Sometimes Managers Are Just Too Soft
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If as a manager your people are not living up to their full potential, perhaps it's because of the way you are managing them. This article suggests how managers can do their employees a favor by being tougher on them.
I dedicated my first book: Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line, to my best-ever boss. He was my best-ever boss not because he was easy to work for. The opposite was the case. He was the toughest boss I ever had and because he was so tough, I produced far more than I would have ever produced had I worked under a boss who was more interested in how much his employees liked him than he was in how effective they were on the job.
I accomplished enormously more for both my company and myself than I ever dreamed possible because I had someone who cared enough about me to squeeze everything out of me that I was capable of giving. Sometimes you have to make this a game. If one tactic doesn't work, you have to try another and then another until you push the right button.
My second book, 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot, was dedicated to another tough man in my life: my father. My dad pushed me to the limit in my youth. He called it "teaching me how to work." I had little energy to get into trouble in high school because I was so exhausted from all of the manual labor he lined up for me to do in the summers. The summer working with a plumber was the most memorable.
My father had no difficulty saying NO and sticking to his guns.
Today, I hear a lot of talk about parents being so afraid that their children won't love them that they shower them with material things and limit punishment to a few minutes of "time out" in their well-appointed bedrooms. My dad sure wasn't afraid of me. I was afraid enough of him, though, to walk the straight and narrow path while I was under his roof.
Turn up the heat on your people
As a manager, you are in the unique position to be an inspiration to your employees. You can teach them that work can be fun, especially when they reach levels of success that they never dreamed possible.
When I first became a manager, I had had no training whatsoever in how to manage; that is, what to do and what not to do. This is one reason I wrote 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot. I wanted to give managers the benefit of my experience as a business consultant.
As a young manager I resisted dealing with antagonistic situations. Because I resisted conflict, I did not negotiate as hard as I could have negotiated with our vendors; I didn't push my people to accomplish as much as they were capable of accomplishing, which resulting in their performance bonuses being far lower than they could have been.
Manage is an active verb. One of the problems with many businesses today is that managers have become managers not because they possess the most talent to manage, but because they have the most tenure. How many companies have you known that promoted their best salesperson to sales manager? Down deep inside, the owner or GM probably knew that he or she was running a big risk of losing their best salesperson and getting a mediocre sales manager. But their thinking was muddied out of fear of losing a salesperson who thought he or she was being treated unfairly.
RULE: You must have not only the right people on the bus, but in the right seat on the bus. I learned this from Jim Collins when I read his book, Good to Great.
You'll never know how much your good people can do until you turn up the heat on them. Great people, of course, are self-motivated. They turn up the heat on themselves. But good people become great people, they need a boss who cares enough about them and the company to hold their feet to the fire.
Hold them accountable for measurable results.
Follow up with them when they make commitments.
Don't allow them to talk themselves out of a difficult situation they've gotten themselves in.
Managers can't always be popular
When you tell employees no, it's a lot like telling your child no. They sometimes will start begging and pleading for you to change your mind. But when you know that it is in the best interest of both the employee and the company to say no and stick to your guns, you must be prepared to be unpopular.
My best-ever boss once went outside the company to fill a position that I felt strongly that I was qualified for. I was hurt. I was disappointed. I was embarrassed. But he knew that I was not ready for the responsibility at that time in my career. I survived and as I look back on his decision, I know he was right.
My best-ever boss never once made a decision because it was popular with the troops. He made decisions based on what was best for the company. He knew that what was best for the company would ultimately be best for each member of our management team. Once again, he was right.
Invest in your people
Don't expect your people to grow without providing an environment that is conducive to growth. Reward education. Promote education.
No position in our industry benefits from training and education any more than sales positions. Salespeople who are hitting on all cylinders, know how to get around price objections, understand how to take business away from the competition and have figured out how to manage their time, can take your company to the next level.
But salespeople who spend the great majority of their time working up estimates, quoting and hoping can be like a anchor that holds the company back from being all that it can be.
Your salespeople's combined aspirations and abilities must exceed the owner's or GM's aspirations.
Make your people all that they can be
If you don't have the stomach for management, you're doing your people a disservice. So get tough on your people. Don't allow the talented people in your organization to get by with a mediocre performance. Everyone deserves a boss who cares enough about them to lead them to as much success as they have the talent to achieve.
Bill Lee is author of 30 Ways Managers Shoot Themselves in the Foot ($21.95) and Gross Margin: 26 Factors Affecting Your Bottom Line ($29.95) plus $6 S&H for the first book and $1 S&H for each additional book. To order, See Shopping Cart at http://www.BillLeeOnLine.com
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