GETTING IN TUNE WITH YOUR EMPLOYEES

INTRODUCTION Last weekend I was playing some music for some friends on the guitar. The first song I had to stop and adjust the tuning of the guitar. It was BAD. I should have tuned it up before playing. In the (what would be my) last song, a string broke. Needless to say I will not be winning any Grammy awards any time soon. But just as I noticed the reaction to how my friends responded to this performance behind a guitar, I am also one of those guys that, over the years, have taken an interest in the way people respond to routine circumstances. Take the most basic interaction possible, walking in your office early in the morning and you say, "Good morning, how are you?" How they answer this question will ultimately tell you how the rest of the day will go in further interactions. If they respond with "hey, good morning" back (or something similar), then chances are high that it will be a normal day. Any response out of the ordinary will signify whether their mentality is in a proper state of mind to give full attention to the daily tasks at hand. Sure you want full attention, but do they? Do you even know what they want? How do you know that you know? Our jobs more or less form our identity, if not all then part of it. Example needed? Sure. Go to a party and try to meet someone new. What is usually one of the first questions you ask or are asked? Yep, "what do you do?" is all too often asked because somehow we believe that answer will give us the biggest impression of who someone is, and why not? People spend the majority of their time at work so it makes sense to ask it. We do not ask “who are you?” because that seems a little invasive and some may not even know what to say. For those that do know what to say, chances are they will guide the conversation that way in how they respond. Within a four year time span I will have completed my bachelors in Organizational Leadership, and two master degrees (MBA in marketing and Master of Divinity). I'm not bragging. Achiever is my number one strength, so I would end up in trouble somewhere if it were not for being overwhelmed working full time and working on two master degrees at the same time. I say all this to say that I know who I am, what I am capable of and it is not based on what I do. Not only has realizing what my strengths are and personality is, mixed with degrees that cater to those, I have been shaped to function in a certain way. Your employees are being shaped every day, but do they realize it? People want to understand themselves better. At least in the 100% of people I have asked (over 150) if they would want to understand themselves better, no one has ever said no. Some felt they had a pretty good handle on things, but even they were still teachable and willing to learn more. Perhaps they lack the tools and resources to help them articulate what motivates, inspires, and drives them to perform. Perhaps it is the unknown that wakes them up every morning as they seek to find a sense of purpose in this all too confusing world. To leaders, I make the challenge that we should be paying attention to not just completed jobs and assignments, but hold ourselves responsible to the state of being in the workplace. And why do I bring this up? Because whether you realize it or not, whether you agree with it or not, the need for personnel and personality awareness is needed. The culture is not as binary as it once was. Things are not only black or white, up or down, right or wrong. There are more than two ways of viewing situations. I would bet your employees see things differently than they check off while taking the annual climate survey. It is going to take a new leadership mentality to understand the new followership mentality. You may have come up in a booming world, expanding everyday while your employees are living in a world that is getting more connected and smaller day by day. How do two different mindsets work together? Can it even work? PUTTING IT TO THE TEST Just a little while ago I was excited to try everything I had gathered together in my studies and apply it to my current work structure. I'll provide two examples. For the first test, a group test, I sat down and did profiles with all 12 staff members that worked for me. The surprising thing is that it did not take long. They take a couple of online tests and we have a 15-30 minute conversation. I wish there was a way to calculate the amount of time this saved me for the next two years before I transferred to a different job. Employees were put into position that catered to their strengths and I got away from having well rounded workers. They knew what they did strongly and they did it! That office had never flowed so beautiful. We welcomed the tasks presented to us as if were royalty visiting our office. The change was getting away from multi-tasking and cross training. The second test was a one-on-one scenario. He was a young employee, brand new to the organization that had some trouble situations that came up regularly in his first six months. But the trouble was not at work, it was his personal life that was affecting his work. Those are always tough to discern what level of involvement do you get and how you handle it. Sometimes you have to let employees go, but with this young man, I knew there was something simply holding him back and a slight turn of the dial, he would be in tune with success. We sat down and casually began an informal counseling session. One day on the second week of these random informal sessions, I said, "Go home (it was 10:30a.m.) and spend the day thinking about what inspires you. Come back tomorrow ready to talk about it." The next day was quite busy so we did not get a chance to talk until the end of the day. The bottom line is that he was raised by a single mom and wanted to make her proud. Within the next two days I called his mom. I thanked her for raising such a bright, hard worker and we were pleased to have him on our team. She must have mentioned something to him (what I was hoping to happen) because for the next year that we worked together, not one single issue or questionable act. He did everything without an attitude and he also did not let his personal life affect his work. WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE? If you consider yourself a leader, would you not want employees that were working to their strengths and producing more? Would you want to know how to maximize that ROI because your staff trusts that you have included them when you made decisions for the company’s future and kept their interests in mind? Certainly those two will sometimes mix like oil and water, but the key element is the mentality you led with in those situations even when you know it would not work out. Just as you would need to with a guitar, you would also need to get in tune with your employees if you plan on performing at the best level possible. And the beauty is the more you practice, the easier things get for you and the employees. If you keep forcing tasks to happen when it goes against the employees’ strengths and abilities, then like a guitar string, they may break.