simplerich

Continuing my month long on-again, off-again fire themed posting in honor of October being National Fire Prevention month is a post about fire as a gathering place for chatting, socializing, and seeking comfort.

One of my favorite management tools is the Daily 5 as talked about by Rosa Say over at Say Leadership Coaching.  The daily five minutes is, short-version, go read the long version, time for you, the manager, to take five minutes to talk with AND LISTEN TO your employee. This isn’t five minutes to tell them what to do or five minutes where you top down all over them. This isn’t five minutes of your critiquing their performance on some recent project and then ending with a “So, what’ve you got to say for yourself?” It’s five minutes of conversation with them. Yes, I said conversation which means there will be a point when we, as managers, need to shut up and listen… actively listen to our employees. Ask leading questions, repeat back to them what they’ve just said in your own words so they know you understand them. Make use of that information later to blackmail them into covering extra shifts so their HA! Didn’t think you were paying attention, that was a test. Obviously I don’t mean the last part. That was a joke.

But engaging our employees to actively talk to us about what’s important to them can only help us be better managers. It’s a great time to find out what the rumors are out there that are keeping people up nights and address them. Those little things, rumors, can be tremendously destructive. But they’re hard to bring up to a manager who an employee is nervous about talking to or with. If we build a good relationship with our employees and make sure they know it’s important to us that we communicate with each other about things that are important to each other we’ll both win.

It doesn’t just help by opening lines of communication open either. It helps all day long when you’re NOT engaged in conversation and see them. If they know they’ll have your ear at a future date they interrupt less frequently because they know they’ll get a chance to bring things to your attention, or ask questions later. If your employees think they’ll be able to talk to you once in a blue moon they’ll grab you whenever they see you or call or interrupt what you’re doing because they’re never sure when they’ll have a chance again. Once they get in the habit of talking to you, and know they’ll be able to again very soon they’ll dial back the pestering… most of the time. Some people are so needy they won’t stop pestering… those you can tell, “You know what. I’m buried right now, how ‘bout we catch up on that during our talk later OK? Thanks. Take care. Bye. Don’t let the door hit you in your codependent… See… I did it again there. Glad you’re still with me. But seriously, you can defer them if they’re not playing by the rules. Some people don’t have a filter. Some people think of something and call you on the phone immediately, afraid they’ll lose it if they don’t. Those people are in need of organization more than they’re in need of my advice or answers… typically I think they just need to read and implement a version of Getting Things Done, but that’s another topic for another time.

Fire Safety around outside fires is a big matter of being ready if it spreads. Fire’s a hungry beast and it’ll eat anything it can get to. If you’re burning brush or yard waste good on you for living somewhere that you can! Nothing says fall like the smell of burning leaves! That being said, you’ll want a fire break of some sort between your pile of leaves and your Porsche. You’ll also want something nearby in case the wind picks up and moves some embers from your fire to your front porch. Remember the fire extinguisher I suggested for the kitchen? That would work. A bucket of water would work. A garden hose turned on would work. Heck, a bucket of sand would work if you had one of those nearby but why would you? What wouldn’t work? A bucket or pan of cheap kitty litter. Some of that stuff is dusty and might explode on you if you threw it on an open flame and if you really want exploded used kitty litter on your front porch please… don’t invite me to any of YOUR fireside chats.

It’s National Fire Prevention Week and that means lots of Public Service Announcements (PSA’s) about fires, how to prevent them, and what to do in the case of one. There’s more to fire than destruction.

"Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It’s our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit."
– Mary Lou Retton

We, as managers who have a calling for management have that fire in our hearts and it’s our job to spread the fire to our employees. To do that, according to the fire triangle we’re going to need three things to get a fire going and keep it going. We’ll need heat, fuel, and air.

Heat: The heat we’ll need to kindle the fire in our employees is from our own heartfire*. It’s the heat of our passion for what we do and how we do it. Our employees need to see us doing what we care about and what we say we care about. If we say we care about customer service but we ignore the customer while we talk about a newest memo there’s no heat transfer there. The employee sees that we care about the customer until something else comes along. We need to pay attention to our attention. Our attention, our focus, that’s where our heat is going. If we want our employees to think something is important and get excited about it we need to do more than just say it. They need to see us live it. They need to see our excitement. They need to see our involvement. They need to catch the fever from our heartfire so they can burn with it as well.

