Welcome to Backing Your Leadership. I'm Chris, Lorenzo and Lorenzo. In this
episode, I want to talk about an infograph that I saw online. It
was kind of put out by Into it and the infograph is ten ways you're
making your employees less productive and I'm going to read them all, but there's
a couple of them that I want to focus on because I think they kind
of deserve more time because they're the ones that I see happening more often in
when it comes to leaders. Other ones of these, I'm sure they happen,
but it's it's less a problem of an individual leader and more about company
culture as a whole, and so we don't necessarily to focus on those.
Number one is being a bottleneck, which is it's pretty obvious, you know,
give your employees more authority. Uh you know, if you're if you're
kind of trying to micromanage everything that they do, that's a that can be
an issue. Number two not truly delegating responsibilities. We've had episodes about this
on you know, delegating versus you know, assigning things or you know,
making people feel like you've delegated them something, but in actuality you're just kind
of expecting them to do your dirty work for you or things you don't want
to do. Number three is not conveying clear expectations. I mean, the
clarity is the third is the middle tier of your of your three pillars,
you vision, clarity, and support. We could go on for episodes on
not giving clear expectations. Number four is not giving useful feedback. Again,
we've talked about this ad infantum. You know, feedback needs to be very
specific on what a person did right or wrong, and it needs to be
something that they can use to make themselves better, not just something that they
can use to make your life easier as a leader. Number five is no
concentration time. You know, depending on the kind of environment that you're in,
that might be something that employees need. In the retail space a little
bit more difficult because the nature of the job. Number six is one of
the ones I want to really focus on. We'll come back to it in
a minute here, and that's neglecting employees needs for better job performance. Number
seven not letting people telecommute when the work allows it. And I think that's
that's amazing these you know, companies that have these blanket policies of we're all
work from home or we're all in the office, that that one size fits
all thing is really one size fits none. UM Number eight insisting on a
doctor's note to take sick days. I mean, I don't know that I
could work for a company that wanted that. Most most times I've been sick,
I don't need to go to a doctor, right Like, this is
just I don't want to don't want to spread it to my coworkers. UM
Number nine is the second one that I really want to focus on, and
that's scrimping on training time. So we'll go back to that one. And
then lastly, creating a climate of fear and anxiety, which is kind of
just an overall. You know, if there's no psychological safety, if people
can't challenge each other, then that that can be a problem when it comes
to leadership. But let's go back to number six because I think this is
something that I see often is neglecting employees needs for better job performance. That
the infograph says most employees won't speak up on their own if they need a
faster computer, newer software, or are their tools. Being proactive and asking
what your team needs? Are I this isn't just when it comes to like
the tools I know, on and on every engagement survey that I've ever administered,
there's always people who say that they don't have the tools that they need
to get their work done. But when I where I see neglecting employees needs
for better job performance, it's when I see leaders make decisions that are in
the moment that might be beneficial for that moment, but that are eroding their
the employees trust in them long term in order to get that, you know,
that whatever that eke of performances for that moment. When what do you
think about this one? Yeah, I think there's there's two things that's they
got to be most here. I think you talked a little bit about it.
But like there's some systems and processes where, um, you know,
you've ever gone anywhere, shopped anywhere to anything where somebody's just like, I'm
so sorry. These computers are so slow. They're always so slow, you
know, like you know, yeah, yeah, I wish I could do
that, but unfortunately we can't. Like you find these systems and processes that
are either antiquated, they haven't been adjusted. They could be fixed, you
know, And of course think some of these costs money and things like that.
