Question: How can you tell who the owner is when you are in a restaurant?

Answer: They are the ones picking the s—t off of the floor!

The “ownership mentality” is often discussed as the ultimate employee profile. Who wouldn’t want a team that thinks and acts like your business is theirs? Is this wishful thinking, Pollyanna? For many leaders this no optimists theory, it how they build exceptional teams. They have discovered what observers of human nature have known for many years; as Dale Carnegie observed over 75 years ago: there is only one way to get people to do something- they have to want to! The companies with the best teams win, and the best teams are made up of engaged individuals who happily perform their duties because they know the company cares about them and that they matter.
In his book Its Your Ship, Captain Michael Abrashoff related how he turned the traditional military hierarchy upside-down and became a “servant-leader” to his crew. In 1997, he assumed command of the USS Benfold, a ship armed with every cutting-edge system available. Unfortunately, its productivity was abysmal. The crew was miserable and couldn’t wait to get out of the service. It was like many businesses: poor moral, high turnover and low productivity. It also resembles how the restaurant business is often approached: beautiful décor and equipment, the latest high-tech lighting and sound systems, with scant attention to building an engaged team.

Abrashoff dramatically turned the ship around by realizing it was his job to make each member of his crew feel that they mattered as individuals. He began this dramatic transition by interviewing each and every member of the crew. He listened to their concerns and complaints. Their ideas and suggestions became the foundation for the transition from mediocre to great. The Benfold became the model of naval efficiency and productivity under his leadership. He discovered the same truth as Carnegie- people rarely achieve greatness in an environment where they feel they don’t matter. The slogan on the Benfold became, “It’s your ship”, the ultimate reference to ownership.

Abrashoff has since become a sought-after management consultant, sharing his experience on the Benfold with business leaders who want real change for their organizations. They have discovered the power of the servant-leader approach and are reaping the benefits of a more engaged, productive team. Unfortunately, this approach is often perceived as counterintuitive and even scary to many managers. Will we lose control? Will my team still respect me if I become a servant-leader? It is a radical change for many managers, but they must realize that the team knows they are the boss. True power is achieved by taking your hands of the reigns and empowering your team. Companies like Disney, Google and Southwest Airlines clearly communicate to their team through values, not rules. By humanizing the traditional rulebook approach to management the result, again, is a productive, engaged team.

4 Ways to Create a Team of “Owners”:

1. Change the way you think about your team and your role as leader

Your job is to positively influence your team. Servant-leaders create great cultures though caring, trust and candor. Your people aren’t there to serve you, you are there to serve and empower them. True power and influence is achieved by pulling, not pushing.

2. Take time to get to know your team
One-on-ones are the most effective way to discover the needs of your team and your business. See your business through the eyes of your people. You will be amazed at what you discover.

3. Have a big culture and a small rulebook
Communicate your expectations through shared values with your team. By using core values instead of rules, you reinforce team-centered behaviors and create a culture of caring.

4. Communicate, communicate, communicate

As GE CEO Jack Welsh preached, a leader’s job is to make sure your team not only sees your vision, but they live and breathe it. Communicate your expectation’s every day and your team will believe in your vision, too.

One of my favorite places to dine is a place in Wiscasset, Maine called Red’s Eats. It’s nothing more than 15 by 6 foot shack perched on a corner in a quaint New England tourist town. It is famous for its lobster rolls; a local delicacy with variations on the recipe from a mayo-based lobster salad to plain steamed and shelled. They are almost always served in “New England-style” hot dog rolls, usually grilled to a golden brown in butter. Red’s version is a whole “chick” lobster steamed, shelled, chilled and served with hot butter for dipping on the side. It is a very generous portion and perfectly presented.

Everyday hundreds of people stand in line for up to two hours to experience Red’s. It is a sight to see! Often, the Wiscasset police direct traffic in front of Red’s because the line becomes so long it poses a public safety hazard. I don’t “do” lines. I usually avoid lines like the plague. But last week I happily and compliantly took my place in line at Red’s. And it wasn’t only for the lobster roll. My payoff is handing my sweaty cash to owner Debbie Cronk, daughter of Al “Red” Gagnon. Red is dead, so Debbie is carrying on her father’s legacy as having “Maine’s #1 lobster roll”. I fed my family of four for $100. We are talking some hefty “fast-food” prices here!

