Investor's Business Daily, May 4th, 2007
The best ways to boost your team's productivity? Define expectations, be flexible about how workers achieve them, and build momentum through short-term wins.
So says leadership trainer Warren Blank, author of "The 108 Skills of Natural Born Leaders."
Blank and other experts offer these tips:
Get what you expect. Develop an intranet company site that offers "information categories people can search to clarify (your firm's) expectations," Blank said.
"Use the site to report key decisions made in meetings, upcoming issues that are still being formulated, or new information about customers, suppliers or internal personnel changes."
Include detailed FAQs about company goals. Get input from all departments when creating the site "to ensure it serves the needs of everyone," he advised.
Think facts. In certain cases, hunches produce strong decisions. In most instances, facts rule.
Sally Smith, chief executive of Buffalo Wild Wings, knows this well. "In management meetings we argue issues based on research, not personal opinions," Smith told IBD in 2005. "The reason? We're not the customers."
Explained Judy Shoulak, senior vice president of operations at Buffalo Wild Wings: "With Sally, team input is critical, but the focus is on the guests -- what are they saying?'"
Eye victories. After becoming coach of the Washington Redskins in 1971, George Allen focused on making his first season a winning one. He wanted to get to the Super Bowl, and he knew a strong start would build momentum. The strategy paid off. Allen's team had a strong first season and went to the Super Bowl at the end of the second.
Apply shadow boxing. Look for symptoms of "organizational shadows" -- what Blank defines as attitudes, behavior and assumptions that are seldom discussed. Root them out and shine a light on them.
Blank suggested asking a few hard questions, starting with: "What topics are never discussed openly? When are people discouraged from asking questions? What information is carefully guarded? When and how are people excluded? What subjects get harsh stares when raised?"
Go beyond gold. Apply Blank's "platinum rule": "Do unto others as they would be done unto." In other words, meet followers "at their level," he said.
Customize the rule based on each worker's expectations. How would he like to be rewarded? What's critical to one employee may not be important to another.
How does he prefer to do his job? Some employees prefer coming to work early and leaving early; others prefer the opposite.
Name the game. "Skillful leaders know that some people don't play fair," Blank said. "(They) pay lip service to agreed-on expectations" and then don't follow through. "A vicious cycle then occurs."
Top leaders stop the behavior "by labeling it what it is," Blank said. "They expose the lack of fairness. They reveal the dishonesty."
The key is to label the behavior and not the person.