Fuel: Fuel is what they’re going to burn with the heat we give them from our heartfire. We have to give them work to do. Yes. You heard it. Delegate, involve your crew in the work you want them excited about. Get out of their way and let them be great. Micromanaging is smothering their fire’s. It’s using your fire to burn up their fuel so they can’t catch fire themselves. Give them work, help them do it if they need it, coach them, kindle the fire in them and then, like they do on the TV show Survivor, tend the fire as it catches in the tinder and help it to grow. Don’t pile more fuel on the new flame and bury it. You’ll burn them out if you do that. Keep the fuel coming, and keep sharing the heat of your excitement and your heartfire to keep theirs going as they burn through the work you ask for their help on.

Oxygen: You’ve shared your excitement, and you’ve given them work to do and they’ve done it and if you want to keep them doing it, and keep that fire going you’ve got to fan the flames. You’ve got to reward good behavior with genuine, specific praise. Let them know that what they’re doing is good, appreciated, and important. Let them know that you noticed. Coach them if there’s need for improvement, but do so in the spirit of encouraging a fire to grow inside them. Rewarding good behavior is as important as any other leg in the fire triangle. When an employee knows that what they’re doing is important work, and it’s noticed by other people it helps keep the fire going. If you give an employee a job and never notice if it was done or how well it was done, it wouldn’t surprise me to come back a month or so later and find it being done worse than the first time they did it. Feed the fire with your praise.

There has to be a balance with these three things, and that’s where management becomes an art. The balance is different for different employees. Some think that praise is too much sooner than other people. Some people need it daily, and some think that sounds phony. Some need it weekly and any less is that management is ignoring them. Some will ask for more work and some will wait for you to notice if they’re capable of more or not. They’re testing you to see if you notice. So many employees and so many management styles, it’s the part that keeps every day fresh and different.

It IS National Fire Prevention week and I said I’d talk about fire safety. When I was 20 years old an on leave in the Navy I was driving home and saw a van on the side of the road with the hood up. I was in traffic and didn’t stop, but what struck me was that the engine was on fire. They were on the side of the road, the engine was on fire, and there was nothing they could do about it. Since then I’ve carried a small fire extinguisher in my car and kept one in my house. It may be that an engine fire does a lot of damage really fast, but letting it burn itself out isn’t going to make it any cheaper to fix. Same at the house. If you haven’t looked at getting a small fire extinguisher for your car or kitchen think about it. You may never use it, but if you need it and don’t have it well… I’m not one to say I told you so, but drop me an e-mail. I may start being the kind.

*Heartfire is a word I got from Orson Scott Card’s book, Seventh Son. It’s the first in a series called the Tales of Alvin Maker. It’s an alternate history series about colonial America and that doesn’t do it justice at all. It’s a great series of YA fiction I recommend whole-heartedly.

Multi-tasking got a lot of press a while back and it was a buzz word everybody was using, claiming to be great at multi-tasking at every opportunity. Today’s post over at Think Positive! resonates with me a great deal as I work with a new manager on productivity, workflow, and how to get things done more effectively. Day 1 typically involves me observing and helping out, where I’m just another set of hands and feet while they show me their work flow. Frequently Day 1 consists of me watching them start a dozen projects and finishing one or two. This was no different.

Bottom line – this research showed that heavy multitaskers don’t filter out irrelevant information, organize memories, or switch attention from one thing to another well. This suggests that heavy multitaskers need to slow down and focus on fewer things at once- we would be more productive. ~ from Think Positive!

This is what I see a lot of, and it starts out by accident. I’m working on project X, inventorying my widgets, when someone comes over with a question. Now. I can’t ignore customers so I go to help the customer and then return to inventorying my widgets, only while I was on my way back from Aisle 72 I noticed a spill of Spork-juice and I go get the mop to clean that up. I clean up the Spork-juice, put back the mop, notice the sink is dirty, and clean the sink. What’s that buzzing noise? EEP! The 4ft fluorescent in here is about to go. Better replace that before I need to replace the ballast. The bulbs are in the shed. I’ll just go get the bulbs, what the heck? Weeds in the corner. I’ll pull those as I go towards the shed so I don’t waste steps. Ouch! Prickly pear?!? What’s that doing here? I”ll go inside and get the gloves I  keep by the register. Uh oh… customer wants help finding the Spatulas; they’re by the widgets so I get back to my inventorying them. ARGH!!!