While standing in line, I tried to do some “guess-ta-mating” of Red’s annual sales based on the cost of a lobster roll at $18, with a per person average of $25, after you buy the fries and drinks. Not everyone gets the lobster roll. There are cheaper items on the menu. One women I stood in line with for over an hour (I got there early) ordered the BLT. I didn’t quite get that! Whatever the annual sales (I’ve heard as high as $14 million) it has to be the highest sales per square foot in the country, especially since its a seasonal operation.

Back to why I love handing my sweaty money to Debbie Cronk: she makes me cry. Several years ago I decided to break down and stand in line at Red's. I had passed Red's many times, not stopping, on our way to Port Clyde. We rent a cottage there every year from a fifth generation Maine lobster fisherman. We eat alot of free lobster. So why stand in line, let alone pay! As I slowly approached the window that first time, I took in all the chatter around me. Devotees enthusiastically shared their Red's stories and I learned some of the history. Debbie Cronk grew up at Red's, learning the lobster roll trade from her dad. When Red bought the shack in the 1950's, it was a bankrupt lunch cart. Red's approach to business and his dedication to his “WHY” never waivered. When he established Red's Eats, it was much like the many other clam shacks along Maine's coast. But Mr. Gagnon's outgoing demeanor and rolls bulging with lobster meat set his business apart from others. ''My dad was the kind of guy who'd talk to anyone,'' said Cronk. ''He was interested in people, so while they would wait in line he'd ask them questions, start a conversation.''

So when I finally got to the window to order, I felt a wave of emotion sweep over me. I actually started to cry. I don't cry easily, so I was taken by surprise. There, in the window, was Debbie – working hard and dishing out love with every order. I was overwhelmed by her hospitality and hardwork. She takes every order, assembles it, takes payment and with extraordinary sincerity thanks you for your “nice order”. Remember, this place makes BIG money. Debbie doesn't need to work. But there she was, carrying on her father's legacy with passion and purpose. I really got me!

We often write about how a strong WHY creates brand loyalty. It is abundently evident at Red's Eats. There, in a small Maine village, in an unassuming shack, was one of the finest examples of how “starting with WHY” can create legions of fans and set you apart. It actually brought this old, crusty hospitality guy to tears!

Across the street is another lobster shack. No line there. Can't tell you the name and I've never been there. Probably never will. Unless my girl Debbie brings her WHY over there. I bet they would have a line then!

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There are numerous management “styles”…

• Autocratic
• Democratic
• Persuasive
• MBWA: “Management by Walking Around”
• Paternalistic

…to name a few. No matter your style preference, the question must always be: “How do I build highly engaged, happy and productive teams?” It’s a simple answer: People need both direction and connection. It is the balance of these two powerful management essentials that create engaged, happy teams. Remove either component and you go from engagement to dysfunctional.

Direction is an obvious essential management function. It is unfortunately rarely executed properly or executed at all. I have sat in countless management meetings where the management team complains about their employees. My first question is always: “Have you spoken to them directly about this?” If they are honest, the answer is usually, “Uh, no”. Truth be told, most managers don’t know how to give proper direction to their team. Our preferred method is the classic, One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard. It teaches a manager how to get the best out of their people by actually setting clear goals and giving them immediate, behavior-specific feedback. A manager untrained in the art of goal setting and feedback usually avoids confrontation. The One Minute Manager is an invaluable tool to get people moving in the right direction.

Connection is a manager’s ability to have a meaningful relationship with their team. Some circles believe that this is not only unnecessary, but it should be avoided. This is a tragic error. Direction without connection is meaningless. Once your people understand WHY, they will view direction in a positive light. Direction with connection is a major component in creating happy, engaged teams. Start to get to know your team as individuals. We teach our clients to do a quality one-on-one (O³ – based on guys at ManagerTools.com) with their team. An O³ is the essential first step to create connection with an employee.

