Are you aware of Tootsie Roll Pop Strategy of employee retention?

Inside a tootsie roll pop is the chocolate core- that is, the wages and benefits. Yes, a competitive compensation package is important. But that gets people to show up for work but not necessarily to give their 100%.

However, there is also the outer layer of tootsie roll pop. That is the different flavors—red, green, orange, etc. These different flavors are the variety of the management practices of a company. Some taste really good and satisfy most employees and some don’t.

Here’s what a manager of Information Systems, who has spent a good art of his career recruiting and supervising professionals as well as support people.

“It was a terrific learning experience for me…..mostly because it was a chance to discover some universal truths about employees.”

What Are These Truths?

1. Most people are content being paid at or around the market rate for good quality work.
SOME folks are extremely money conscious, but eventually they learn that the paycheck comes every two weeks all on its own, and other motivators come into play very quickly. There are very few folks who can be bought for money alone.

2. Most people want two opposing things out of their jobs.
They want to feel they are part of a group that’s able to accomplish greater things than they could on their own, AND they want to know that they stand out as individuals. The job as a manager is to give them BOTH experiences: to bring about a ‘team spirit’ and to let his staff or team know what a great job each one is doing.

3. Most people have a few ongoing needs that motivate them to do their best work and to stay.
They include a clear direction of their job or project; specific assignments that help them grow; access to necessary organizational resources, and feedback on their performance on a regular basis. Otherwise, they pretty much want to be left alone to get their job or assignment done.

Five Key Management Practices

He then realized that his job as manager became very simple. To motivate high performance and, at the same time, ensure employee satisfaction within his group, he just needed to:

1. Provide employees with a clear sense of where we’re going and why
2. Make sure they have the necessary resources to get their job done
3. Be attuned to their professional needs and try to provide them with assignments that meet these needs (not always easy but still attainable)
4. Regularly meet with them both formally and informally to give and get feedback on what’s going on
5. Praise their efforts and their accomplishments. A simple “thank you” goes a long way.

Management Success Tip:

This manager’s comments reinforce my observations that the primary reason that people commit to a job, an organization, or an effort is not financial! It is the basic feeling of success. The employee who achieves, who accomplishes his or her goals and objectives, who maintains a feeling of personal worth and value, will more likely remain with the organization.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

How much of money do you spend on hiring the right people and then waste by pouring cold water on their enthusiasm on that very first day?

Almost all companies do an orientation for new hires but few pay much attention to them. Often workers come to work excited about the prospects of a new job and new friends only to get cold water in their face the first day or week on the job. Many companies miss an opportunity to make a greet first impression.

Research has shown that improving orientation can increase retention rates by as much as 25%. Like any major decision such as purchasing a new house or a new car, new hires are looking for assurance to the question: Did I make the right choice to come here? Let them know from day one that they did. Below are 3 employee orientation tools to boost their productivity and commitment.

1. Tools to “Celebrate a New Hire”

The “celebration” approach assumes that the first day, week, month as crucial to getting a new hire “signed on” to the company’s mission and committed to the job. Managers and team leaders need to take a larger role in “closing making the new hires feel welcomed and important.

• Have the CEO, general manager or department head make a “glad you’re aboard” phone call or send a welcome email.
• Have a surprise welcome party in the new hires work area with coffee and pastry or arrange a potluck lunch.
• Take a team picture on the first day and have it signed by all or put the new hires picture on.the company website or newsletter.

2. Tools to “Jump Start” Productivity

Many workers encounter delays and frustrations in getting the tools and training they need to start off running in their new job.

• Have someone show the new hire around (location of supplies, copier, restroom, coffee machine, lunch places,, phone system, expense account procedures so on).
• Make sure new hires have all needed information and supplies from day one (passwords, telephone numbers, e-mail addresses, furniture, computer, tools, etc.)
• Assign a buddy from their own department so they can ask “stupid” questions and learn “how things are done around here.”

3. Tools to” Make Them Part of the Team”

Quickly assimilating and developing new hires into productive employees can make a significant contribution to your group, team or department.,

• Plan an hour or so of uninterrupted time with the manager during the first week to go over with the new hire expectations, assignments, role in the department, etc.
• Have a short team building activity so that the new hire gets to know team members and what they do.
• Make sure the rest of the team is open, friendly and cooperative especially if the new fire is taking a team members place.

Management Success Tip:

The good news is that a new hire orientation program offers an opportunity to build a lasting impression of the new company. The bad news is that that is going to happen whether you plan it or not. Isn’t it better to plan the new recruit’s impressions than to have it happen haphazardly?

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

I write this blog struggling not to make it sound too academic. The subject is a topic many organizational thought leaders speak about and is foundational to implementing any of the new sciences of leadership. It also sets the stage for some upcoming topics, allowing you to understand and apply them in a much deeper way. So, here we go!

Systems are Webs of Relationships

Throughout this conversation, two visual metaphors help to imagine the organizational systems that exist all around us: the body of any living organism and the web of a spider (the observer stands at the center).