You think that doesn’t happen? It happens every day to every manager out there and all that stuff needs doing. It just doesn’t all need doing RIGHT NOW. That’s the filter that keeps missing. In fact, most of the time the manager has people who can do the work they’re doing. They don’t mind doing it because it’s a nice break from their work, but honestly… it’s not their job. If they’re doing the work of an entry level person then what’s the entry level person going to do? They’re not doing their job. The most expensive person in the store is pulling weeds and wiping down the sink while the work they’re supposed to be doing… inventorying the widgets, isn’t getting done.

In my examples above a lot of the things weren’t being done at the same time… so weren’t truly multi-tasking will be what those who are in favor of multi-tasking will say. If the manager were listening to a podcast while doing the widget counting that would be multi-tasking. True. But how much attention could be paid to either job then? If the podcast is so dull that a person can count during it without missing anything how much attention is the podcast worth? If the podcast is so good that the counter can’t count then the counting isn’t being done right. Attention is, to me, a gate, and I can focus well on one thing at a time. I can do more than one thing at a time, but I can’t do it well, and in my experience most people can’t either. So, all those things that come up that are distractions can either be put on a list to do later, or delegated.

Delegating isn’t dumping, and if it isn’t done by the right people, at some point the manager may have to step in and do it rather than leave the job undone… but they shouldn’t be the first person to do it all the time. They’ve got other work to do, and that’s the point of this post. When the manager HAS to stop doing what they’re doing to do something equally or more important, e.g. helping a customer, that is not multi-tasking. That’s switching tasks. That’s different, and it’s the right thing to do. Paying attention to what’s important, and giving it your undivided attention gets an important job done faster and more accurately than half-way doing it while half-way doing another job.

We all do it though. We’ll have the TV on while we write a blog post, but we wouldn’t manage our employee’s payroll while eating a bowl of soup and watching Spongebob Squarepants. That wouldn’t be a good idea at all… certainly not for the employees who suddenly find themselves being paid in crabby patties. If we find ourselves delegating more than we’re doing we may be guilty of dumping. If we don’t remember that the people we’re delegating to also have something on their plate we’re setting them and ourselves up for failure. We need to let the employee know where on the list of priorities the new job is. If it’s changing a light bulb that will be going bad soon, that’s not as important as helping a customer, or cleaning up a spill that could be hazardous to others. It’s our job to prioritize. We need to prioritize our work and our employee’s work. If we don’t, and if we treat everything as equally important and try and get it all done at once we’re going to get a whole lot of stuff not done at once, important and unimportant.

Do you want the pilot of an airplane you’re a passenger on to multi-task? Do you want your surgeon or your kid’s surgeon to be multi-tasking? If you think they can’t do two jobs at once why would you think you should? If it’s important that they focus then it’s important that we focus. One thing at a time… it won’t hurt, honest.

And as an aside: If you need help getting things done, getting organized, and want a good podcast to listen to while you’re doing something else? Give Get It Done Guy‘s podcast a listen. He’s also got a book coming out soon, keep your eyes open.

“If the owner of the company decided he didn’t want this store any more and he just gave it to you and your income were based on store income what would be the first things you would change?”

That’s my favorite question to ask employees when I go visit someone else’s store. If I’m there to help fill in, train, evaluate, or whatever it is that takes me somewhere that’s unusual to me. It’s amazing to hear the front liner’s ideas on what their stores need.

The majority of time the ideas are pretty good. More than half the time the ideas are easily implemented at once. And even more super-surprisingly I think only once did someone say “Pay the employees more.” We’re not a huge payer. We have entry level positions requiring no specialized education or training beyond what is gotten on the job and the base pay is low plus sales based bonuses. When I give them the hypothetical kingship they don’t give the employees a raise.

