I define success as growth. Be it personal, intellectual, financial, or any other metric or measurement, growth is the measurement of success just as stagnation is a path to failure. I believe success cannot happen without clear and concise goals that require opening one’s mind to other points of view allowing education to be the tool it is designed to be.
When defining a goal, its rendering must begin with two questions:
does it support the mission? Is it
profitable? The mission is the prime directive
that unifies the team in all its efforts, profit is the accumulation of tools
which support the continued efforts of the mission, be them tangible or
intangible.
Once a goal meets the two basic criteria, a plan must be put
into place that creates a path from the current status to the desired
result. The plan must take into account
any and all constraints or inhibitors that the current status fosters, and
education as to how to overcome these boundaries must be sought and accepted in
order to lay a path to success. Once a
plan or path has been determined, honest communication throughout the team should
clearly define the strengths and weaknesses of each individual to determine the
action. Once the actions have been
clarified, the team must focus on the goal as one.
The most difficult part of managing a team through the
execution of a plan to success is ensuring each member of the team understands
their role, the expectations that are required to be in that role, as well as
the profit gained when the goal is met.
This leads to accountability.
Accountability is the ability to learn from a mistake. When one is not held accountable to the
expectations of their role, be it through self-realization or outside
influence, they are receiving unwarranted profit. In order for a team to be successful, all must
profit from the growth in equal measure as to their individual dedication to
the success of the team. If an individual
not held accountable is rewarded equally among the rest of a team, it will
create dissent. Dissent is an incurable
cancer that only creates an impenetrable wall along the path to success, and
should be removed at all costs.
Communication is the ability to speak, listen and understand
each individual’s needs as well as the needs of the team as a whole. In order to reach success, in order to grow, the
individual as a single person and as a member of the team must be willing and
able to learn, lead, follow, and hold one another accountable regardless of
hierarchy with respect and unity through open, honest communication. The only way to achieve open and honest
communication is through trust, and this trust must reside in each individual in
order for it to be a pillar in the team as a whole.
The only way to create trust is through open and honest
communication, which is the foundation of every path that leads to success.
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Passionate people are the worst, and I know this because I
am one.
Passionate people who have actually taken the time and put
forth the effort to learn about the specific industry, the business of the
industry, as well as staying current with trends are heroes.
The problem with passionate people (and I am one when it
comes to the bicycle – which has caused me more than enough problems in life),
is they need an outlet. They need to
know that what they are working so hard for, the goal they strive to meet, is
actually working. Most are not looking
for financial gain, what they search for is meaning in their work: the payoff
of actually succeeding with the
mission they live for.
What I mean by payoff is a couple different things, and
there is no clear metric to determine whether or not the work is paying forward
so to speak. The only way to know for
certain if your passionate employee, business partner, owner, etc. is fulfilled
is to ask them. It is as simple as
that. Literally ask them if they feel
like their efforts are making them feel like the positive difference is being
made. I for one have never been chasing
big dollars, don’t get me wrong I like to get paid, which is why I have had so
much difficulty working for people that need financial reward regardless of the
quality of job that is completed. I
also know a bunch of people that feel that same way. They have no problem working their asses off
if they know that the end result will be seeing their passion flow into other
people.
Too often passionate people are seen as moody, difficult to
work with, hard lined, stubborn… insert whatever adjective you like. The reason they are this way is because they
actually care deeply about the worth that their work is creating. Again, this is not a financial worth but a
positive change in their local environment that facilitates their life and the
lives of others being better for it.
This is a terribly difficult thing to understand if you are motivated only
by financial gains.
What you have to do is find the balance, and this is the most difficult part of building your team. If money is all you care about, then make sure that you align yourself with people who are passionate about making money, people who couldn’t care less about the widget or service or whatever they are selling. If you want to have a better bicycle retail and service store, and money is not your primary motivator, then find a partner who’s passionate about making money. Adversely, if you want to be the most profitable bicycle shop in the area and the financial gains are what motivate you to get up and work seven days a week finding ways to penny pinch here and there, you need to find someone who can balance out your lack of concern with what you sell and how your service is performed. It is the same thing with a coffee shop, a t-shirt shop, music, rocking chairs; it truly doesn’t matter.
What you have to do is find the balance, and this is the most difficult part of building your team. If money is all you care about, then make sure that you align yourself with people who are passionate about making money, people who couldn’t care less about the widget or service or whatever they are selling. If you want to have a better bicycle retail and service store, and money is not your primary motivator, then find a partner who’s passionate about making money. Adversely, if you want to be the most profitable bicycle shop in the area and the financial gains are what motivate you to get up and work seven days a week finding ways to penny pinch here and there, you need to find someone who can balance out your lack of concern with what you sell and how your service is performed. It is the same thing with a coffee shop, a t-shirt shop, music, rocking chairs; it truly doesn’t matter.
What you have to do is build a team that has faith in your plan while you must have the same faith in their abilities to execute your plan.
How the hell do you do this?
Expectations.
You
absolutely must make certain that each and every member of your team
understands the expectations the company has in them as well as the
expectations they have of the company.
One of the most important expectations is how you will achieve your goal
and the process of which you will execute your plan in order to lay a path to
your goal. This is where the old adage
of “cheap, quick, good; pick two” comes into play. In anything you do, you must articulate and
make certain your team can rally under whatever two you choose.
Let’s go a little more in-depth in the explanation.
