Use managers to keep informed. If you’ve got everybody that agrees that we’re going to go take this hill today or this month or this year, they don’t need to be told that they’re making progress. The difficult part is actually getting out of the way.
The way I’ve tried to do that is a weekly meeting with my management group every Friday morning. It’s not so much an operations meeting as it’s, ‘Tell me what’s going on in your neck of the woods.’ We wouldn’t need that meeting if I was stopping to see everybody every day of the week. Finding a way to
do that once a week or once a month is important.
Coach your employees. You’ve agreed on an annual budget, and that budget’s broken into monthly pieces. Everybody knows what their target is. I believe in the three-strike rule. If you’ve had three strikes, then we might put in pinch hitter for you the next time or maybe we’ll get you some extra batting practice on the sidelines.
If we’ve got talented people who aren’t able to meet those numbers that they’ve helped write, then we’ve got to give them some coaching. Sometimes that means moving from one department to another. Sometimes it means sending them to some off-site education, some training programs. Sometimes it means there’s a better opportunity on another team somewhere.
Coaching, counseling, cheerleading, all those things come together to work with an individual.
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