Another List, Another Answer
I hate lists like this. I’m guilty of making my own, so I probably don’t have room to talk, but when I see these, they jump out at me as another guaranteed solution to global problems, that won’t work.
“Eight ways,” “Five Focus Areas,” “Seven Steps” – What to choose…
As I was doing some research for a project, I came across this site “Resources for Entrepreneurs.” One of their articles is “8 Sure-Fire Strategies for Boosting [tag]Productivity[/tag]” and it’s all about motivating employees. This sentence caught my eye “What people want from their jobs and what managers think employees want can be very different things.” This is a truism. Enough studies now show that there is a disconnect between what managers think employees want, and what employees actually want. (I’m a bit confused by that reality given every manager was an employee/individual contributor at one point… do we forget what was important to us then, or are we “taught” that something else now matters?)
It’s Not About the List…
My challenge comes in seeing the list of “Supervisor’s Ranking” and “Employee’s Ranking” and then a discussion of ‘do these things which will surely solve the differences.’
What I have found after many years are two things:
- These lists may be OK at a macro level, but when you try to make them work at a group or team level, you run into people who have their own opinions.
- Every time you focus on a list, you move the focus away from the person; and the issue, the need, the value is in focusing on the person.
The first suggestion this list referred to is “Ask for employee help in setting [tag]goals[/tag].” Sounds good, right? Get everyone involved, find out what they think about the goals, about how to reach them. Get their “buy-in.” So a well-meaning manager takes this to heart and starts talking with her team only to find out that not everyone is getting excited about it.
Guess what, some people don’t care what the goals should be. They don’t care how they’re supposed to be met. All they want to know is what the goal is and if they are going to be supported by you in achieving them. In fact, some people may look at you and say, “Why are you asking me, aren’t you the manager?”
Does this mean you shouldn’t involve people? No. Does this mean you shouldn’t ask people how they think things can be done, be done better, and be done more profitably? No. It means you need to know which people are going to respond in which manner, and approach them with the right thoughts and questions to get the best input and [tag]motivation[/tag] from them.
Find the Contribution
One person may give you a list of suggestions, many of them very good. Another will struggle to come up with one idea. This doesn’t mean that the first person is a better performer than the second; it simply means they have different thought processes. And, at the end of the year, you may find that the second person actually does a better job at meeting the goal.
It’s not just about doing the actions; it’s about engaging the person.
Workforce Expertise:
Look at each person individually when you are trying to apply these lists. While the president or CEO of a large organization can’t do this individually with the entire organization, she can do it for her executive team, and they can each do it for their division teams, and so on to the farthest reaches of the organization where each manager does this for their employees. A small business owner can do the same thing directly.
It may take time, but I’m reminded of the quote “Go Slow to Go Fast.”
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