Develop people. Work with them
on their strengths and not focus
on their development areas.
Help them bring passion to
those strengths. Meet with them
regularly to provide them direction and development to help
them build on their strengths.
The way you’re going to get
people engaged and developing
is to focus on their strength.
We do 360 evaluations to look
at what their peers are saying
about them, what they’re saying
about themselves and what
their subordinates are saying.
That helps identify strengths.
Give them goals that can help
them exceed in their strengths
and in the roles that they’re
doing. Have smart goals that are
specific to the individual and
not general goals. They need to be measurable, action-oriented,
drive results and related to that
person and not related to some
general activity that can’t be
measured.
Then hold them accountable to
their goals. Everybody wants to
perform. They want to do a good
job. You just have to help them
in their career to get them there.
That’s our job to engage and
develop them. Their weaknesses go away if you work at what
it is people are really strong at,
believe in and passionate about.
Listen to your employees’ concerns. You have to be flexible with
their needs. It may be flexible
hours or a flexible work arrangement. You have to determine
what each individual needs to
meet their objectives within the needs of the organization.
It’s about performance. If it
won’t work within the confines
of whatever we’re delivering to
our clients, then it isn’t going to
work, but if someone is performing 100 percent of the time,
we can find a good match.
Ask open-ended questions that
find out what their concerns are
and listen to what they have to
say. Don’t let things go unsaid.
Be direct, and give them direct
feedback. Keep asking questions
until you get at the real issues.
That’s probably the most
important thing any leader can
do is really listen and really
hear what people are attempting to tell you so that you can
help drive what it is you’re
attempting to drive through
the organization.
HOW TO REACH: Clifton Gunderson LLP, www.cliftoncpa.com
