The Truth About Getting the Best From People

by Martha I. Finney

  Consider the context of the crisis—If the situation directly affects multiple employees (a severe hurricane, for instance), consult with the corporate-level HR office to brainstorm ways you can respond to the urgency. You might be able to arrange for cash advances and loans to help employees secure temporary housing or even relocate to other company locations around the country.

  If the crisis is affecting only one individual, discreetly talk with that employee to explore ways that you can help.

  Distance from you can appear to be indifference to them.

  Don't take "nothing" for an answer—If you ask an employee whose head is swimming with overwhelm and panic, "Is there anything I can do?" chances are you're going to hear, "Nothing, thanks." That's the easy, polite answer. Don't believe it. There's plenty that you can do. You just have to think of it yourself.

  There's plenty that you can do. You just have to think of it yourself.

  If the employee is intensely private or easily embarrassed, do something quiet, such as cutting that person a check to pay for a personal chef for a week or so. This way, nourishment is taken care of while the employee is focusing on the emergency. If your group is a close team, work up a roster of volunteers who will share the duty of making sure the employee's kitchen is stocked with food and the house is clean.

  If the emergency is beyond your reach to help with directly, do something symbolic but still meaningful and significant. If your employee's family was involved in a serious accident, for instance, organize a departmental (or even organization-wide) blood drive. Or if the employee is dealing with cancer in the family, adopt a related fundraising event as your department's number-one extracurricular project.

  Seek the help you need to know how to reach out appropriately—It's especially important that all your employees know that you care about them. But it may not come naturally to you to open your own heart and show your emotions during this time of crisis. You may be the boss, but you're not God. You can't read minds or see deep inside the hearts of your employees. Reassuringly, you shouldn't be expected to, either. If you feel that you're over your head with your employee's issue or behavior, get advice and support from someone you trust in your organization, be it your own boss, HR, or your employee assistance program.

  How you treat one employee in need will tell all your employees that they can count on you should their own crisis come. And don't forget: It's entirely possible that you could be on the receiving end of compassion the next time. The culture of caring that you demonstrate with each employee in crisis can flow upward in your direction just as easily as outward throughout your department. Either way, the caring that your team experiences and expresses will bind them as a team of mutual trust and reliance.

  Truth 25

  B players are your A team

  We all know who the A players are. They're the ones with the sterling resumes who track steady upward trajectories, starting with preschool. They've worked for your competitors and know all their secrets. They keynote the big conferences and get invited to the receptions that the riffraff don't know about—not even you. When they open their mouths to speak, everything grinds to a halt, even the factory floor, so people can hear every single word. They're paid exorbitant salaries, as well they should be. They're quite the catch, you know. You're lucky to have them.

  You know who they are, but you don't know them very well. That's understandable. They haven't been with your department very long. And, actually, what's the point of getting to know them anyway? They won't be with you very long either. They're on their way up. So, a last-minute lunch is probably out of the question. They're busy having lunch with your boss. Or a recruiter. Or your competitor.

  If you want company for lunch, ask a B player to join you. B players, who are too frequently discounted as also-rans, almost-but-not-quites, are not only much better company—but they also make your business a much better company. If you're looking for glitz, you won't find it on the B player. The B player will never be on the cover of Vanity Fair or even at the parties. The B player is too busy printing the magazine, making sure each copy is an exquisite, delightful, crisp jewel, to aspire to being the jewel itself. B players are brilliant at what they do, so they don't need a spotlight to shine.

  B players are brilliant at what they do, so they don't need a spotlight to shine.

  B players, in short, are the ones you can't do without. In the bright light flashing around the A players, the B players may seem like failures in comparison. Ho-hum, hum-drums. But that's only if you value aspiration and ego. Which, as a wise manager, you don't. You value steady, focused, dedicated work. Attention to detail. A big-picture understanding of the industry. A deep well of institutional memories. A rich network of long-standing relationships. Firmly ensconced deep inside their jobs, they're not exposed to the fights or flights of fancy that come along with A players and their whims. They can take the idea-of-the-month and transform it into both strategy and tactic that will push the business forward. You won't notice what they've done, because they're busy working on the next project, not looking for the limelight.

  B players, in short, are the ones you can't do without.

  Don't get the wrong idea about B players. They're not losers. Some of them are actually A players on a breather—super-high achievers who saw what personal price they were paying dedicating so much of their lives to their careers and decided to balance their lives out a little better. Some of them really love their jobs and simply aren't interested in climbing the career ladder. Or they're attached to their team members and get their fulfillment simply working every day with people they like. Or they're proud of the company. Or they're proud of the creativity, accuracy, and excellence with which they do their job. And so they do it exceedingly well. And you count on them.

