It's not easy being an employer today! Human and other resources are tight. Pandemics/Logistic challenges are likely here to stay as well as the government's general incompetent reaction to them. We have a new currency system emerging that 20 and 30-year-olds will eventually age into dominance. Times have never been so volatile, disrupting the stabilization you need for your foundational business growth.
Yet much is within your control. Companies that have stable operations while being fluid in their efforts for new business simultaneously have a leg up and will always win. Regardless of the year, we are in and the generational changes that are present.
At Victory Strategies, we get to work with and see the inner workings of all types and sizes of companies behind the curtain. It's a good practice for companies to point the thumb back at themselves 100% of the time, debriefing efforts, always working on being better, and planning for the future. Business and operational "wins" lift all, most of the time.
But what about self-induced hurdles for your employees? Here is where my title comes in…
I urge you to take a tough look at yourself!
Are your HR onboarding / Training / Safety processes knee-jerk, or are they viable? Is there efficiency in the process?
Does anyone ever have a new computer-based training system added for efficiency only to have your employees not save their progress, requiring them to take the same training several times? I'll answer for you, yes, yes you have.
How about hiring for skills instead of character. How about hiring based on tech performance and detailed understanding to fill a team lead or director position?
Are your meetings efficient? Do you stick to an agenda and create taskers and milestones as an outcome. What about budgets and projections? Are you debriefing both successes and losses and applying that to next month's budget/ops/pipeline meetings?
You see – Ignorant Rules are self-induced and unchecked. A pattern starts at the 2nd negative shortfall for the same issue. It is not insubordinate for your top people to say to you, "I will not comply." It is a projection to get your act together, or I will eventually vote with my feet. They are looking out for you by pushing back on what they perceive as excessive "busy" work.
Top employees don't want life to be easy – they want it to be efficient.
Does this article so far give you a defensive ego or thoughts that you need to go back and look at your foundational processes? As you well know, they need to be useful for your staff and clients. They better be; your competitors are.
The art of this is the free flow of information up and down. Is that what you have in your organization? It's either positive or negative and directly correlates to the 2nd and 3rd orders of effect from your foundational culture.
Here are some truths to consider…
- 21 days to form a good habit – 3 days to break it
- The only way to accomplish more is to train and delegate
- 6 great employees can be demotivated by one legacy blamer, complainer, and defender employee underperforming
- Leads mean next to nothing until they are qualified
- You must categorize all your expenses and discuss them monthly
- You must be proactive on raises and benefits to your best employees
- Weekly 1:1's and bi-annual performance reviews are a must
- Stratify all your people; let them know where they reside. Help them all be #1 by appropriate grooming and mentoring
- You may think you are the next Steve Jobs, but does your staff think you are your industry's version of Lance Armstrong? Check yourself.
- Your Department/Divisions heads must be willing to be inspected
- Every person in your organization must show up every day with a good attitude and be willing to make themselves 1% better each day
- Hiring for expert skills and an okay attitude will likely not work out well
- Plan, Execute and Debrief like the sun rises and sets
- Virtual presence is actual absence – consider hybrid – we are social beings – society pushing us to full meta is a disaster.
- Your staff must know where the company is going in the next 90, 180 days and for the next 1, 3, 5 years. Quarterly Town Halls are a great place to highlight this
- It is better to share too much and have it misinterpreted than withhold information
There is so much more to share from our team's experiences serving our clients over the last few years. We love partnering and helping with the most challenging problems businesses have to offer.
You must be on your front foot with your employees for them to thrive. So, when you put out changes, it is not a wasted question if you ask yourself, "do my employees think this is an ignorant rule?"
Keep attacking your windshield, people – Victory Strategies is here for you.
Authored By: Joe Barnard, Managing Director