WEBVTT

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Hey, this is Chris with Hacking
your Leadership. On this week's discussion on

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employee engagement, we're continuing with our
culture acronym. We started a few weeks

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ago with the C in culture,
Consider Yourself, moved on through the U

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Understand People and then the l lend
air support. Now, last week we

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talked about tracking progress, and on
this week we're going to go over the

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second you, which is utilized strengths. This is a kind of a timeline

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of events that you want to go
through and so if you do it correctly,

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it's in a really effective way to
change the culture of a team that

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you're inheriting, or to lift employee
engagement if you want to kind of level

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set and go back to some of
the basics that you need to do as

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a leader. When I think about
utilizing strengths, the first thing I think

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about is just making sure people are
cast in the right role. And that's

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something that can happen. You can
figure that out right away or it could

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take years to figure it out and
it can change over time. Yeah,

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I think a great you know,
call out around people's ability to change the

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strengths. I also think for me, when I first hear it is think

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about like, don't just consider or
strengths like their ability to produce a specific

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outcome. Many times it's easy to
look at somebody and say, oh,

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hey, look at they're able to
do this really well. They had this

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outcome really well, therefore they're good
at this. But what you might be

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looking for somebody who can impact and
influence their peers and other people. And

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you know, the strength around the
ability to train people, mentor people inspire

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people could be a very different strength
than the person who maybe has the strength

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of individually producing a very specific outcome. So that's just something as a leader

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that you really want to be conscious
of is when you when you use the

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term strength, how are you defining
it? What do you mean by that?

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What are the filters that you're using, And is it really a strength

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if if it's not matching what the
behavior is that you need them to do,

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and it's just being defined by you
know, again, maybe a perception,

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a perspective, or a very specific
outcome. Yeah, I think that's

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great. I also think it's important
to not just utilize strengths, but make

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sure the person actually enjoys what it
is that they're doing at least the most

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part, right Like, not every
single thing that we do in our thirty

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to fifty hours a week that we
work is something that we're gonna absolutely love

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doing. But a person who is
doing if most of the work they're doing

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for that thirty to fifty hours a
week is work they don't like doing,

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they're gonna burn out. And even
if they're producing the outcome that you're looking

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for and it appears they're very strong
in whatever that is, I know plenty

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there are plenty of things I'm really
good at that I don't like doing,

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and so that doesn't mean I won't
do them, but it means I don't

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want to do them for a year
or two years or three years straight.

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It's you know, you can,
you can kind of jump in and get

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it done, but if it's not
kind of bringing a passion to what they

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want to get done, you want
to work with them to make sure that

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you're not burning them out for the
sake of whatever you think is important,

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which is the outcome at that given
time. The second thing I think about

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when I think about utilizing strengths is
the people who tend to be really good

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at something and they really like doing
it, but they're really bad at something

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that is like a core prerequisite almost
of being able to have the job to

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begin with. I think about people
who just you don't want to talk to,

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like they just they're just not good
with people. But whatever part of

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the job is they do well,
they do really well. And maybe it's

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really difficult to find somebody who has
those strengths. I know plenty of leaders

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who have tried to utilize the strengths
of their employees and they and what they

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do is they they allow their employees
to get away with things that they're not

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very good at that really shouldn't be
allowed to, you know, be gotten

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away with because they happen to be
really good at a strength that they're really

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that they love doing and they're good
at and it's really great for the business.

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And so you know this, this
can't be a blanket of immunity to

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you as a leader to think,
Okay, well, this person is really

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doing what they love doing and they're
really good at it, so I'm just

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going to overlook these things that they're
terrible at. There's still a basic modicum

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of you know, kind of a
cost of admission. If you want somebody

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on your team, and those include
things like being kind to others and empathy

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and you know, being able to
work well with the with the team members

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and with your clients. Yeah,
I think it's a great call out.

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It's kind of like utilize strengths with
an asterisk that says, but also be

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conscious of their opportunities. You know, like it's not you can't just be

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can't just be all in on you
know what people's strengths are, because again,

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sometimes the reality is that in many
workforces, in many industries, you

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know, having a strength that's something
maybe only a part like a part of

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the job or you know, a
portion of the responsibilities, and you can't

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just allow that person to only do
that thing all the time. You know,

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you really have to have the context
of the strength within the framework of

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what it is that we're doing as
an organization, as a team, and

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then allowing them to utilize those strengths
to help guide the team and move the

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business forward. But that it does
not mean utilize strengths like that that if

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they're really good at that one thing, that's all you have them do all

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the time. And then either what
you were mentioning, like ignoring some of

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the things that really need to be
addressed, and or not having equity in

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how you are assigning responsibility because well, that person's really good at that thing,

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so I only make them do that
thing. And I think in retail

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you see that a lot in a
lot of different you know, companies and

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organizations. And I think one that
pops in my mind right away is like

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merchandising. Like somebody's like, oh, they're just so good at like merchandising,

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so like basically we just let them
do that all day. It's like,

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well, yeah, but that's not
the actual job here, Like,

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like a merchandizing is a part of
the job, and everybody's responsible for it,

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but like they should make sure that
they're doing other things as well,