An effective O³ has three parts and should last 30 minutes:

• 10 minutes for THEM- Get to know them (Connection)
• 10 minutes for YOU: Feedback and follow-up (Direction)
• 10 minutes for Career Development/Goal Setting (More Direction)

Challenge yourself to do a quality O³ once a week with your employees. Watch the power of direction and connection take your team to the next level.

First things first:

Please read last week’s post “Guard Rails and Armor”.

You’ve hired a new manager with high hopes that this individual will make a positive impact on your organization. You’ve been here before. There were managers before this one that did not lived up to your expectations.

It started out with promise: great resumes, good references and stellar interviews. You hope this is the one will be the right one for the job! So what are you doing to get this “great right hope” off to a great start?

You don’t have a fully realized manager training program. Actually, you have none at all. You know your new manager needs training. Training that will help them have a fighting chance to be effective. If you could do just a few things to help this person help you, what would they be?

The first thing new hires need to know is WHY they are doing what they are doing. Always start from the inside out. When an employee understands why they are doing what they are doing, they can see the world through your eyes. Let them know the company’s vision and mission.

We often reference the Disney mantra, “We make dreams come true”, as the perfect example of a clear, effective “WHY”. Who wouldn’t understand what Disney’s mission is after hearing that simple statement? If you haven’t defined your WHY- do it now!

“WHY” not only defines the heart of your company, but it helps create loyalty and passion towards your brand. If your new manager is passionate about your brand, they will be more likely to treat your business like their own. And a manager who thinks like an owner will build a team that cares about your brand as well.

Next: how to make HOW come alive.

What’s really important?

It’s your new manager’s first day and you aren’t sure where to start or what to teach them. Most small companies don’t have fully realized manager training programs. Many have none at all. So you find yourself facing an opportunity to get a new manager off to a great start- or not.

If you had to share just a handful of high impact ideas, philosophies or theories that could help your new hire get off to a good start, without a formal training program, what would you share?

Think about what your new manager is about to experience. What you may think is obvious or intuitive is not. The first 90 days will be wrought with challenges. Your new manager needs guardrails and armor. Guardrails to keep them from driving off the road and armor to help them sustain the injuries they will inevitably incur.

Guardrails

• Tell them WHY they do what they do.
• Teach them WHAT really matters
• Show them HOW you want it done

Armor

• Teach them how to PRIORITIZE
• Teach them how to DELEGATE
• Teach them how to LEAD

The Guardrails are the basis of your company culture and the direction you want your new hire to move in:

• The company’s vision
• The company’s mission
• The company’s core values

The Armor is simple, effective tolls, methods to help them become effective managers:

• The 90-10 rule
• What to keep and what to give away
• How to get people to want to do what you want them to do

Over the next few weeks we will explore how to get a new manager off to a great start and share the tools that we use to help them have long, productive and happy careers.

Managing people is like herding cats!

This morning I was doing some yard work and my neighbor stopped by to chat. He is a surgeon at a local hospital whose career path has shifted from cutting to “cattle-ing”. Recently, he has found himself in the role of a team liaison, attempting to herd is unruly team towards productivity and alignment. Talking to my neighbor reminded me of a commercial where cowboys are attempting to herd cats. The analogy being “managing” people is like herding cats- it can’t be done. As we have discovered working with human animals, leading is the only way to go.

I’m a restaurant guy, so I was struck by the similarities in the challenges he faced trying to get his team members on the same page. Quickly, my active imagination started to make comparisons of the roles in a restaurant and the roles in a hospital.

• Administrator = Owner
• Doctor = Chef
• Nurse = Support staff (Servers, etc.)
• Technologies Vendors = Food Vendors

I listened in amazement as he spoke of his daily challenges and how similar our worlds are. It made me realize that every team is the same. WHY? Because human being are involved. Once again, it’s a story of professionals guarding their territory, being inflexible, reluctant to change and pushing their own agenda. It’s amazing- they don’t even seem to be aware that they are part of a team. Just a bunch of individuals holding their ground, with little concern for productivity and results.

Roles and “Teamability”

We social creatures naturally adopt roles. You don’t need to be an anthropologist to image how roles in the caveman workplace must have occurred. Many teaming behaviors are deeply ingrained and are part of our nature. Actually, I’ve worked in some restaurants where evolution still hasn’t taken effect! It is now widely accepted that in order to develop a high-performing team, it is necessary to consider role-based assessment during the on-boarding process.

