The whole point of employing staff is to get more done. If you recruit the wrong people, or if you don’t know how to organise and manage them, you’ll quickly become frustrated that they’re not doing their jobs properly.
Here are three very common issues that owner/managed businesses tell me at our first meeting…
“They’re Not Just Staff, They’re My Friends…”
Because you spend a lot of time with your staff and fear a confrontation, it’s common for you to treat your staff like friends and think that they’ll perform very highly for you because you’re so friendly and considerate.
Sometimes this works (about 5% of the time from experience), but the rest of the time it simply causes problems because the relationship is false, with you doing all the giving and your “friend” doing the taking.
The secret is to put respect before friendship. Consider how much you see of your “friends” outside of the workplace – would you see them still if they didn’t work for you? You can weigh this against getting things done in the right way, on time. As your employees they need to get the job done first, before being your friend.
“I Can’t Sack Him, He’s My Brother In Law…”
Employing people that you are close to can seem like a great idea at the time. You have the opportunity to give them a great job and you’ll get to see more of them, right? But more often than not it ends in tears.
In practice it’s the other way around – you don’t know how to deal with them when they don’t perform, you let them get away with blue murder because you don’t want to damage your relationship and you gradually poison the family relationship.
The final straw is that if you ever have to let them go, your friendship can be destroyed forever.
“My Staff Are Hopeless, But They’re The Best I Could Find…”
You hear this often spoken by an ambitious entrepreneur who thinks his staff should all think just like he does. He wants them to understand how much profit he’ll make and how that’s fantastic for them too.
Sadly this will never be the case – if he wants them committed it will take strong leadership and a goal that matters to them. Making you rich will not excite them, even though you think it should!
You cannot expect them to automatically be motivated and driven. Let’s face it – they’d all have a business too if they were like you and wouldn’t want a job anyway!
The truth is that there’s only one person responsible for the staff you have – that’s you. You chose them and you have managed them to become the high performing team or disorganised rabble that you have today.
The trick is to figure out why it’s gone wrong and to learn some new ways of recruiting and managing staff to put you back in the driving seat.
Your Success Blueprint for People Management
The Double Your Business coaching system uses simple methods to tackle the big issues, we call these the Success Blueprints. The first step is to diagnose what’s blocking your business from growth, including understanding specifically what’s going on with your team.
Sometimes problems that crop up with your team have their cause elsewhere – maybe your business is a bit chaotic and lacks good processes and systems, or perhaps your delegation skills need more work to help your staff to support you better.
Before you consider getting help with your team, start by understanding precisely what’s holding you back – take the free Growth Barriers Diagnostic Test to see if management really is your key issue.
Contact us on 01480 370142 for your free copy of the Growth Barriers Diagnostic Test and find out precisely what’s holding back your business.