Q. In what ways can you begin to develop these people?
Assign them some additional responsibility. Maybe it’s a new piece of tooling. I can give it to someone to set it up the first time and go through that and see how they handle it. Some people I’ll challenge.
I’ll ask them, ‘Hey, would you like to go learn another area of operation?’ I’ll move them to other areas and see how quickly they learn.
Even if it doesn’t turn out to be good from a supervisory standpoint, I’ve got a much more well-rounded employee when it’s all done.
I believe it was Will Rogers who said, ‘Everyone is ignorant, just on different subjects.’ We can’t lose sight of the fact that we all have areas in which we aren’t especially skilled in and look for others who do that.
My production manager worked for steel mills. My maintenance supervisor spent time working for large municipal sewage treatment plants and large plastics processors. I’ve got people that have worked for many other industrial companies, much larger than I am. These people bring some really good skills to the organization that I don’t have.
If I didn’t tap into it, I’d be wasting talent. And good grief, it’s hard enough running a business today. You can’t afford to waste anything, especially talented people. Some of these folks have got some really good training from previous employers so tap into it.
Q. What is the benefit of developing leadership?
As I can find people to do things that I at one time did in the organization, it frees me up to do other good things for the organization. It’s a great asset to have people who can move up to take those kinds of jobs.
At the end of the day, there’s only one of you. You’re going to limit the ability of your organization or even your department to grow because everything goes through one person. If you can multiply yourself by having others trained and eager to step up, ultimately it’s going to make you a whole lot more effective.
Q. What if employees take their training and run?
You can’t worry too much about it. It’s happened to me; it’s going to happen again. The only way I can absolutely avoid it would be to never train anyone and that’s going to leave me a lot worse off.
If your goal of success is to never have it happen, the only way to do it is to never train people. You’re going to lose if you do that. You have to accept some of it.
How to reach: Hague Quality Water International, (614) 836-2115 or www.haguewater.com
