GALT Consulting LLC

I have told the story in the past about losing my wallet several years ago when I lived in an apartment complex.  I had dropped it in the parking lot and someone found it... but they waited a full day to contact me.   After soul searching through the afternoon and evening and overnight, the finder decided to do the right thing and I finally got a call the next day.   We met in the parking lot and he proudly handed me the wallet.  "Go ahead and look through it... it's all there.", he said with the look of someone who had taken great pride in the act.  I told him that wasn't necessary and shook his hand.  I then tried to hand him a $20 bill....  I could see the man visible deflate.  The pride was gone in an instant and he looked dejected.  Only later did I understand... by offering him the money, I had turned a triumph in morality into a financial decision.  For you Maslow fans out there, I knocked him down the pyramid.

Don't pull the rug out from under your employees.  When your people do something really great, allow them the honor of doing it for the right reasons (because they love what they do).  It is tempting to show your appreciation by giving them something in return... in fact, this is often encouraged in management schools.  This treats people like machines instead of like people.

Maslow showed us that people have different layers of needs.  If you are hungry, you probably aren't going to be very open to learning new concepts or pursuing more fulfilling avenues.  This makes sense from a biological standpoint.  We are hardwired not to get so distracted on our creativity that we forget to eat.

Since food has become a lesser issue for most people than it was for our caveman descendants, a new basic need is money.  Many people have a job they would love to do, but they don't do it because it won't meet their monetary needs.  We are hardwired to think this way. 

It is also easy for us to get distracted. 

I know many stories of people who were working in their ideal job and get fooled into a job that is much worse for more money.  They generally regret the decision.  It seems obvious to take a different job that pays a lot more... but truthfully, it is far from obvious.  Our instincts work to make sure we are fed before we look to be fulfilled. 

So as an employer, be careful not to distract your employees.  People often ask me about compensation and reward structures and I always respond with the same advice... "Pay Quietly".  Make sure your people are neither too worried about not making enough money or too distracted by opportunities to make more.  Make sure they are focused on doing the right things and when they do the right things, let them know you appreciate it from the bottom of your heart, not your wallet.

A manager sees a problem and decides to solve it.   Isn't that their job?

No.

Solving a problem in your organization yields 2 different rewards.  The first reward is the solution to the problem.  This can be significant or almost unnoticeable.  The second reward is the opportunity to get people in the organization engaged by allowing them to solve the problem. This is almost always very significant because people love the opportunity to develop solutions when it aligns with their own strengths and the purpose of the organization.

Managers often rob their employees of this opportunity thinking that they are helping out.  Then they get so busy solving problems that they wonder why their people won't get in the game.  The truth is that their people aren't being allowed to get in the game. 

A client of mine had a significant issue with scheduling their monthly employees.  Anyone who has done this before knows the complexities involved, especially when you try to be flexible and accommodate the needs of the employees.  Each month, the manager would develop the schedule, and each month the employees would complain about it.  The manager worked harder and harder each month to develop and better method for designing the schedule, but the employees continued to complain.

Finally, I suggested that the manager let the employees have a crack at a solution.  Remembering that we never want to empower a team without real power, we "drew a box" for the employees working on the problem... in other words, we gave them rules to follow (ex: no one works more than 35 hours a week).  The employees met and discussed various options.  2 things resulted:

1) The employees developed an innovative 4 day work schedule that they really liked and fit the rules management had laid out.

2) The employees discovered how hard scheduling is and gave the manager some slack.  They were suddenly thinking more like owners than like workers.  They knew the challenges of scheduling and appreciated how hard the manager had worked to get it right. 

The point here is that the manager could have developed the same innovative schedule, but the employees would have resisted it and would have continued to complain.  The opportunity would have been lost to get real engagement and buy-in from the staff.

So the next time you see a problem in your organization, ask yourself if this is an opportunity to engage your people.  Sometimes you'll want to just go ahead and solve the problem, but taking a little extra time to get your people involved will yield great results down the road and result in less work!

I have already introduced to you the idea the company with most talented people wins... and then rejected that notion.

It's a misconception that there are "good" and "bad" employees out there.  Those of you who have had employees for any length of time will likely immediately disagree with me.  You've had some employees come in looking like rock stars and turn out to be poisonous to your organization through a negative attitude or plain incompetence.  You've likely had others that come in quietly and become solid, reliable and maybe even critical to your organization.

The myth that is propagated in the world of HR is that these "good" or "bad" employees entered the workforce being good or bad.  Yet I frequently see "bad" employees jump to other companies and become "good"... and vice versa.  I must admit that in my own career, I have likely played on both sides of the average line.  So this means that what you do with an employee once they enter your company has a large impact on how they will turn out.  I think there are 3 things that put an employee on the path of good or bad...

1) Natural Strengths - Every person is hardwired with a set personality.  Some people are very imaginative.  They live in the future and can think abstractly.  Others live within their 5 senses.  If they can't see, feel, hear, taste, or smell something, it doesn't exist.  These examples are opposites of each other and each can be a strengths or weakness in a given job.  You probably don't want an overly imaginative accountant just as you can't expect someone with very little imagination to create a new process or product out of thin air.  Science shows us that it is very difficult to change your personality and that working against your natural strengths is a bad idea that will cause stress.

2) Baggage - I am selecting some powerful language here, but these are the traits that have evolved within a person that impacts how they make decisions.  A person who has been nurtured their entire lives and have been given opportunities that fall within their strengths will likely enter a new job with a very positive work ethic and a desire to succeed.  A person who has been beat down by their previous employers  may enter a job more guarded or even with a chip on their shoulder.  Other baggage that enters the picture includes a person's integrity, lifestyle, and even their education.  Baggage is not permanent, although many people like their baggage and find change difficult.  The key to shifting a person's baggage is to change their environment.  (Sounds like a good future article!)

3) Engagement- An employee comes in with their natural strengths and their baggage, but the real question is now what do you do with them to help them become a rock star with you.  This is the area where you have the most control.  This is also the area that is commonly ignored within many companies.  The key to getting an employee engaged within your company is to put them in an environment where they naturally motivated.  Fortunately, we know how to do that.  People are hardwired to become engaged when they work in an environment where they get to 1) utilize their strengths, 2) with some autonomy, 3) for a common purpose. 

Some employees are such a bad natural fit for a job that they can't be salvaged (can they be moved?).  Some employees come with so much baggage (or pick up baggage through negative experiences within your company) that they can't get past it and can't be salvaged.  In my experience, these 2 scenarios where natural strengths and/or baggage are so out of alignment that they can't be saved are rare.  I would say that fewer than 5% of employees fall within this category.  When someone does fall within this category, the best thing you can do for THEM is to let them move on to their next position that aligns better with who they are.  As a friend of mine says.... promote them to their next job.

This means that for the vast majority of your people, all you need to do is find ways to help them utilize their strengths.  Give them some autonomy within their jobs.  Let them create some space within your organization where they can hit the ball out of the park regularly.  Work with them to define your company mission and vision and then refer back to that mission regularly as you work together. 

The result of this approach is nothing less than a renaissance of talent within your organization... coming from your own people.  In other words, the winning strategy isn't to find talent, but to cultivate it.