Get the best out of your employees

Too many times, I have seen companies with significant inefficiencies, disengaged employees and high turnovers.  Here are some of my personal tools that I use to get the best out of my teams. To begin, I believe that everybody needs to learn and you have a responsibility to support and coach him or her in making them better – both personally and professionally. You need to take the time to listen to what drives and motivates them. Provide constant feedback on what is working and what needs improvement. I believe that if you provide the right environment, an employee should have a pretty good picture of themselves and how they are doing.

How you need to manage someone all depends on where they are in their learning curve of becoming autonomous. Ever notice that after a few months, most employees will have a little down turn or a slump. We often classify this as the end of the honeymoon period. Unless you bring back that people to the right level of motivation, you just entered a slow process of seeing this employee being less and less involved and valuable for the company. As a manager, you need to continuously monitor the evolution of your staff and support them accordingly. The one size fits all does not work. This is what is called Situational Leadership.

Directing is often the de facto style of any entrepreneur when it comes to managing people. We think that’s how we can get the best of everyone and the only way to make sure they execute as planned. But there is a limit on the number of people we can manage this way. Also as people gain experience in your business, they need to get more responsibilities and autonomy. If you stay stuck in a directing mode, you often see your most talented and senior people leave for “another offer they could not refuse”. Leaving you clueless on how to tap in to your talented resources. Of course, directing is needed with new employees as they need to be oriented, work with them in prioritizing their tasks; define their goals and objectives.  Directing done the right way allows you to teach and show the ropes to your employee. Providing feedback and doing regular checks are key elements of a good “director”.

Coaching is the next level of management style that is of course quite time consuming but is a required step nonetheless. This is where you explore the true potential of an employee, clarify what the person has to do, sharing feedback on how this person can improve and of course encourage and give them praise when needed. Being a good coach is hard work but the benefits are enormous – if you begin doing it well, you will be surprised how much more you will get from your talented resources.

How many times have you heard that one employee has complained that he feels he is not supported in his work? Ever wonder why? Without the coaching stage, we do not build a trusted relationship where our employees will come and see us when they need support. Also, some managers will have a tendency to take over when a problem is brought to their attention – the employees needs to be helped in find solutions together (listening and collaboration, facilitating, problem solving) and they need immediate feedback when they are taking decisions – whether they have done right or wrong. They need to understand what has worked and what needs to be done differently.

Once you have succeeded in coaching and supporting, you can move to delegation. You can only delegate when someone feels they are trusted. Otherwise they will only try to please you and will not really make the right decisions. Delegates also mean that you properly empower them. Giving a new responsibility to someone without the tools to succeed is guaranteed failure. Also delegating does not mean that you cannot challenge them – actually you need to be more challenging than we often think. Out of a challenge comes out better plans and decisions – it should be perceived as a positive thing …

Finally, the biggest tool to get the most of your employees is communication, communication, and communication. I find that we make the common mistake of assuming that everyone knows how to communicate – where it is the direct opposite, starting with ourselves … Whenever I see that someone is not executing as I am expecting, I begin to challenge myself about my ability to communicate. Was I clear with my goals and objectives? Where the requirements well defined? Perception is reality and unless we understand someone else’s perception we cannot make ourselves well understood. Avoid the “did you do your job well” debate and focus instead on “where the objectives clear and well understood”. You will better engage your employees in the process and get them to work with you in making things better.