Consider these facts from The Gabriel Institute:

• 40% of newly promoted managers and executives fail in the first 18 months
• 58% of new executives hired from outside fail in their first 18 months
• Nearly two-thirds of hiring managers regret their interview-based hiring decisions

The Gabriel Institute was founded by two behavioral scientists who asked the question, “What really happens when people “team together”. Twenty-five years of research and testing, including nine years of software development, produced a technology engineered to identify and organize the ways in which people interact in teams. They defined “Teamabilty” as the ability to connect with others to form a productive team and the ability to communicate in a coherent manner with the intent to enhance team spirit.

We have patnered with the Gabriel Institute and introduced role-based testing as we work with our clients to help them build engaged, productive teams. It has made a real impact on the quality of the hire, helping our clients find someone who truly “fits” the role they will be performing. It has helped us build better teams. When the goal is a productive, happily engaged workplace, make sure the people you entrust to build your team fit the roles they must play.

Questions to consider:

1. How well defined are the roles in your organization?
2. Are the right people doing these roles?
3. How do you know if you’re correct on your assessment?

If you are too busy or don’t want to, consider this from last week’s blog:

The world’s top-performing organizations understand that employee engagement is a force that drives performance outcomes. In the best organizations, engagement is more than a human resources initiative — it is a strategic foundation for the way they do business. ~Gallup

When working with our clients we have one specific goal in mind for them: helping them to build better teams. We are convinced that if a client is open-minded and can try something new, they have the capacity to create a work environment that will help them create a sustainable business. Since we are in the ultimate “people business”, we believe that employee engagement has to be part of the strategic foundation for every restaurant.

The Secret Ingredient

As a former chef, I want to share our “Secret Ingredient” for restaurant success. Ready? People will work hard for you, be loyal to you and make your guests happy when you make them happy first. Why? Because that’s the way human beings are built. No getting around it- we humans work “better” (i.e. more productive, engaged, etc.) when we are happy. Why, then, do so many restaurant professionals recoil at the idea that Job #1 is making their staff “happy”. It’s probably contrary to how they were treated and the entire notion seems somehow counterintuitive.

When I was coming up through the kitchen ranks, a good bop on the toque was all I needed to be more productive, right? And just like any abused child I learned to mete out the same punishment to my crew. Reminds me of a pirate-themed t-shirt I saw a few years back, “The beatings will continue until the morale improves”. Funny! Unfortunately, that is precisely the ironic “management style” that still persists in our business. And that is precisely why it sounds ironic or even absurd that the secret ingredient to restaurant success is making our team happy. I must admit that I used to conduct pre-shift meeting where I publically berated my team and then commanded them to smile for our guests!

Happiness Matters and Works!

So what does this happy team look like and why should it be “a strategic foundation” for the way you do business? Well, to begin with, it works. Dale Carnegie bore witness to this over 75 years ago. He noticed a common thread that is at the center of what motivates all human being: we only do what we want to do. In his famous tome, How to Win Friends and Influence People, Carnegie quotes the great 20th century social psychiatrist Harry A. Overstreet. In his groundbreaking book Influencing Human Behavior Overstreet wrote: “Action springs out of what we fundamentally desire…and the best piece of advice which can be given to would-be persuaders, whether in business, in the home, in the school, in politics is: first arouse in the other person an eager want. He who can do this has the whole world with him. He who cannot walks a lonely way.”

Fast-forward three-quarters of a century. We now have scientific proof that human beings are more productive when they are happy. Beyond “positive psychology”, neuroscience has revolutionized the way we view human behavior. You can have all the opinions you want about how to approach team-building. The fact is: we are 31% more productive when we are in a positive state of mind. When our brains are “in positive” a chemical called dopamine floods our system and turns on all the leaning centers in the brain. Only 25% of our ability to be successful comes from our I.Q. The rest is determined by our optimism levels, our social support and our ability to see stress as a challenge rather than a threat. (Shawn Achor – Good Think Inc.)