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unless that's of course their job.
Like, if that's their job, they

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let them do it. It's a
strength, they're great at it, fantastic,

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But in a lot of cases there's
a lot of spill over and overlap

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and responsibility, and as a leader
you have to be conscious to make sure

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that you're not doing those types of
things right. Right, So if you're

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thinking about retail, you know,
I look at all retail jobs as essentially

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customer service jobs, they're all customer
service jobs. Whether you are an entry

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level sales associate or you are a
store general manager of a location, all

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of those roles, at some point
or another are going to be a retail

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customer service role. And so anybody
who is in a merchandising role, or

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is in an operations role, or
any role that is, when everything's running

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smoothly and everybody is able to do
exactly what they're supposed to be doing and

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the number of clients or customers matches
the number of people that you have to

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do their job correctly, then great, that's all fine, but at some

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point in time, it's going to
be there's going to be more of those

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customers than you expect it at that
moment in time, and every single person

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needs to be able to do that
job of doing retail customer service because that's

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the core of what the entire business
exists for, is that retail customer service.

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So if you have people who are
in those support roles who are not

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good at retail customer service, they
need to They don't necessarily need to be

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a plus at it, but they
need to be able to represent the brand

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well and they need to be able
to represent the experience that you're looking to

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get out of it, that you
would get out of the people who do

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this every single day and that's the
core of their job. I want to

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go over some of the things that
you can do as a leader to make

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sure you are utilizing strengths with your
people, if you want to kind of

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make sure that you're doing this,
doing right by this and doing right by

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your people. But first I want
to give it up to word for one

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of our sponsors. All Right,
if you're a leader of people and you're

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trying to do a better job at
utilizing strengths, this starts with taking inventory

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and having your people take an inventory
of what those strengths are, but also

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in the context of what they like
doing. And so you need to go

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through and make a list of the
people that you have and write down what

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you believe they are good at,
and write down what you believe that they

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enjoy doing. And there's going to
be some overlap, but there might be

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some things that don't overlap because of
what they've said, what they've said to

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you, and they need to ask
all of these people what they think about

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that they need to make a similar
list without seeing yours, and you sit

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down with them and compare and try
to figure out a way to make sure

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that the majority of the time that
they spend working is in doing things that

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they are both good at and enjoy
doing. And if that's not possible because

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of the role that they're in,
then it just means that you need to

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work with them to say, hey, you know, it appears that the

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role that you're in you'd rather be
in a different role. You know,

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I can't necessarily get you there right
now, but this is what we need

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to do. In order to get
you there. There needs to be an

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open spot. There needs to be
these are the skills you need to get

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better at. I can work with
you whatever it is that needs to happen

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to get that person into the role
they want to be in. You should

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try to do as a leader as
long as from their end they're holding up

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there under the bargain, which is
continuing to do well the things they're expected

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to do of the current job until
you can make that happen for them.

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You do this with each of your
people, and you'll find that over a

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very short period of time, you
can get more people cast in the right

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roles. You can get people doing
the mostly what they are both good at

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doing and what they enjoy doing.
Yeah, and this is one of those

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situations kind of talking or following up
on what you just talked about, which

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is like you want to over communicate
this with the team. You want to

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talk about this as an actual strategy
that you're doing. You want to tell

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people this is what you're looking to
accomplish in the feeling of like leveraging each

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other's strengths and what are those strengths, and then even maybe doing something where

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they get an opportunity to talk about
each other, like how do they see

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each other's strengths, what are the
things that they see in one another,

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to again bring the team along,
because when you start to move a team

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in this direction, it's important that
everybody on the team is really clear on

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what the strengths are of each person
on the team, because then you're if

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you ask them to do a little
bit of different work, or if you

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assign certain responsibilities to each of them, or if you have somebody spend more

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time doing this, somebody spend more
time doing that, there's not this feeling

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about like what's going on? How
come they only get to do that,

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you know, like when you over
communicate that with your team and you're in

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the space of leveraging strengths, it
is really important that everybody knows that that

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people have an opportunity to ask questions, that people have an opportunity to share

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what they believe their strengths are,
and then also that you get a chance

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to tell them what you think their
strengths are. So it's with all the

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right intents. If you start to
do this with the team, but people

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are not aware that you're doing it, it can sometimes come across as favorite

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or inequity in regards to how you
have work done or delegate it out.

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So it really is important that you
share, you know, what this is

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that you're doing, and inform others
and bring them along in this journey and

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the strategy. Yeah. Absolutely,
it's impossible to talk to every person simultaneously,

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and they will talk to each other
before you have a chance to talk

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to all of them, and there
will be some wondering going on. So

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absolutely communicate this early. Talk to
your people about it as you start the

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process, even before you start the
process, and make sure that they're on

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board with it. Also, if
you have any peers that are also kind

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of associated with you, know,
that have to kind of lead this team

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when in your absence or if this
is not something you do solo, then

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talk to your peers about it to
make sure that they're on the same page

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with you as far as the goals
that you have for the team and what

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you're working through to get through it. Thank you all for joining us for

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this discussion and employee engagement. We'll
see you next week and we'll talk about

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the R in the culture acronym,
which is recognizing behaviors. Have a great day,