Cheap:
this is where you are able to sell your product or
service at a lower than average cost to the consumer. In order to do this you must either source
lower quality materials, lower skilled craftsman, or make a much smaller profit
on whatever it is you are selling. Cheap
also means you will likely have lower pay for your team members, and will
require the skills to create your product or service to be entry level if you
are not willing to budge on margin or materials.
Quick:
speed kills.
Well trained craftsmen and artists can do a job far more efficiently
than a beginner. This is kind of a no
brainer, but sometimes people don’t understand it. When you decide to start your own business or
buy a business and begin looking at branding, you literally get what you pay
for… just like a plumber. There is a
cartoon out there somewhere that shows a suit and tie guy asking for artwork
from an artist, he describes what he is looking for and the artist walks away
to get to work. The next panel shows the
artist returning with a rendering of exactly what the suit and tie was looking
for in his description. The suit and tie
questioned the artist as to why something he created in fifteen minutes cost
$500. The artist responding by say, “I
spent five years in school studying so I
could do this in fifteen minutes.” You
absolutely must consider the time and effort the potential team member has put
into their craft when making you selection as to whom you want to work with.
Good:
this one is easy.
Are you planning to make something that will last for generations or
something that will likely break the second or third time it is used? Are you looking to have a business based on
return customers or is this a one and done thing? Deciding the quality of your business is a
very difficult thing to do, but that directly affects your team. If the expectation of a team member is that
the product or service must be perfect and the business is based on a 75%
failure rate after a few uses, you will create one hell of a conflict.
When building your business or adding new members to your
team, you absolutely have to make certain they understand what the goals are
considering these things. The other way
to put it is, would you like the job done quickly, would you like the price to
be low, or would you like the quality to be high? Meeting all three is impossible, so your job
is to find the balance between the three that allows you and your team to feel
good about the job they do.
The thing you must understand about passionate people is
they are not in it for the money. You
need to make sure they can make a nice living, and that when they wake up in
the morning or go home at night, they truly feel like they are supported in
their work and that they can pay their bills without question. But a passionate employee will give you
everything they have to ensure the end customer is just as excited and happy as
they are, and likely more.
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Take care of those who take care of you.
Tips. I recently
visited a takeout place and when I tried to leave a tip, they would not accept
it. I was informed that certain
employees had been making food for people, and when they paid in cash they
would put the money in the tip jar and not ring up the food – essentially
giving it away for free and stealing the money.
The owner fired the person/people involved and decided that they would
no longer allow tips to be given in an effort to curb the opportunity.
The cost associated with this is much larger than the free
food that was given away.
By eliminating tips and setting a precedent as such, the
owner showed they do not trust their employees, even new ones. The owner is essentially telling the
employees that were kept, as well as the new employees who learn of the story
that they are on the same level of trust, or rather mistrust, that the
dismissed employees were because getting rid of the bad apples was just not
good enough. This was also a punishment
for those who were honest, those who followed the rules and protocol for receiving
tips. The absolutely dumbest thing you
can do as an owner or manager is punishing those who did nothing wrong as if
they themselves were the perpetrator.
This leads to decrease in employee retention and commitment
based on the lack of trust given to them due to other’s action. What the owner was doing, literally, was
saying, “There were a couple people that I could not trust, who were stealing
from the company. I know not everyone
was stealing and those who were have been fired for doing so. However, because a couple people who have
already been punished for their actions are no longer employed, I am removing a
financial benefit of working here.”
Think about that. The
owner is literally telling people that have access to the register, and who have
done nothing wrong, that they can no longer be trusted with taking tips, when
these same people have the ability to simply give the food away for free, which
I would not be surprised if they did.
It also is a decrease in pay to the employees because
regardless of how much tip money was available at the end of the shift, those
monies that go directly to employees are no longer available. This can be a very big deal to those who
shared large amounts of tip money on a regular basis.
When I picked up my food, I refused to take the couple
dollars in change stating, “I know the rule and I don’t care.” Yes, from many aspects this was not something
that would be perceived as ok to do, and it clearly shows I disagree with the
operational decisions of the owners, but what I was doing was showing that I
trust the employees, I disagree with the owner’s choice to punish those not
responsible for the original issue, and that they themselves are trusted by a
customer.
You have to think about the breadth of what you are
entrusting your employees with. If you
are an absentee owner or you have multiple locations with multiple managers, or
if your business is open and operating at any time without you there, you
absolutely must trust your employees to do what you want. If one or two of them stop doing it, get rid
of them as fast as you can. However, do
not, under any circumstances, punish others for what those people did.
The other part of trust is listening to your employees,
especially if you hired a person who has more experience and training in one or
more of the offerings of your company.
Let’s say you opened a coffee shop and hire a barista
because you don’t know anything about how to operate an espresso machine. You lucked into an individual who has years
of experience and training in the operation of the machine, makes wonderful
coffee, and is very good at dealing with the trials and tribulations of the
job. They are the professional you
better listen to and make sure you understand them when they present an
issue. Keep in mind; they likely have a
reputation and a following. When people
come into your coffee shop and see who is making their coffee, or they experience what this person can achieve for the first
time as a new customer, the barista is creating return customers for your
business.
If you find they are unhappy for whatever reason, you truly
have to weigh the success they bring with what it will take to replace them
quickly. You cannot operate the machine
at the level they can, so when you step in to do the work after you dismiss
them, whether you produce the exact same product and service or not, you are
not the person with whom the customer has built the relationship, and that
means your coffee will not be as good.
This is due to the perception of the customer.
When you dismiss an employee that builds relationships with
customers, you not only have to replace the physical efforts they were
performing, but also the camaraderie they brought to your business.