We are literally built to become more productive when we are in a positive workplace. Therefore, a leader’s primary responsibility is to create a positive workplace where their people can thrive. Enlightened management understands how the “happiness advantage” can dramatically increase sales and profits. Our happy, positive, engaged staff will create more brand loyalty and guest satisfaction than any star chef, prime location or marketing initiative. Your return on investment is what some of the best brands (Apple, Disney, and Southwest Airlines, to name a few) have known for years: happy, engaged and empowered employees make happy customers.

What we believe:

It all starts with WHY. Leaders must supply their teams with a clear understanding of why they are doing what they are doing. Disney’s WHY is “We make dreams come true”. So each and every Disney employee knows precisely WHY they do what they do. Disney employees are passionate about delivering the Disney promise. It is inconceivable that the “cast member” in the Mickey Mouse costume would deviate from the script, let alone deliver a lackluster performance. That is because every Disney team member understands and embraces the Disney WHY. This point is crucial in understanding and developing an engaged workplace.

How it works:

We employ a flexible strategy that dramatically improves the quality of life for our clients. It’s flexible because we know that no two workplaces are alike and no two teams are alike. We approach each situation with the same open-mindedness that we suggest our clients to have. There are no preconceived conclusions. We evaluate your unique situation and apply principles rather than rules to help our clients get to a better place.

We are coaches not consultants. We dramatically change the working dynamics of your workplace through mentoring your management team. We know the most effective and efficient way to create a productive and healthy workplace is to create a team of servant-leaders who are focused on making your company the employer of choice. Your competitive advantage will become your people. Our Productivity Principles are the “guard-rails” we employ to help guide you and your team to become more productive and to ensure your business will be more sustainable.

Our WHY is: we improve the quality of life for our clients. We are passionate about coaching you and your team to profits and productivity!

The One Degree Productivity Principles:

• Define your WHY, then your HOW: Create and communicate your vision, mission and values
• Make everyone your customer: focus on creating a culture dedicated to serving all, especially your staff. Put your people first and your business will thrive!
• Hire true believers: hire not just for attitude, but people that have the capacity to believe in what you believe in
• Live your values: Deliver the promise every day. Have the emotional fortitude to establish trust and maintain a positive work environment using praise, passion, candor, openness, empowerment and accountability
• Become the employer of choice: reduced turnover means more time to focus on building your business. A solid staff creates guest loyalty and is another incredible time and money saving by-product of the One Degree method
• 100/0: protect your culture. Once trust is established, expect 100% dedication to guest satisfaction and zero tolerance for unnecessary negativity.
• Be vigilant: on-going training and development of your staff and managers is the best investment you can make in your business
• Celebrate success! Catch your team doing things right: a leader must be the role model for a fun and engaging work environment.

Questions for you to consider:

1. How well does you do against these principles?
2. What would it take for your team to start to move towards them?

Pursuing the Gallup website for inspiration and ideas about this week’s blog topic, I was struck by a passage about employee engagement. It was startlingly straight-forward:

The world’s top-performing organizations understand that employee engagement is a force that drives performance outcomes. In the best organizations, engagement is more than a human resources initiative — it is a strategic foundation for the way they do business.

Research by Gallup and others shows that engaged employees are more productive. They are more profitable, more customer-focused, safer, and more likely to withstand temptations to leave. The best-performing companies know that an employee engagement improvement strategy linked to the achievement of corporate goals will help them win in the marketplace.

They go on to explain:

Actively disengaged employees erode an organization’s bottom line while breaking the spirits of colleagues in the process. Within the U.S. workforce, Gallup estimates this cost to be more than $300 billion in lost productivity alone. In stark contrast, world-class organizations with an engagement ratio near 8:1 have built a sustainable model using this approach. As organizations move toward this benchmark, they greatly reduce the negative impact of actively disengaged employees while unleashing the organization’s potential for rapid growth.

Wow! I’m in!! I’m gonna get me some employee engagement for my company!!! Not so fast, Bucko. This employee engagement stuff isn’t for the faint at heart. As a matter of fact, it takes a level of commitment that few companies seem to have the ability to pull off. It also requires change. That’s never fun, right? Maybe engagement isn’t such a great idea…

Achieving employee engagement is at once simple and complex. The hardest part is changing the mentality of the company’s leaders. Surprisingly, the idea of having to change the way we perceive and treat our employees usually trumps the desire to be productive and profitable. Improving engagement means embracing a style of management that borders on “enlightened”. Yes, Luke, it’s time to listen to Yoda!

