Resolving Needs - What Your Employees Wish For!
For your people, they want to do a great job - no, really, despite your experiences,
they do. And what might seem to 'the management' the important things,
just don't stack in the day-to-day reality of the workplace.
Here's why.
Your people want to focus on looking after their customers, yet there are
many things, often just little things, that get in their way. Removing these little
things they are having to tolerate, allows them to deliver the very best service
to their customers. Yet they are reluctant to get this clear. For some reason.
You need to find out.
So. Ask them!
Yet why is this so difficult for some managers? Partly to
do with not wishing to open challenging dialogue; not even thinking there might
be issues or to dismissing needs of their people as irrelevant, amongst others.
These issues, so vital to the well-being of their people and therefore their relationships
with their customers, get missed.
So, how do managers get around
this.
Easy
They just ASK. They ask in ways that work,
but basically, they just ASK.
There are a many ways to do this.
Ongoing dialogue; focus groups; feedback; 360's. But a really simple way to get
to the bottom of what is bothering your people is, one-on-one to simply ask them
this simple question:-
"If you had three wishes in your job, what would
they be?"
So why do we ask for three wishes? Because
often there are one or two issues that are 'givens'. Like more staff, more pay
etc. Three wishes gives a bit of scope in the replies. If you can, allow your
people to personalise the returns, but only if they want to. Once you've got
your people being constructive around changes - and you let them tell you, you
can respond, often very quickly and make things a lot better.
Understanding
the little things, makes a big difference to the people who are vital to your
success - who create the business for you. Don't miss the chance. Martin Haworth is a Business and Management Coach. He works worldwide,
mainly by phone, with small business owners, managers and corporate leaders. He
has hundreds of hints, tips and ideas at his website,
http://www.coaching-businesses-to-success.com
(Note to editors. This article may be edited for use in your publication or
newsletter as long as a live link to the website is included)
...helping you, to help your people, to help your business grow...
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Train Me -- But Follow Through
My mechanic has me trained. When I take my car in for an oil change, he places a sticker in the upper left hand corner of my windshield to remind me what date and mileage I should have my next maintenance completed. But every once in a while, he forgets to put the sticker on the window. Then I have to remember the date and mileage details.
Forecasting Support Costs
Did you know that maintenance accounts for 50% to 80% of the overall product cost? Well, it does! And while most project managers are fairly good at sizing new product features, many are terrible at estimating the effort required to support a product once it becomes generally available. As a result, maintenance projects are inadequately staffed, companies can't respond to customer requests in a timely manner, and products never reach payback.
Creativity and Innovation Management: The Value Of Due Diligence
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation. There are other useful definitions, for example, creativity can be measured according to the number of ideas produced, the diversity of those ideas and the novelty of those ideas.
A Winning Way to Handle New Ideas
Janet DiClaudio, who was charge of medical records at two large American hospitals, had an unusual problem.
Time Management - How to Have Productive Meetings
One of the greatest time wasters of all are unnecessary or poorly run meetings. If you want to dramatically improve your time management skills, then learn how to have productive meetings.
Data Delivers Credibility
Over the past couple of days I've been setting up visitor counters, so people in another organization can accurately count the number of people who visit their event.
Let the Professionals Help You Out - Outsource
As your website grows in terms of attracting more footfalls, generating more business, and providing more content; it will demand more time and attention from you to continue performing. As a businessperson, it is advisable that you concentrate on your core competency, which is the reason why you created the website in the first place.
ISO 9001 Okay Now You Have It How Do You Market It?
Marketing ISO 9001 2000.
Firing Someone Without Resentment
Firing, sacking, letting go or terminating people is unpleasant. There are ways to minimise resentment, but why bother? Because most legal action and unpleasantness stems from dissatisfaction/resentment about the way things were handled - about how rather than what happened. Dismissal can be unfair because of the reason, or the way it was done, so you need to be extremely careful. In the law regarding employer-employee relationships, fairness is key. You must be fair, and be seen to be fair. But fairness, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder - after being terminated, very few people have clear vision!
IT Expenditure - Why Businesses Spend Huge Amounts on Ineffective IT Investments
Another IT White Elephant!
The High, High Price of Distrust
A paper manufacturer with over 300 employees once announced that it was planning to move to more spacious and attractive premises thirty miles down the road.
Issue Management Methodology for Tracking Project Issues
1. What is an Issue?
Is Busyness Affecting Your Business?
I'm too busy; I'd love to but I'm very busy; I'll get round to that when I'm not so busy.
How to Make the Best of it - Take Your Weather with You
I once worked in a place where there were three lines of words, placed just before employees went from backshop to front of shop. These said:-Smile!Remember - you represent your CompanyDelight your customers.
I realised I had choices right here.
Manage Your Business from the Rockies, not the Prairies
The day job as a manager is all about managing your people to deliver, to meet the needs of your customers or clients and generating success after success! Right? And you have consequences if that doesn't happen.
Increasing the Return on Your Training Investment
Insightful leaders and organizations recognize that training is a valuable tool for personal and professional development and therefore set some sort of an annual training budget.
The Ins and Outs of Internal and External Relations
INTERNAL PUBLIC RELATIONS: Never overlook an opportunity to do internal public relations about your department and its offerings. A training department must, first and foremost, be visible in the organization it serves. Larry Lottier, Manager, Education of Dana Corporation publishes a training department course catalog with faculty, course listings and course descriptions to publicize his department's offerings. Gary Slobodian, Assistant Manager, Corporate Staff Development, of Great-West Life Assurance Company has found that getting training on the agenda at national sales meetings increases his department's visibility.
Rethinking Workplace Security: How the Rules Have Changed
The workplace has traditionally been a dangerous place. Very early in mankind's history perils emanated from the place and type of work they performed. Long before industrialization, men mined precious metals, gems and fuel in the form of peat and coal hidden beneath the earth's surface. Extracting these materials brought with it the risk of cave-ins and being buried alive. Moreover, the quest for the most basic of all life giving substances, water, could also end in sudden death or severe injury as well shafts were dug in the soft earth.
How to Delegate Effectively
ACCOUNTABILITY: Delegation is not complete unless subordinates are held accountable for their work. They should be accountable to only one person-usually their immediate manager-and must understand what criteria will be used in judging their performance. They must also understand that unless the job is done successfully, they will be replaced. Though ultimate accountability cannot be transferred and does rest with the manager, managers must be willing to support the actions and decisions of those in whom they have placed their trust. They must stand behind the results-whether good or bad.
Character: Is It Necessary In Leadership? (Part Two)
In the first part of this two part article, I talked about the importance of character in leadership. After all, the best leadership involves the people bonding with the leader in deep, human, emotional ways. The passive way of looking at character is that the bonding won't happen if the people are confused about or disdain your character. But there is also an active way of looking at character: You can use aspects of your character to actually promote results. Your best character traits can be turned results-multipliers. Here's how.
|