Give employees power. Confidence stems from being able to make decisions on a regular basis. You have to get input from people. You have to see what all the sides of the equation are. You have to analyze that, and then you’ve got to be confident enough that the decision that you make is going to be the right one.
You’re not going to always be right, but you certainly need to be right most of the time. You have to be willing to take risks because you’re never going to know for sure whether you’re making the right decision.
If you let your employees, in particular the managers, make decisions, and you stand behind their decisions, it gives them the confidence going forward to make more and more of the decisions. That confidence builds in them because they know you respect what they do and you respect the decision that
they’re making.
It’s hard to make decisions when you think someone’s looking over your shoulder all the time second-guessing you.
You let them make decisions. If they’re not quite the right decisions, you work with them and you explain why you would have done it differently. The next time, it’s probably going to be a better decision. And the next time, it’s going to be better than that. Before you know it, most of the time they’re going to be making the right decisions.
Instill a big-picture mentality. It’s difficult for a lot of people to see the big picture. It’s much easier to define a job or a department and say, ‘This is my little fiefdom. This is what I do, and this is how it works.’
Sometimes that doesn’t translate into what’s good for the company. You need to have regular meetings with managers so that they can interact with the other departments. You need to talk about things that are good for the company and those that aren’t.
Reward input and effort. Your employees have to know that you appreciate the contribution that they make. You can do things like employee of the month, preferred parking places. Any kind of outward
acknowledgement, people like to get.
The main thing is that if you have a rapport with your employees, you can communicate that [appreciation] to them. Just talk to them. Money’s not the only thing that motivates people. It’s the communication and the knowledge that you appreciate what they do for you and for your business.
How to reach: Pittsburgh Independent Auto Auction, (800) 632-9299 or pitt.auctionpipeline.com
