LEAVE THEM ALONE

I’ve seen the situation happen many times when I’ve been running seminars for managers. Every time we have a break (and on my seminars we have many) certain managers are immediately on their mobile phones. They’re checking with their teams; I can hear them saying, ‘What’s happening, any problems, what are the figures like, has the boss been round?’ I’ve seen managers spend the whole of the coffee break on the phone and be reluctant to come back into the seminar.

These managers just can’t leave their team alone; they need to be checking all the time. You need to be able to leave your team for a day, a week or the two weeks when you’re on holiday and know that things will run smoothly.

I know what I said in Chapters 4 and 5 about spending time with your people and you need to do this. However, if you’re away from your team for a day then a phone call at the end of the day will suffice. And if you can’t manage that, what’s the big deal?

When you do make that phone call, your goal should be to deliver some Confirming feedback rather than ‘check up’. For example, if you are phoning your second in command or any of your team members you should be saying something like, ‘Sounds like you’ve handled the situations of today really well, thanks Jane for being so responsible.’

Problems are solved on the spot, as soon as they arise. No front-line employee has to wait for a supervisor’s permission.

Jan Carlzon (1941–, Swedish business executive, CEO of SAS)

DECIDE THE BOUNDARIES

You do, however, need to make it clear to your team what the boundaries are; they need to be clear as to what they’re empowered to do. This is not a case of ‘You can do this and you can’t do that.’ It’s more a case of ‘This is as far as you can go.’ If you’re continually giving your team information about the organisation as we described above, then the boundaries will make sense.

Imagine you’re running a sales team and they’re always under pressure from customers to reduce prices. Naturally you want your team to sell at the highest possible price, so ensuring your profit targets are met. You know and your team know what your sales target is and how you’re performing to target at any one time. They should also know what your profitability target is and what it costs to run the sales team. However, you still need to set boundaries. It is feasible to allow sales people a level of discount they can negotiate up to, obtain the customer’s business and still ensure your profit targets are met. If, for example, every sale was discounted by 20 per cent and that still allowed you to make your profit target, then that could be the boundary. Every sales person would then know that they could offer the customer up to 20 per cent to obtain the business.

Many sales managers get nervous about this as they believe that their sales people will offer the customer 20 per cent discount as soon as they come under pressure. You have to trust your team; if you’re giving them regular information and communicating your desire to increase your profits, then your team won’t give away any more discount than they have to.

When you spend time with your team and you have one member who is giving too much discount too often, then you would give him some Productive feedback and coach him to do better. It follows that the sales people who give away very little discount receive some Confirming feedback. This will encourage them to continue along this path.

In a customer service job, your team need to know how far they can go to satisfy the customer; they need to be able to do what you do.

In too many organisations there is still the situation where a customer service person has to refer to the manager to solve the problem. The customer says, ‘I’m not satisfied with your answer, I want to speak to a manager.’ The manager then speaks to the customer and makes some form of concession. The results of this are:

• 1.It’s another job for the manager to do that she really shouldn’t be doing.
• 2.It demotivates the team member because they feel stupid and embarrassed in front of the customer.

I have a friend, Gill, who used to work in the returns department of a high street department store. This store was well known for its excellent returns policy. However, many customers took advantage of it. They would buy an item of clothing, wear it several times and then return it claiming it was the wrong fit or some other excuse. Gill was instructed to politely question the customer, and to point out if the garment was soiled or looked like it had been worn. She would then discourage the customer from obtaining a refund. However, if the customer insisted, Gill would have to summon her supervisor who would immediately refund the customer. Gill found this extremely annoying as she was often made to feel small in front of a customer who had no right to a refund. And of course, the supervisor’s time could have been put to much better use if Gill had been empowered to make a decision which was ultimately best for the business.

Your team members need to be able to do for the customer what you can do for the customer. The dictionary defines Empowerment as ‘to give power to’ and this is what you need to do for your team. If you constantly communicate with them they will know what your outcomes are and how their decisions will affect those outcomes.

This can be hard for many managers because they’ve been brought up to understand that managers make more important decisions than their team members; that they have more authority and power.

It’s exactly the same between you and your manager; you should know what you’re empowered to do. You shouldn’t be running to your manager asking, ‘Can I do this with my team? Can I do that with this customer?’

Whether your manager empowers you or not, this book is about you, how you get the best out of your team and how you minimise your stress. You can do that if you empower them.

ACCOUNTABLE AND RESPONSIBLE

Of course, if you empower your team members to make decisions, then they need to know that they’re accountable and responsible for the results of their behaviour. That can be good and not so good. If it’s good then it’s an opportunity to deliver some Confirming feedback, a compliment and praise for a job well done.

Obviously it wouldn’t work if they took all the credit for the good decisions they made and blamed you for all the not-so-good ones. However, it’s all about how you handle the times when a not-so-good decision has been made.

If a manager comes down hard on a team member when a poor decision has been made, then you can wave goodbye to an empowered team. When a poor decision by a team member results in some kind of problem then it’s important to find out what went wrong, how it can be fixed and what you and the team member can learn from it. And it’s not a case of you as the manager fixing it; you need to agree a course of action with the team member that they’re committed to.

Always remember that people learn and develop from mistakes, so don’t always regard these as a big negative.

By minimising the fear of reprisal you’re more likely to have a happy and motivated team who continue to be empowered. They’re then more likely to make decisions that improve the quality of your outcomes and increase sales and profits.

Take risks

Picture the scene: your eleven-year-old son or daughter decides one Sunday morning that they’re going to make breakfast and bring it to you in bed. Your first thoughts are: ‘They’ll make a mess of it, they’ll break something or they might burn themselves.’ So you say, ‘Thank you for the offer, but it’s best if I do it. You go and watch television and perhaps you can do it another time.’ The result is that you demotivate the child and you send them a subconscious message that they’re useless and you don’t trust them. So you end up making your own breakfast and the child never learns how to do it.

With all these negative consequences, isn’t it just worth the risk? Perhaps the kitchen will be a mess; maybe they will break something; and let’s face it, what’s the chance of them burning themselves? Surely it’s worth the risk to motivate your child, give them a feeling of self-worth and send them the message that you believe in them.

It’s exactly the same with your team; as they take on more responsibilities, they learn and develop. They also start to enjoy their work more and that in turn motivates them.