Stay in the loop. The second part
of empowering employees is
day-to-day coaching. Your job as
the leader is to help your employees get an A when you’ve agreed
on what the goals and objectives
are. That’s where you turn the
pyramid upside down with your
people because you’re really
working for them now.
In so many organizations, they
have these normal distribution
curves that you have to screw a
certain percentage of your people. Or, you take the Jack Welch
philosophy and rank-order your
people. None of that builds trust.
Day-to-day coaching means
that you are in the information
loop with your employees on
their performance. You’re there
to praise their progress or redirect them if they’re off. Part of
your agreement in performance
planning is not only the final
exam but how the supervisor is
going to be kept informed on
how well the employee is doing
so the supervisor can be there
to help when the employee
needs help.
You don’t want to be out of
the loop. So many managers set
goals, and then they abdicate.
The difference between delegation and abdication is that, in
abdication, you’re out of the
information loop and that creates the most familiar management style in our country —
seagull management. Seagull
managers aren’t around until you
make a mistake, and then they
fly in, make a lot of noise, dump
on everybody, and then fly out.
Be the people’s partner. Every
manager in an organization
should meet once every two
weeks for 15 to 30 minutes with
each of their direct reports. The
employee would be in charge of
the agenda, and that person
would talk about anything that’s
on his or her mind.
You can’t exceed 30 minutes
with the meeting because then
it’s going to be a drag, and people are going to start saying, ‘I
don’t have time to do this.’
For instance, if you’ve got
10 or 12 people working for
you, and you can’t afford six
hours with them over a two-week period, then you’ve got
your priorities out of whack.
You’re going to too many meetings, and you’ve forgotten your
people.
Most bosses don’t know what
their people are doing because
they’re running around playing
politics and spending more
time sucking up the hierarchy.
They’re not focused on the
achievement of their people.
Review the results. The last part
of empowering employees is
performance evaluation. If you
really work with your people to
help them accomplish the goals,
the goals help the organization
achieve its goal. When the water
goes up, all the boats rise.
You empower people by making sure that they know what
they’re being asked to do, and
then you’re there to help them.
As they get more and more
experienced, they’re going to
need less and less help, and
that really drives them to do
their best.
HOW TO REACH: The Ken Blanchard Cos., (800) 728-6000 or www.blanchardtraining.com
