drive that's already within each individual. The majority of people in teams and organisations throughout the world are severely under utilised. Your team have probably more to offer in terms of skill, knowledge and experience and if you utilize that, you'll achieve your business goals and you'll lead a highly motivated team.

So there you have it; 3 very important points which will help you get the job of managing done and do it without carrots or sticks.

PS: Check out ‘How to be a Motivational Manager’ at Amazon.

Customer Service Training is a Waste of Time

A waste of time! That may sound a bit strange coming from someone who has delivered hundreds of customer service seminars over the past fifteen years. However, there are two provisos.

Customer service training is a waste of time unless managers, supervisors and team leaders:

1. Attend the same training

2. Are trained to motivate and coach their staff when they return to the workplace

Managers, supervisors and team leaders need to experience the training undergone by their staff and then support the training outcomes by daily on the job coaching.

They need to spend quality time with their staff, walking the job, listening and observing interactions with customers either face to face or on the telephone.

When they see or hear something they do like, they need to tell the team member about it. When they see or hear something they don’t like, they need to tell the team member about it.

It’s important to do this coaching in a positive and productive manner in order to support good behaviour and rectify not so good behaviour.

To help managers and supervisors become more successful, I’ve developed this stimulating and highly interactive seminar – Motivating for Customer Service. This will give managers, supervisors and team leaders, the skills and abilities that will help them motivate their staff and support the customer service efforts of their business.

For more details check out my website.

Motivation Means Presence not Presents

Let me ask you a quick question; do you have any children? I don’t have any children, however, I appreciate the challenges that parents face and I’m most reluctant to tell anyone how to bring up their children.

Whether you do or don’t have children, I’m certain you appreciate the importance of raising them to be happy and successful.

To do that, you’d take a great deal of interest in them and what they’re doing; show you care about them and give them lots of your time and attention.

Children show us from an early age that they want lots of attention. We become aware of this by the way they physically and emotionally, reach out to us. If we fail to provide their required level of attention or acknowledgement, then they’ll almost certainly let us know; usually by behaving badly.

Some parents have difficulty in giving time and attention and often bribe or pay their children to be successful with offers of gifts or money. “Pass your exams and I’ll buy you a new bicycle!”

However, children want presence not presents and if they fail to receive their acceptable level of attention and acknowledgement, then they may behave badly.

Not a lot changes when we become adults; we still crave attention and acknowledgement from other people. We look for it from our partners, friends, children, parents and, very importantly - our boss at work!

Successful Motivational Managers realise this and provide their staff with attention and acknowledgement.

• They spend quality time with every member of their staff, giving feedback on job performance; be it good or bad.
  
• They listen to problems, both business and personal; they show interest and help the staff member find solutions
  
• They show that they trust and believe in their staff by empowering them to make decisions and be responsible for their actions
  

Successful Motivational Managers do not bribe or pay their staff to be successful. Incentives, bonuses and prizes are all acceptable; however, they will never replace attention and acknowledgement.

Some food for thought; take a minute and think about someone in your life who you did your best for. Perhaps it was a parent, a teacher or a manager. What was it about them that made you want to do your best; was it presence or presents??

The truth about staff who can’t perform

Let me tell you a quick story. When I started my first job as an apprentice engineer, I quickly realised that some of my fellow apprentices shouldn’t be in the job. They just didn’t have the aptitude or ability for engineering.

Back in those days, and I don’t mean Victorian times, staff selection wasn’t very sophisticated. All budding apprentice engineers were interviewed by a foreman, and if he liked the look of you; you got the job.

I was lucky enough to be interviewed by a foreman who, in his spare time, was a Captain in the Boys Brigade. I was a member of another BB company; so guess what, I got the job. Neither I, nor any of my fellow apprentices were ever tested for our ability, or for any natural talent we might have, for engineering.

Resultantly, many apprentices shouldn’t have been there in the first place. However, most of them struggled on and qualified as time served engineers. The problem is, they didn’t turn out to be particularly good engineers. And, I also suggest; weren’t particularly happy engineers.

I’ve experienced customer service people who shouldn’t be let anywhere near a customer. Secretarial assistants who couldn’t spell or type fast enough; engineers who couldn’t read blueprints and plumbers who couldn’t plumb.

If you have someone in your team who is unable to do the job and is unable to learn, then you need to transfer them into something they can do, or advise and help them to find other employment. Now I know that may seem harsh and it’s not always easy or feasible to release people, however, you’ll never achieve your outcomes with the wrong person in the job. The business may suffer and you’re in great danger of de-motivating the other members of your team. They won’t want someone on the team who can’t do the job.