But first, let’s take a look at a Gallup tool used to measure engagement. It’s called the 12 Elements of Great Management. Answering yes or no, how would your employees respond:

1. I know what is expected of me at work.
2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.
3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.
4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.
5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.
6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.
7. At work, my opinions seem to count.
8. The mission or purpose of my organization makes me feel my job is important.
9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.
10. I have a best friend at work.
11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.
12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Imagine asking your employees these 12 questions.

• How do you think your company would do?
• What would it take to change your company to a more profitable, productive and happier organization?

For many companies the idea of engaged employees is a scary proposition. There is no doubt; we have found that once you open this positive Pandora’s Box, there is no turning back. Your team and your life will never be the same. We also discovered an amazing by-product to an engaged and empowered team: quality of life improved for the team and the management.

Moving towards engagement:

Open your mind! One of our favorite sayings- “The mind is like a parachute, it works best when it is open.” Envision your company as a place where your people answer “yes” to all 12 Elements of Great Management questions. What would that look and feel like? It that the kind of workplace you want to build? What has to change to get you there?

Embrace Change! Be prepared to try something new. Change is good and this kind of change can radically improve your quality of life!

Take a look around. How many on your team are truly engaged? What does that even look like? More importantly, are you engaged? This journey will begin with you!

Next week we will explore how engagement works and how you can improve your quality of life! Stay tuned…

I was told that by one of our business coaches recently. It’s true- life is for learning and we always encourage our clients to be proactive learners. There has never been a better time to learn about the extraordinary advances in the study of human behavior and neuroscience. What is emerging is a picture that is counterintuitive to what was previously understood about how we process our world. Concepts like: how we learn, what makes us happy, and what motivates us are defying the laws of behavioral physics. For me, someone who has built a career around certain concepts that define my approach to team building, it is time to rethink my game plan.

There are three pertinent ideas that we focus on that will revolutionize the way employee engagement and team building is approached:

Vision Matters: When you start with WHY, instead of HOW or WHAT, people become loyal and motivated

Purpose Matters: When it comes to rewarding performance, the higher the reward, the poorer the result. When you have purpose at work, you are more productive

Happiness Matters: Productivity is greatly enhanced by a positive workplace

It will never cease to astound me that that the majority of public and private education focuses solely on subject matter (WHAT and HOW). Once you learn how the human brain is built and how it really works, it is infuriating when you realize that we teach our children backwards. It is a simple fact of biology: if the human brain learns WHY before HOW or WHAT it can become truly engaged in the subject matter. As a matter of fact, the latest neurologic research has revealed that we have lots of things backwards. Productivity greatly increases when we take the time to explain why to our employees. When the WHY is in the form of a mission or vision statement, that is held in high esteem by the executives of a company, and all work activity is lived through the WHY, the productivity of the team skyrockets. A by-product of this phenomenon is brand loyalty. Apple and Disney are two great examples of organizations that are built on WHY. And why is WHY so effective in creating such extraordinary results? Our brains are built that way!

A recent workplace study at M.I.T. revealed that the long-held belief that positive results (praise, advancement, money) doesn’t always motivate people to improve their performance. What is amazing, is that study reveals that monetary rewards only work when the task being rewarded is mechanical. Once the task calls for even rudimentary cognitive skill, monetary rewards have the opposite affect! A larger reward leads to poorer performance! How can that possibly be true? It turns out that our brains are wired so that we need three things to motivate us when we use our brain beyond mechanical basic skills:

• Autonomy - we don’t want to be micro-managed
• Self-mastery - we feel better about ourselves when we are good at what we do
• Purpose - we need to feel that our work means something

What does this mean? We, humans, must be fulfilled to be productive. Beyond that, we need a workplace governed by VISION and PASSION. Teach us to do our jobs, let us get good at them, and then allow us do them. We are more motivated by a positive work environment, where we matter as human beings more than monetary rewards.