Today I asked 5 more people that question and none of them said they needed more money. They wouldn’t refuse it of course if I offered it and from what I saw at least two of them deserved more than they were getting in base pay (I’m also sure they make up for it in sales bonuses. They were great with customers.) And the ideas they DID come up with I was able to approve and get going with just a few phone calls. The ideas were good, didn’t cost me much at all to do and it is always amazing to see how much an employee’s attitude will change if they feel listened to… if they feel like their input matters… if they feel like someone cares what they have to say about how things are done… if they realize that they’re trusted.

Another surprising thing to me, and not good surprising, sad surprising… is how often employees are surprised when I ask them. Employees who have been at a store over a year, over two years… and nobody’s ever asked for their input before. They almost never put me on hold or don’t have an answer. It’s a question they’ve thought about. It’s something they’ve rolled around in their head when they’re working an overnight shift. How exhausting must it be for a manager to do all the thinking and not ever ask their employees for input? Why would any manager do that?

Sure, there are some top-down things I do and I have to do them. I’m still a boss. I get that part. But that doesn’t mean it’s all one-way, top-down, or that I never ask the people doing the front-line work day in and out what I can do to make their job better. Just the opposite. The more I can help them be more effective the more work I can get out of them. I’m not completely altruistic in this. I’m their manager. The more I can help them accomplish the better we all do. I’m trying to get as much out of them as I can get and have them grow with the company and move up and out. Ideally we’ll continue to grow and we’ll need managers and I’d love to provide them all from my area. So, I ask how I can help them and do what I can to help them be more effective and then I work to get it done for them.

When your biggest problem is your most senior employees then your biggest problem may be you! As a manager I’ve been fortunate to get crews that stick around and continue to work for me and then I have said to myself, “Well, they know what they’re doing. There’s no reason for me to nag them to do what I know they need to do.”

I think we all know where this is going. I, as their manager, have to find ways to keep those old dogs doing old tricks as well as new tricks… tricks they’ve done so often they can do them faster and better than I can in a lot of cases. They should be able to… they do them more frequently than I do. Well, they used to.

One way an employee starts slipping is when we, as their managers start slipping on noticing if they’re doing what they’re supposed to. We start not noticing, or start making excuses for them. “Well, Mongo missed his cleaning list last night, but I’m sure he’ll do it next time he works.” Once the long-time employee has his manager trained to make his excuses for him he’s golden. We have to notice when they do it exceedingly well and we need to notice when they do a bad job.

I don’t have the answers on how to keep all my employees motivated all the time. I can’t do that. I’m not a good pusher. I don’t lead well by nose-rings either. I’m better at, I think, getting people to want to do better because they want to. That for me is more important. The whole carrot/stick approach works if you know what carrot people want. Money isn’t the only carrot out there and it’s not the best carrot in my experience. That doesn’t mean I have never used it or that I’ll never use it again. Just that it’s not the only one out there.

One of the dirty tricks about management is that sometimes it’s more than just getting great results out of people. Sometimes it’s getting to watch someone go from being a fair employee to being a great employee… during that transition, when the employee is growing their manager is, to use an ugly word… manipulating that employee… tricking them to do things. There are a ton of books out there on the subject and I love reading them. Helping them help you keep them engaged is often as easy as just asking them to help you. They’re long-timers for a reason. They are typically the type who are willing to help.

Complacency is the danger on those long time employees. Lately I’ve been battering my head against that wall at a couple locations and have gone with the shake things up for the sake of shaking things up route. New checklists. New cleaning lists made by new people. New duty distribution. What used to be store front jobs now merging with store back jobs. Having the lifers… anybody here over five years has earned that title from me (January is 15 years for me)… having the lifers help make the lists, and having them intentionally trade jobs with other employees in other departments has been helpful.

None of this is new. None of this is earthshaking or digg fodder I know. But it’s important… and as a long time employee myself. I’d forgotten it until recently. I’d gotten used to seeing the same thing and seeing what I expected to see recently. My boss recognized it in me though. He didn’t come right out and accuse me of going through the motions, but he did point out that I was enjoying special projects more than day to day stuff and that I tended to do better on special projects than I was doing on the day to day. He never said I wasn’t doing well on the day to day stuff… just what areas I was doing better. Then he stopped talking and waited for it to bug me enough to come back to him.

So, look around… are you going through the motions? Are your employees doing it?  I was. I’m better now. I’ve been very lucky with bosses lately.