A client of mine realised that the customer service person, they’d recently employed, couldn’t handle the pressure of difficult customers and situations. They realised that training wouldn’t solve the situation, so they transferred her to a job where she produced quotations and didn’t have to speak to a customer.
What you need to do is get people who can’t do the job, into a job that they can do or get them out of your team.

I joined three companies as a manager and in each case I inherited team members who didn’t have what it takes to do the job. I’d usually find three categories of people in the teams - The first group were the ‘good guys,’ the ones I knew could do the job and wouldn’t give me any hassle. The second group consisted of people who needed a bit of looking after, watching closely and definitely some coaching.

The third group were the ones who didn’t have either the skills or the characteristics to do the job and no amount of training, or anything I could do, would change that.
I would often find that these people, due to their lack of success, weren’t exactly happy in the job anyway and were sometimes only too pleased to be transferred to another position.

I hear you saying - “easier said than done Alan” and you’re right. But the Motivational Manager needs to address these issues and ‘bite the bullet’ for the good of the team and the business.

2 Ways to Deal with Difficult Staff

Let me ask you a simple question; do you have any ‘difficult’ people on your team? One of the subjects managers ask me to speak about more than any other is: ‘How to Deal with Difficult Staff.’

As we all know; dealing with the good guys is no problem, it’s the difficult ones that give us the challenge.

You might disagree, but hear me out on this; in my experience as a manager, I found that there are very few really difficult staff. The people on your team don’t necessarily, think, look or act the way you do, but that doesn’t necessarily make them ‘difficult.’ It just makes them different!

The other day, I was listening to a teacher on television, talking about how he was unable to handle ‘difficult’ schoolchildren. After listening to him for awhile, it became apparent that the problem didn’t lie with the children, as he was trying to suggest; but more with the teacher. He just didn’t have good communication skills.

If you have a difficult team member, or even more than one, you may feel there’s not much you can do; however, stay with me.
Instead of concentrating on dealing with difficult staff; it is much more productive to stop them being difficult in the first place. Spend less time ‘fire fighting’ and more time on ‘fire prevention.’
If managers and supervisors can create the right working environment for their team, then they’re less likely to experience difficult staff.

Here are two ways to deal with difficult staff:

1. Spend some quality time.

I didn’t say ‘quantity time’ I said ‘quality time.’ One or two minutes of quality time on a regular basis are far more productive than a one hour review every year.
You need to get to know your individual team members better and they need to get to know you.

• Build a relationship with each individual; you’ll gain a much better understanding of them and how they’re handling the job. It will also give the impression that you care about them and shows that you’re there to help with problems both business and personal.
  
• Find out as much as you can about them, their background, where they’re from, families, pets, hobbies, sports and their views on the world.
  
• Discover their philosophies and faiths; how they think and how they feel. Just think about it like any other relationship – what do you want to know about this person?

Now I’m not suggesting you sit around all day gazing into each others eyes or spend half the night talking to them on the phone. I’m suggesting you do this over time, and slowly but surely, build up your understanding of the Person.

Don’t get nervous; this isn’t prying!

You might also be thinking that your team members won’t want you to get to know them that well. Well let me reassure you – most of them will, if it’s done discretely.
Almost everyone wants to know that someone is genuinely and positively interested in them. They may not always give that impression by their demeanour but trust me – they want to know you care; they want acceptance from you.
If they know you care about them, then your relationship will be much more productive.

2. Concentrate on what they do well

Here’s another way to deal with a ‘difficult’ employee.

Try concentrating on what they do well and tell them about it. Spend less time with, and even ignore bad behaviour.
It’s not uncommon for managers to invest 90 per cent of their energy responding to negative performance and only 10 per cent strengthening positive performance. If you ‘reward’ good behaviour - you’ll get more of it. If you ‘reward’ bad behaviour – you’ll get more of it.

It’s also very easy for a manager or supervisor to fall into the trap of condemning one of their team as a no-hoper or a problem child.
It may turn out that this person shouldn’t be on your team, and you may need to help them find another position.

However as Abraham Lincoln once said about someone he had a problem with -
“I don’t think I like that man, I must get to know him better.”

Some food for thought; get to know each member of your team much better, concentrate on what they do well and you’re less likely to have difficult staff.