What do we know? It generally takes about 4 to 6 months of
measuring yourself every day to change your behavior.
You really want to be a good leader, you really want to be a good manager, then you
have to be in order to have high employee engagement.
And high employee engagement helps you have high performance.
Let's remember what this is all about. Leadership drives high employee
engagement, drives high performance organization, drives successful business,
okay? It all works, it's all, works if you start
leadership, how you behave and treat people.
Tone, body language, etc., specific behaviors can lead to high employee
engagement, can lead to high performance, can lead to a successful business.
High employee engagement is built around trust.
What kills trust? Hypocrisy and inconsistency.
And you gotta ask yourself everyday, am I sending any inconsistent messages through
my behavior, through my words, through any written policy, through any memo.
Am I doing it even indirectly? Okay?
Can something be interpreted as being inconsistent with what I fundamentally
want, you need to be sensitive to that. And that's what trust is all about, we're
all in this together. We're all are working hard to deliver
something of value to our customers and for our business to have meaning and a
purpose to exist. Now, a lot of people out there in the
business world come from the theory X school, authoritarian command and control.
My way or the highway, employees are to be controlled, monitored, can't be trusted,
they'll take advantage of you and all this high employee engagement stuff is soft
stuff. And you can't have high performance and be
soft. Well the research shows, ladies and
gentlemen, they're wrong. I am sorry, they are wrong, alright you
can have high performance and have high end point engagement.
We're not saying be soft about standards, not to have low standards, we're saying
have high standard. You can have high standards, hold people
accountable and have high employee engagement.
And you see this? We're not saying be a marshmallow.
We're saying be a person with values. Purpose, standards, high standards, but
how you all put it together can lead to high employee engagement.
And here's some example of companies that are, have high employee engagement, high
accountability and operational excellence. Go online, look at their websites, read
about their culture, read about their values, do some research on 'em.
Ups, Cisco, the food distribution company, Outback Steakhouse, WL Gore, Southwest
Airlines, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Ritz Carlton Hotels, SAS, private company, Room
& Board, private company. Entrepreneurial company, you're going to
read about them next week, Levy Restaurants, Patagonia, private company,
Zappos, Container Stores private company. Go explore, okay?
Go explore and learn, and you'll see there are lots of companies that are basically
examples of what I'm talking about that have consistent high performance.
So can yours even if it's a small company, because you can set the environment.
Is, is tomorrow just going to be a ho-hum day at the shop?
Or is tomorrow going to be a day where you start taking it to the next level?
Now, in studying these high performance companies, what have I learned?
And I gotta do a little typo there. Common across these companies, employees
have a sense of ownership of their job. And they have sort of a sense of ownership
in the company, in the sense that there's some type of part of their compensation is
dependent upon success. And they share in the success, some way.
Some way, kay? Employees have training and educational
opportunities to grow. It can be as small a thing as you giving a
book to an employee and suggesting the read it.
Or you giving them a DVD, kay, it could be you send em to some type of talk alright.
It could be, you give them a magazine subscription, of an industry magazine to
read. What are you saying to them that's
tangible, doing that's tangible says, I want you to grow?
I want you to learn, I want you to be all you can be.
Promotions from within policies, very important.
If at all possible, promote from within, because what message are you sending to
people when you bring in people from the outside over them?
Basically you're saying, you're not good enough to go up, and your opportunity is
limited here. Constant communication about values and
standards, this is the huddles. And I believe huddle, in having a huddle
everyday, no matter how small your company is.
Talking about being accountable to each other.
I have a duty to you, to give you my best performance, and you have a duty to me, to
give me your best performance, because we're part of a business family.
We have to give ea-, our best, not just for the business, but not to let our
teammates down. Because if I don't do my best performance,
my teammate also suffers, it's part of being a team.
Consistent fair reward and promotion policies, people need to know how they're
going to be graded. What do they have to do?
And you need to keep those policies consistent.
Don't change the rules of the game in the middle of the game, because people, then,
won't trust you. Okay?
And you need to explain what they are. And the rules need to be transparent, not
what people get paid, but the rules need to be transparent.
Because people know whether you're applying the rules fairly or not, and that
goes to your integrity and your business's integrity.
Information transparency, you're going to see this in the Room and Board case
tomorrow. Sharing numbers about the business, not
what people make, but how the business is doing.
What does that say to an employee? I trust you.
And makes them feel a part, they understand why you're doing certain
things. They understand the tensions, the stresses
of the business. Same set of behavioral rules for everyone,
okay? Not a different set of rules for managers
than employees. Now I didn't say same compensation, I said
same set of behavioral rules, standards, values.
Having different rules for manager or leaders then employees, create cynicism
and people will not believe in your system.
Hiring for cultural fit, very hard thing, for people is how to hire.
There's a book called Topgrading, by Bradford Smart, that many of the
entrepreneurs that I studied used, which is, in my judgment, one of the better
books out there. I've used it with consulting clients.
Goes through in the process of hiring. Behavioral interviews, multiple
interviews, hiring people that are referred by employees or by people you
know or trust. Okay?
Hiring people, if you will, that fit values.
Remember back to John Brown's statement, glass half full attitude, okay?
The problem in small business's, is that people hire only when they absolutely need
it and they're behind the eight ball and trying to get out.
And basically they have to hire quickly. And we know the following rules is true,
okay, hire slowly and fire quickly. Have a process, know the type of person,
know the skills, alright? Have, if you're a small company, have
employees you trust. Also interview the people, and listen to
what they say. Have a process, I understand you can't do
the same process as a big company, I'm not saying that.
But you can have a process, and you can basically get better at it.
And the other thing is, everyone you hire, is hired on probation.
Some period of time, 30, 60, 90 days, to see how they work out, because that forces
you to make a decision. Because we know, entrepreneurs told me in
my study, the biggest mistake they made was taking too long to fire somebody that
they knew was not a fit. Hire slowly, fire quickly.
We've talked about celebrating learning and success.
We talked about emotional rewards, you got have clearly defined and enforced
zero-tolerance policies. What behaviors are not acceptable in your
business? And when those behaviors happen, people
have to go. That includes managers and it could
include family members. Quiz time.
The purpose of quizzes is to help you see what resonated, what stuck, what didn't
stick, an to help you when you go back to review.
'Kay? Take a minute and do the quiz.
Please.