Monitor progress
JE Dunn’s mission is especially relevant when it comes to monitoring and evaluating employees’ progress toward goals.
It reads: In pursuit of building perfection.
“We’re in pursuit of building perfection, so anything that doesn’t quite meet the standards, we talk about how to improve it,” Miller says.
Beyond just tracking results, there are plenty of opportunities for Miller and other executives to see how employees are faring. Teams within each office meet weekly to share what’s going well and not so well, the offices share updates with each other monthly, employees are formally evaluated twice a year, and there’s also an assessment after each project is completed — not to mention the informal temperature-taking in between.
Simply observing presentations in those meetings can help you evaluate employees.
“Each individual is given a responsibility and they also are given the opportunity to report on how they’re progressing toward their responsibility,” Lynch says. “When those team members come in and they’re prepared, they’re anticipating our questions, you know that they’re on top of their game.”
Lynch knows they’re enthusiastic about the goal if they’ve planned for all possibilities. Beyond that, he likes to see that they’re actually excited to talk about their plans to overcome obstacles, rather than dreading potential pitfalls.
Of course, it’s not just how they present but what they present — and how you react to it.
“You really praise in public and criticize in private,” says Miller, who rewards performance with anything from recognition to plaques to money. “It’s important to … reinforce the good behavior, and it works. People say, ‘Gosh, look at what happened to him. I’m going to try to do the same thing.’ People get turned on by that.
“But on the other hand, if somebody doesn’t do a good job, it can be pretty deflating to a person to be criticized in public. So he really needs to be pulled aside and a strategy — an employment improvement program of some sort — needs to be laid out where he can try to improve whatever he’s doing wrong.”
Lynch’s approach, for example, is to start on a good note then remind employees he’s there to help with the problem — both of which can encourage them to come forward with issues next time.
“I always like to start off with a positive before I bring in the negative,” Lynch says. “But [when] things aren’t going right, then I like to be direct and very open: ‘How do we solve this together?’ I think that holds a lot more weight than carrying a big stick. You get more buy-in from them wanting to solve their problem.”
For Miller, it’s about clearly communicating the steps toward a solution.
“It’s identifying, A, what’s not occurring that should be occurring, and then B, really identifying the steps that need to be taken and providing examples of what should be occurring and leaving the employee with a time frame,” he says.
The key is tackling that as soon as you notice an issue.
“That’s probably the biggest thing that I’ve learned, is don’t procrastinate when it comes to addressing something that needs to be fixed,” Miller says. “Don’t ride dead horses. Identify whatever is broken and get into it [through] those that are involved. You need to constantly be looking for areas of improvement and then identifying the best way to improve that situation and move on.”
By constantly communicating from the goal-setting until success, Miller kept his employees aligned through the recession to achieve 2009 revenue of $244 million for his region, contributing to companywide revenue of $2.3 billion.
“The conductor of this orchestra needs to be paying attention to make sure that there’s the right number of trombones and they’re playing at the right time,” Miller says. “And if the trombone’s not there, he needs to step up and identify it.”
HOW TO REACH: JE Dunn Construction Co., South Central Region, (713) 521-4664 or www.jedunn.com
