KickStart: Commend (and reward) employees when they share ‘bad news’ with you! Read on for the ‘why and how’…
I love surprises.🎆✨🎊🎉 Surprise gifts, surprise parties, and yep, being surprised with a kiss from Sioux!💖 (Even after 47 years I still appreciate her!) HOWEVER, in my Home Services business I had one cast iron employee rule :
NEVER, ever surprise me!
Steve’s Pet Peeve:😣 I hated and despised getting ‘sandbagged’ by a business problem/issue that my employee(s) knew about but hid from me! And yet it kept happening! So I was forced to examine… myself!😥 (I tell all my LIVE seminar classes, “The fish rots from the head down”!)
My painful self-examination revealed a serious flaw in my management style. Learn from me when you…
🛑STOP acting out by screaming at your employees like a bratty 5-year old when they share a problem in your company with you!
RESOURCE: Implementing this KickStart will be so much easier when you have the Very Best People on your team! You’ll get 100’s of new hiring ideas and systems in our 3-hour, online SFS: Hiring the Very Best! LIVE seminar.💲💲💲 To learn more and/or easily register online click HERE.
For now, follow this three-step Proactive Problem Solving procedure when you…
1) Warmly commend your worker. After all, you DO appreciate them sharing the company issue with you… don’t you? So, I’d always remind the employee, “Charlie, there is nothing we can’t solve IF you let me know about it. So thank you!”👍 And then…
2) Calmly ask your employee(s), “Hmmmm… Charlie, what do you think we should do about this current situation?”🤔Here’s three reasons why you should always ask this key question…
A) Your staff loves it when management values their opinions. Plus I love this Core Concept…
B) “They know best who are closest to the action”. (Ummmm, very likely this will be the employee who shares the problem with you!) And my final reason to brainstorm with your workers?
C) Almost 3,000 years ago a man much smarter than me wrote, “…there is success through many advisers.” (Proverbs 11:14) These “advisers” should include your enthusiastic, motivated employees who have ‘bought in’ emotionally to the success of your company. But wait- there’s more!
3) Your final (and most important) step? After jointly solving (hopefully) the existing problem simply ask, “Going forward, Charlie, in your opinion, what should we change or implement to make sure this particular problem never happens again?”
HINT: I kept a running list of business issues (and individual and company triumphs too!) that cropped up each week. Then the following Wednesday morning in our company staff meeting we’d give specific, public recognition to our team members that had exceeded their WEB Goals last week.👌 After the ‘rah-rah cheerleading’ it was time for a Proactive Group Brainstorming session on our recent company challenges! (Let’s talk about this soon!)
Best wishes and remember… I’m always ready for a (positive) surprise!
Steve