As obvious as it sounds the main reason for unhappiness among staff is that they feel they do not receive enough praise and recognition for the job they are doing. People who feel ignored will do one of two things, they will either drop the level of their performance significantly or they will become a disruptive force in your business. The first is a cry for attention, even bad attention is better than being ignored and if they can’t get your attention by doing their job well, perhaps they will get it by performing badly. The second usually is the result of a clever person who is bored, their job no longer provides the challenge they need and the need to break out of the mundane leads them to create some drama of their own. This can have a really damaging effect on the team and indeed on the whole business if it is allowed to continue for any length of time. It is the managers responsibility to identify the problem, then the source of the problem and then to resolve it.
Most managers are too busy doing to take the time to start managing and I see this everywhere I go, I know that managers need training more than anyone else and if I may say so, apart from a few exceptions, credit managers can be very poor people managers, and when the team gets to a certain size, management itself becomes a full time job. Trouble is most of them think they know it all, and from a training point of view that is an impossible position to start from.
As a manager, no matter how busy you are take time to look around, look at each person, are they happy doing what they are expected to do? Do they have the tools and techniques to perform at the required level of excellence? Do they have other talents that could be tapped into for the benefit of the staff member, making their job more interesting and ultimately for the benefit of the whole business. Have they performed any task or group of tasks at a level of excellence? If they have make sure you give them immediate and appropriate praise. If they have not performed anything at a level of excellence lately, you could have a bigger problem!
When it comes to praise you have to be very careful. When you put someone up on a pedestal to tell them how wonderful they are:
It has to be sincere
You have to know the personality of the person in question. Should you deliver the praise in public or in private? Should the praise come from you? From a more senior manager? Or even directly from a customer?
To deliver in public they have to be an overall great performer.
If you put someone on a pedestal publicly, you are saying to the rest of the team “this is how I want you to perform” – make sure you do!
There are a number of exercises and questions you can ask a person to establish their triggers to make sure you are managing them correctly. The best measure is the performance levels of the team, how they interact with each other, how they interact with you, how they interact with other departments and probably most importantly, how they interact with your customers.
The simple (or maybe not so simple) ingredients of a high performing team:
Happy individuals who get to do what they love to do on a daily basis, who know exactly what is expected of them, who know that the work they are doing is important and they get a chance to celebrate the successes as they occur. Who work well on their own, as part of the team and always looking out for what is in the best interest of the company while making sure the customers are happy.
How well does your organisation shape up to this definition? If you think you would like to work for or create a team that measures up to these high standards – drop me a line and I will show you how it can be done.