  But B players are also not martyrs or selfless saints. They need recognition and reward for the jobs they do. They just might not be impressed with the sparkly promises that you routinely dangle in front of A players. They may not be motivated by the potential of the next promotion in a new city that would force them to uproot their contented family. But they might especially appreciate more salary. Or a paid trip to that conference that can help them do their job better. Or a mentor who can help them identify and help them achieve their next career goal (that they define in their own terms).

  Some of them are actually A players on a breather.

  B players are truly high performers. Make sure they know you notice and appreciate who they are and what they do for your organization. No one wants to be invisible. So if you are too blinded by the flashy sparkle of your A players, there may come a day when it occurs to you that your precious B players have mysteriously disappeared.

  Truth 26

  High performers have enough coffee mugs

  You're a high performer. You're proud of your work. You do it independently, and you take responsibility for its outcome—on good and bad days. Exactly how many coffee mugs do you personally aspire to own before you can feel truly recognized and appreciated for all your contributions to your company? The best guess is a nice, round number—zero.

  And do you really need another acrylic doodad, even if it does have an engraved, gold-tone label with your name on it? How about a balloon with the word "thanks" emblazoned on it? Do those things really help you sustain your passion for your job? Probably not. Quality employees don't need junk to keep up their passion for the job. They just need to be noticed and appreciated for what they do. That's probably the way you prefer to be treated. And that's also how your employees like to be treated.

  Employee recognition and rewards programs can actually do more harm than good. For instance, the nature of the reward or recognition itself speaks volumes about what kind of employee behaviors you want. If you want your people to act like children, give them toys and then expect them to be delighted—or at least act like they are. If you want your people to be self-satisfied with insignificance, give them trashy trinkets for the smallest
amount of accomplishment.

  If, however, you want your employees to be authentic, adult, and self-motivating about their responsibilities and expectations, be real in return about the sincerity and specificity of your appreciation.

  Lavish the recognition; spare the rewards—When it comes to intangible forms of recognition (we're not talking paychecks and pensions here), people want to be noticed for investing their individual efforts toward the big-picture mission. No one likes to be invisible or a number. Everyone has a name, face, and life story. Know your direct reports—and preferably their direct reports—by name. Know a little bit about who they are, what brings them to your team, and what their dreams are. And let them know you know.

  Employee recognition and rewards programs can actually do more harm than good.

  When you do give tangible rewards, make those rewards specific to the person or to the accomplishment that's being celebrated—Even a relatively "catch them doing something right" $20 spot reward should have significance that speaks to them personally. Challenge yourself to come up with specific ideas for each employee. That tells them that you pay attention to who they are in addition to what they're doing for you.

  Challenge yourself to come up with specific ideas for each employee.

  Give them a gift certificate to their future—Send them to a key industry conference, for instance. Or offer to pay for a college course of their choice.

  Give them the chance to benefit the future of others—Recognize them for their wisdom. Get someone to interview them about their secrets of success, and gather their collective advice and insights to share with the rest of the company as an internal training program.

  Let people see that you're trying—Person-to-person appreciation doesn't come easy for many managers. If saying nice things to an employee's face makes you feel awkward and vulnerable, your employees probably already know this about you. So don't hide it. Deal with it. Some managers who are struggling with this personal behavior challenge will put 10 pennies in one pocket, shifting a penny to another pocket every time they express sincere appreciation to an employee. Just because you may have to force yourself to do it this way doesn't make the appreciation itself any less authentic. You are working hard to integrate this habit into your daily work life. And your efforts will be noticed. Your people might even recognize you for it.

  Sincere appreciation is an essential part of a workplace culture in which people throughout the ranks behave respectfully and encouragingly to each other. This is a way of life, not just some program goal to meet. Your people will know if you're speaking from the heart or reading from a script.

  It really is the thought that counts. So when you want to recognize your employees in a way that's meaningful to them, put some thought behind it!

  Truth 27

  Discipline deepens engagement

  Is there anyone who truly enjoys the discipline process inside his company? Even when managers are supported with rigorous and detailed discipline procedures, they're still nerve-wracking for everyone involved. Employees in the hot seat know they're possibly one step closer to being terminated; the manager is at risk for losing employees who once showed promise; and even the rest of the department is watching closely. Will the manager treat the employee fairly, according to the procedures laid out in the employee manual? Will the team lose a friend? Will a hardworking coworker get the break he deserves? Or will a slacker be allowed to stay on the job because the manager doesn't have the spine to fire her?