But if at the end of the day, where you're trying to create
is the opportunity for your employees to be more effect more efficient, more effective,
and mean more productive, these are things that you must address. So
I think that there is a systems and tools and processes part of this,
and I think the other piece of it is what you also spoke a little
bit about, which is the kind of the in the moment element of understanding
from the team what do they need? Are you asking the question around like
if there's something here that we could do that would help you to be more
productive, or is there something here that would help you to accomplish the things
that you work on in a faster manner, more efficient manner like If you're
not asking those questions proactively to kind of discover what these things might be,
you'll never know. If you can address them quickly, you can make a
small tweak, you can you know, maybe bubble some of the information up,
and then what it ends up happening to your point is that you wait
once or twice a year and say do you feel like you have the tools
to do your job? And then somebody's like no, right, like,
instead of constantly having dialogue around that. And I think that that's something that
when you start to ask these types of questions, you start to find out
there are some really easy, small fixes that can be done that not only
can help the team and individuals become more productive, but it gives them a
chance to know that they're they're having an impact on whether it be the strategy
or the approach, and they start to feel more empowered to continue to share
the things that would be helpful in making people more productive and more efficient in
their roles. Yeah, that's so true that I think where I see this
happen in leaders, they think that it's it's not that they believe that all
it's needed is the decision in the moment. It's that they rationalize that this
particular moment in time, whatever it is, is an emergency. You know,
it's it's I need. I can't focus on the long term needs of
my employees. I need to focus on the performance of the moment because this
is the pressing customer. This is the pressing client. This is the moment
where we don't have enough resources and we need to ask people to kind of
pull out all the stops. You know, there will never be a shortage
of those things. There will never that will never go away. There will
always be something that you can find as a distraction for long term job performance
and productivity and commitment out of your employees. And the reason why leaders do
that is because it's tough. It's hard to do the things necessary, harder
to do the things necessary for long term job performance than it is for the
moment, because it requires genuine investment in the relationship between you and the employee.
It requires knowing what makes each employee tick, you know, neglecting employees
needs for better job performance. It could be as simple as whatever type of
recognition they want for the job performance they've already done. And in your mind
you might be thinking, well, that's their job, like they should be
doing their job. Yeah, So if the difference between them doing well or
not doing well is feeling like they're being recognized for doing well, then guess
what. That's your job as a leader is to make them feel recognized for
the job that they're doing, even if they're doing things that you would consider
to be cost of admission, like, yeah, here's your recognition, it's
the paycheck, right, and you think, let's recognize them for going above
and beyond or doing something out of the ordinary. I mean, you better
be doing that too. But just feeling recognized in the moment, in the
way that they want to be recognized is a really important thing for a lot
a lot of employees. And sometimes what employees need in order to perform better
is they've lost that connection to the overall mission or vision of the organization or
your team. They feel like they're just going through the motions and you being
able to kind of bring them back into that and really define why it is
that your organization exists and why it is that they're being asked to do certain
things. Being able to tie that back in is really difficult for leaders to
do if they don't, if they aren't in the habit of doing it all
the time, because they can lose sight of it themselves, and then they
can start going through the motions because they just in their mind, it's the
job, it's what they're supposed to do. And if they lose that tie
into the broader mission, it may not impact a leader's ability to perform at
the at the highest level from a job delivery standpoint, but you know where
it will impact a leader's performance is in their ability to bring their team along,
because if they aren't seeing that vision and that mission in their daily work,
there's no way they can convince their team that that mission and that vision
is alive and well in the daily work. Yeah. No, I agree
with that completely. I think that you know, again, in the context
of having employees be less productive, what you spoke about from recognition to just
overall engagement, understanding, interacting with the team unders you know, like like
not just understanding what's happening, but being a part of bringing the team in
and building strategy collectively. I think as the leader, like I think there's
many times when you know, we spend time in leadership kind of implementing strategies
that are being asked of us to go out there and kind of execute and
validate, and finding the times to bring the team in and make them a
part of that dialogue. I think in this context is so important because what
you're really asking for is like, how do we how do we become more
productive, not for the sake of just like the outcome or the output in
that being the major priority, but for the idea of building a team where
people have a pride in the collective results that they have, and they want
to be able to be more you know, more productive because they know that
they're capable of being more productive and that this is something that we are all
working on together and we're solving together. And I think that that's such an
important part of, you know, building a culture of a high performing team
is that people not only want to just do what's expected, but they are
saying, like, what other ways can we do things to make this where
we are all affective more effective together and that we can be very proud of
the outcomes that we produce. The other one I want to go over here
is number nine on the list, which is scrimping on training. You know,
this is this is a tale as old as time and a lot of
organizations. I you and I worked for the same organization for many years where
we saw the amount of time devoted to training for let's just call it,
a brand new employee just plummeted and it just you know, little little bits
taking away here and there. I remember, I remember running new employee orientation
for many employees over the years when the time that I was even as a
leader to kind of organize this and actually deliver it to a group of new
employees. Went from thirty or thirty five hours over the course of the first
week or first two weeks to all of a sudden four or eight hours where
half of it was the videos that we were expected to show them, and
then the rest of it was what they said, basically is well, you
know, it's better for them if they learn while doing, which sounds really
good, right, like I learned better while doing. That doesn't mean,
you know, throw them into the deep end of the pool and hope they
hope they survive. Learning by doing needs to be a very intentional part of
training that coincides with a lot of the other materials or interactions that you're having.