HAPPINESS is the only real way to create a truly productive workplace. We need to start treating people like people, not trained animals. The carrot only works on the most rudimentary tasks. Happiness must be considered when you are trying to motivate a team and when productivity is the goal.

How to implement these finding in your workplace:

1. Give your team a clear, concise vision of WHY your company exists. Disney: “We make dreams come true”; Apple: “We want to make a ding in the universe”. Clear PURPOSE will motivate your team through PASSION!
2. Take money off the table: pay your people what they are worth so they can focus on their jobs. Once money is off the table, motivate your people in a workplace where great training leads to autonomy, self-mastery and a sense of purpose.
3. Create a positive workplace: science tells us that when we are happy, we are more productive. By giving your team purpose, you ignite passion and motivate them to be truly engaged in their work.

Questions for you to consider:

1. What is your company passionate about?
2. Does your team feel the same way?
3. Does the thought of going to work excite you or make you happy?

I can’t remember when I first heard of the term “servant leadership”, except, I think, in church. I do remember a reference to a company “built upside-down”. That was in the early 1990′s when I was a chef. I had no idea what that meant and wasn’t interested in leadership concepts or philosophies. I had, what I thought, was the only concept I needed to get the job done: “my way or the highway”. It was the management style of choice for us chefs. That all changed 10 years later when I moved to “the front of the house” and my “do it because I said so” technique failed to impress my part-time troops. About this same time I read a quote from Dwight D. Eisenhower, “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.” I realized it was time for a change.

That quote inspired me to do some research about leadership. I was exposed to a different way of thinking when I read Neapolitan Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. Concepts like “positive thinking” and “the power of the mastermind” influenced my management style. Once I began to learn that there was another way, I became a fanatical student of human nature. I began to take a softer, more humanistic approach to managing. As a matter of fact, when I occasionally reverted back to my old style of being brutally candid and direct, I felt like I was breaking the unwritten “leadership code of ethics” for the politically correct manager.

Today, the new management sensibility is that people should be treated with respect and dignity because it’s the right thing to do. People who feel good about themselves are more productive. So how do you explain that super-productive ogre Steve Jobs? I recently read a synopsis of his management style in The Harvard Business Review. Author Walter Isaacson asked Jobs about his infamous reputation as a world class asshole and his response was, “Yes, but look at all we accomplished!” GE “CEO of the Century” Jack Welsh was known as much for his ability to create an execution culture as he was for his “candor”. I think that may be code for: he sometimes acted like an “asshole”.

I wouldn’t usually refer to my fellow man using the A-word, but I was given permission by Robert Sutton, PhD, who authored the book, The No Asshole Rule, Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn’t. Since he is a Stanford professor I guess it’s OK to use the term. He even gave an asshole test:

•

Test One: after talking to an alleged asshole, does the “target” feel oppressed, humiliated, de-energized or belittled by the person. In particular, does the target feel worse about him or herself?

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Test Two: Does the alleged asshole aim his or her venom at people who are less powerful rather than at people who are more powerful?

So, what’s a reformed asshole to do? I have been practicing my politically correct leadership style for 15 years, but I have come to believe that servant leadership also means being honest.Using the asshole test above, being direct and candid doesn’t make you a bad person, but it can help you help others to grow and develop. As Welsh said, “Candor is the best kept secret in business”. We have discovered that managers still have difficulty evaluating their people, especially face-to-face. As The One Minute Manager instructs, after you set goals for your staff, let them know how they are doing- immediately! A common issue with supervisors is they don’t like to be candid with their people, but they sure like to complain about them! It takes courage to be candid, but it is the best way to help someone learn and grow.

Practice your candor:

1. Learn to set clear expectations for those that you manage

2. Give them feedback IMMEDIATELY- both positive and corrective

3. After you give feedback, especially corrective feedback, always end with a praise. People will be more likely to think about their behavior, not yours, if you end with praise

4. When it’s over, it’s over. Don’t harbor resentments. It’samazing how often we encounter managers who won’t let things go.

5. Stop complaining. We have a “No Complaining” rule with our clients. If you have an issue with a team member, let them know IMMEDIATELY by being CANDID!