Create accountability with employees. You need to make people accountable. If you’re going to assign a task, you need to hold them to deadlines and get that implementation done. If you let it hang out there, it usually just hangs out there, and there’s no follow-up on it, and it’ll be frustrating. We struggle at times with it, but I think holding people to deadlines is crucial. People don’t want to fail — they’ll find a way to succeed because we’re always too busy in the day to day to do anything outside of what we do day to day.
You can take their paycheck away, but that doesn’t work. The ultimate goal is you want everybody to feel like they’re a partner in the business and they’re a part of something and their contributions are recognized and rewarded — and that if they do the job, they can make a true difference, and it’s not just getting bundled up and somebody else taking all the credit. We try to pass the credit where it’s appropriate, and I think most people do not want to fail. As long as they have the tools and they can see the reward and get that job satisfaction, I think they’re going to be somewhat accountable for their actions and for the end results.