Getting to know people, meeting, the meeting your coworkers, and then
learning by doing is something that is done when you believe they already have the
tools and the knowledge they need and now it's time for them to demonstrate what
they've learned. It's not let's change the color of the shirt this person's wearing
so that so that clients and customers don't they understand that, oh, this
person and is not a good representation of the brand yet, so don't judge
us too harshly by their interactions and then let's let's see what they can do.
That is that's a terrible way one to make an employee feel like they're
part of a new organization. That's a terrible way to uphold your brand standards
as an organization. And it's why a lot of employees end up burning out
and leaving during the first six months because they feel like they've been hung out
to dry. You know, the training that is required for not just new
employees, but ongoing for employees in order to just you know, learn whatever
is new, but also to revisit things that they may not have revisited is
so important. And a lot of leaders believe that it's like a one in
done. Well, you learned this one seven years ago, we can we
don't have to revisit this anymore. Your time is better spent earning money for
the organization, not sitting in front of a computer. And and that is
a it's a really dangerous mindset, I think for leaders to go through if
they think that that no training is needed, or at least very little is
needed and it's all about what they're doing in the moment. Yeah, I
think it's it's always one of the first things that typically is looked at when
it comes to things like cost cutting and adjustments and whatnot. And and I,
you know, firmly believe that when you recruit and hire people, you
want to find people that have talent already in skill already in the job that
you have. I think that just makes sense when you can When you can
do that, that doesn't mean, however, that they are clear on what
exactly it is that you know, uh, and how we do things in
this certain scenario or there's certain organization. And I think that that training piece
is important because it's not just about the time spent, like how do I
work a system? How do I do this? What's the approach here?
But there's an element of building trust and bonding a team that happens with both
the trainer who is working with them, and that becomes kind of this um
kind of in many cases, this this unassigned mentor um that's bringing this person
into an organization, but also the other people that are being hired along with
them. That team building an element of the time they get together to learn
together, to figure things out, to understand what the new job expectations are,
to establish those relationships. When you cut that training short, you're also
cutting short those opportunities to build those relationships that are going to need to be
leveraged when people run up against things that maybe they've never seen before, or
our difficulties, or you know, they don't have necessarily the relationships or the
trust yet to go and be vulnerable to say, hey, I'm struggling with
this or I don't know how to do this? Can you show me if
that time hasn't happened. And a lot of times that happens over the course
of training, because that's the space where you can say you're here to be
trained on something that you've never done before or not done here, so it's
okay for us not to know the answers, and so like, the more
time that you have that space, the more opportunities you have for people to
really connect on an individual level, on a personal level, which is really
helpful as they kind of onboard into the organization and with the rest of the
team, right, And it's also important for kind of just for making sure
that the exp dictations are continually met as you move forward. Some of the
most untrained employees I've ever met aren't people who've been in the job for six
months. The people who've been in the job six years. They the way
that they execute what they think they're supposed to be doing, you can tell
that it had there's been this kind of game of telephone that has happened over
the course of the six years they've been with the organization where maybe the way
they executed something was done really well, and then very slowly over time,
it eroded, and it eroded because there was not the continued commitment to making
sure that the brand standards were followed and that the interaction standards were followed and
that you know, you cut little corners here and there, and eventually that
becomes the way. And then, you know where that really impacts you is
when you think, oh, this is a senior person who's here, they
really know what they're doing. Let's put the new employees with them, because
they know what they're doing. And then you get new employees who are trained
the wrong way of doing things because they're being trained by somebody who really doesn't
know how to do it the right way themselves, and they haven't done it
the right way for years. And so when you're talking about, you know,
being very intentional on training new employees. It starts with being very intentional
on making sure that all of your seasoned employees really not just know what they're
supposed to do, but they execute it well. They can't just regurgitate it
to you and then they dismiss you when you walk away and then do things
the way they want to do, but they are held accountable to a standard
of what that execution looks like, so they can be trusted to, you
know, convey that information to new employees. That's how you have the slow
degradation of a brand over time. And you hear that from from customers.