  Discipline procedures themselves are too specific and driven by local law to cover in this book. But you might find it reassuring to look at how formal procedures can actually support your company's commitment to all its employees. If you follow them consistently, correctly, and humanely, you will be sending the message to your team members that they can trust you to fairly sustain the culture of excellence that you are building in less emotionally charged ways. As much as fairly applied disciplinary processes serve to correct the immediate problem with the target employee, they also serve to reassure all employees that the system works for them, mainly to the good.

  Be discreet in your disciplinary process. Don't share your thoughts and plans with the target employee's coworkers. When you gossip about the private affairs of your employee, there are at least three victims (assuming you don't count the company as a whole, because of the privacy breach that could be actionable).

  When you gossip about the private affairs of your employee, there are at least three victims.

  The first victim is the target employee, of course. Whatever he's done or not done should never be held up as an object lesson to his coworkers. Suffering public shaming is in no one's job description. The second victim is you. By gossiping, you have sent word to your entire department that your team can't trust you with their vulnerabilities and flaws. Even the most unsophisticated employee knows that, as the boss, you're honor-bound for keeping the private concerns of your target employee just that—private. If you must talk, take it up with your own supervisor, whose job it is to equip you with what you need to cultivate excellence in your department.

  There is also a third victim—one we typically don't think about in the gossip daisy chain. That's the person who had to listen to you talk about his coworker. You could be talking about that person's friend, and now you've burdened the coworker with information and secrets he knows he shouldn't have. Unless this is truly an unusual circumstance (such as a crime that involves the employees directly), your discretion tells your employees the most important thing they need to know: They can trust you.

  Your discretion tells your employees the most important thing they need to know: They can trust you.

  Stick to a process of fairness, which is precisely what the formal discipline process gives you. As already discussed earlier in this book, when employees trust the process, they will be more likely to accept the outcome—even if they disagree with it. When you apply your company's discipline procedures precisely as they are laid out in the manual, no one can argue with you that you were unfair. They may not like the idea that you punished—or even terminated—a popular coworker. But if they can see that everything you did was fair, they'll come to accept your decision sooner or later—and respect you for making a painful, but possibly right, choice.

  People are only human. And almost everything that happens on the job speaks directly to their survival needs. So, as much as they may care about the person who just went through the disciplinary procedure, there is still the essential question in their heads: "What will this mean to me?"

  Use the disciplinary procedure well, wisely, and kindly, and your actions will give employees the message: "This means that you're working in a department that takes your work and career extremely seriously. I care about your personal well-being. And I'm ready to go through the necessary pain to make this department right again."

  Truth 28

  You don't have to inherit the problem employees

  Unless you spend your life exclusively in serial start-ups, with each promotion you'll probably be managing previously established workgroups. Their systems, codes, behaviors, and organizational memories will already be in place when you show up. And you'll feel like you're constantly interrupting a long-running conversation. One of those conversations will be each employee's past performance on the job. And some of those old stories won't be pretty. As the new manager, you have the blank-slate choice of deciding whether these are "to be continued" stories or fresh-start opportunities for both you and the problem employees.

  Take the past in moderation—Your predecessor may have had the record-keeping skills of a bionuclear researcher but still had gotten it wrong with your problem employees. The relationship could have gotten off to the wrong start from the very beginning for any number of reasons. There was a spate of lateness. A discourteous word passed between them in an absent-minded moment. Whatever happened, no matter what the employees did (good or bad), those events were evaluated through a negati
ve filter. But now the past is past, and this is the chance for both you and your problem employees to get it right.

  In addition to your team meetings, have private one-on-one meetings with all your employees, not just the problem ones—Give all your employees every chance to tell you how they feel about the team, the projects, the department, the company—but not about how they feel about each other individually. Learn what the collective frame of mind is like as a result of your predecessor's regime and what their hopes are for progressive, productive change. See if your problem employees feel the same way or have completely different ideas of what the team should be doing.

  But now the past is past, and this is the chance for both you and your problem employees to get it right.

  During your private meeting with the problem employees, let them know that you see their file shows some difficulties (unless they're both a problem and stupid, they're not going to be surprised.) Ask them what their perspective is. Keep the conversation as unemotional as possible, but hear them out completely. Let them do most of the talking.

  Resist the urge to suggest that they look at the situation from your predecessor's perspective—You can bet your new promotion that others have tried this tactic before and failed. You can also bet that the minute you speak on behalf of the past, you've joined it in their eyes.