Customers and clients that will that will reach out and say, this isn't what
I thought it was going to be. Right, I had a different experience
in in one location versus another location. If there's if there's a multi location
organization, if you can make sure that you're your seasoned employees who you send
these new employees to know what they're doing, you will be You'll be doing
a lot for the brand standards as a whole, because the new employee will
understand, oh, no, this is a job expectation is to do these
things. You know, we adhere to these standards because we see the value
in adhering to them over the long term and with every person absolutely. And
with that it brings us to this episode's one minute hack. That first,
a few words from our sponsors. All right, for this episode ae minute
hackers we want you to do. We're going to post a link to this
infograph in the podcast description, so open it up and look at it.
Remember that productivity is how do you make sure that you're getting the most out
of the resources that you have time? People? You know, whatever is
that you have is always going to be finite from a resource standpoint. What
are you doing to get the most out of those resources? And a lot
of times what that means to leaders is talking about a person's productivity. Hey,
how well did you do this last month or this last quarter? How
long do you actually spend talking about productivity as a goal. What do you
think of the things that we can do to be more productive? How are
you asking your people to be involved in that conversation on ways that they think
the organization can do things differently in order to be more productive. Read through
these lists of ten things and think about the ways where you might be you
know, making your employees less productive. Where the things that kind of jump
out to you as saying, oh, you know what, maybe I do
this a little too much. Maybe I can focus on this element of it.
Because productivity isn't something to look back on and say, oh, this
is what you did, now try to get better. It's something you have
to look forward on and talk about the things that can be done in the
moment in order to improve it. Not just tell your employees, hey,
this was your level of productivity, now change it or get better. If
they don't know how to change your get better, then it will be no
more than just the same as it was, you know, the previous month
of the previous quarter. Help them get better on it by making sure that
you're not the one hurting their productivity to begin with. Yeah, I think
it's a great hack. And when I look at some of these, I
like that you think that you considered and talked about like self reflection and where
things that we can work on, Because there are definitely a few of these
that over time I would have held on too heavily as a leader and been
like nope, like I have to be the one that rubber stamps everything that
we're going to do. And that's like being the bottleneck, right. And
there's been times when it's like, you know, like like where I'm not
really truly delegating responsibilities. Maybe I'm assigning something, but I'm also very much
micromanager in all way too much involved in that. There are times when it's
like, hey, you know, I'm not I'm not being clear enough about
my expectations. Like. These are all things that I think from a leadership
standpoint, that many of us have either worked through or continuing to work on.
And so I think a part of that is is this taking the time
to look through these and think about it and being like, well, am
I this as a result of like something that's out of my control. Like
it's like like the insisting on a doctor's note to take sick days like that
might be a company policy somewhere like So you might not have any flexibility per
se in some of these type situations, but most of the time you do.
Most of the time as a leader of people, you have some leeway
in a lot of these that you know really should be considered and thought about
when you are looking to help to make your team more productive. Right,
The two that I look at for me are ones that I initially thought,
oh, this don't apply, This doesn't apply to me. But if you
look at it, if you if you really look deeply into it, it's
where I kind of have to look at myself in the mirror a little bit.
Number four not giving useful feedback. The first thing I thought was I
give plenty of feedback. Ok, okay, The keyword here is useful feedback.
Is the feedback you're giving actually things that your employees can take with them
to get better at their job. Are they You're giving plenty of feedback,
But if it's ata boys, that doesn't really do much for the employee in
order to you know, continue doing the good things and to stop doing the
things that are that are kind of hurting their career. And then number ten
creating a climate of fear and anxiety. You know, I read that as
as like one whole thing and think I don't create a climate of fear anywhere.
It's like no, no, no. The the operitive word here possibly
might be anxiety. Maybe you don't rule with an iron fist and create fear
in your in your teams. But if you always seem like you're running around
like a chicken with its head cut off. You could be creating climate of
anxiety in your people where they feel like, what is what is Chris going
to be worried about in the moment. Let's let's figure out how best to
mitigate the anxiety that Chris brings to the team. And that's a great way
to get your employees not focusing on what the long term goals are, but
really just focusing on whatever fire they think you're going to be throwing out at
them in the moment. So look at these word for word and don't think
that's a you know, it's an overarching thing. You might not create any
fear of your employees at all, but you may be creating anxiety. You
may give a ton of feedback, but it's not useful. Absolutely, And
with that it makes us to the end of this episode, this is ACU
leadership. I'm Lorenzo and I'm Chris, and we'll talk to you all next time.