Systems, like all living organisms, are composed of parts and wholes. Parts are events, behaviors, functions (like marketing), people, or even ideas. The parts are arrayed with no particular design or logic except the relationships they have to the other parts, which can be local or global, virtual or co-located. These relationships are what make the system and establish its boundaries.

Often, when the system is hidden, we discover it when we discover the relationship that exists between two of the parts. I was recently talking with a consultant about her work and how she could apply it to healthcare. Many of her ideas and practices sounded familiar and, after looking over her website, I discovered that she is part of an intellectual system that has emerged from the Boston area (Harvard and MIT) over the last 20 years.

First Concept: Systems emerge from the dynamic relationships and interactions between their parts.

Let’s take the example of a team, a system we all participate in. The behavior of each team member (part) has an effect on the overall behavior of the team (whole). This is pretty easy to feel even if we can’t put our finger on why it happens. What we feel is the emotional system that has emerged from the interpersonal relationships between the team members. You have probably also noticed that some people are more strongly impacted by the behavior and ideas of an individual than others, they have a stronger connection within the overall system. In this way, systems can be balanced or out of balance. For those of us on the east coast who stayed up late to watch the Oscars, Monday morning we had a system out of balance due to lack of sleep.

Second Concept: All parts of a system are connected and interdependent.

One property of systems is that the system (the whole team) has an impact on each part (individuals). We experience this as team culture, identity, and context. When part of our team faces a challenge, the whole team experiences anxiety, concern, or tension. When success comes to even one individual, we all celebrate. Our connectedness leads to our interdependence: the behaviors of the parts effect the whole and the behaviors of the whole effect the parts. No one is exempt from being impacted by the system and the system is the result of the impact it makes on us.

Third Concept: The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, often far greater.

Every time I talk with groups about what makes a great team the word synergy comes up. In any system, the parts gain some of their properties (vitality and integrity) from the whole system. When one part of the system is separated from the whole, it loses something. We see this all the time in our organizations, we take a member of a high-performing team and put them somewhere else in the organization to take advantage of their abilities, and the team falls apart or the person’s performance is average in their new position. No surprise, they and their team were a product of the system. It may appear to us that one person was a standout star but that is seldom the whole story. If we want what “they” have, as leaders we need to figure out what the system is doing not what the parts are doing.

Fourth Concept: Every system has characteristics or properties that none of the individual parts have.

So leaders, how can you create the conditions for healthy, vibrant, and creative systems within your organization or team? Let me leave you with two quotes to ponder, how can your actions reflect this idea?

If each part of a system is made to operate as efficiently as possible, the system as a whole will not operate as effectively as possible. The performance of a system depends more on how its parts interact than on how they act independently of each other. Russ Ackoff, Creating the Corporate Future

…the performance of an organization depends more on how the parts work together than on how they work separately; if you optimize the performance of the parts, you systematically suboptimize the performance of the whole. …the job of leaders is to manage the interactions of the parts, not their actions. Ray Stata, Chairman, Analog Devices

“I mean it. I feel like I’ve died and gone to heaven here. If things stay this way, I’d like to spend the rest of my working life for this company. You feel like a real person, not just a number.”

This a quote from the book “The Enthusiastic Employee: How Companies Profit by Giving Workers What they Want” by David Sirota. Most people, when they’re hired, are ready to work hard and eager to contribute.

What happens to dampen their enthusiasm?

Sirota’s research states that the workplace is rife with myths – many of them involving how employers view employees. Here are the myths that deal with employee motivation.

1. “Employees will never be happy with their pay.”
In fact, about 40% of workers rate their salaries as good or very good. Less than a quarter or 23%, say it is poor or very poor. When employees complain about their pay, they are really unhappy with something else – perhaps the long hours, or lack of praise, or poor working conditions

2. “Most people don’t care whether they do a quality job.”
They care a lot! A major reason for worker frustration, the authors discover in their surveys, is not being able to get the job done or done well because of obstacles such as poor equipment, insufficient training, bureaucracy, and conflict among the various parts of an organization.

3. “Telling people they’ve done a good job makes them complacent.”
Recognition for good performance is one of the most powerful inducements to continued good performance.. When employee performance is taken for granted by management, as in, “that’s what we expect, why mention it,” employees and the company both lose.

4. “Most employees resist change, whatever it is.”
Actually workers resist change they perceive as harmful to them or to the company or new policies that were developed in secret. Give them better furniture, faster computers or easier softer systems and they have no complaints.

What are the truths about motivation?

The Enthusiastic Employee found that a vast majority of workers wanted these three things:

1. Equity:
They want to be treated fairly and justly – in relation to their peers and in relation to the basic conditions of employment (things like pay and benefits, safety and respect etc). The policies and practices that facilitate employee enthusiasm begin with the concept of equity — the degree to which people believe their employer treats them with fundamental fairness.

2. Achievement:
They want to be proud of what they do, and the organization for which they do it. They want to be recognized when they do a good job.

3. Camaraderie:
They want to interact with others and have co-operative relations while doing the work. Teamwork matters to most people.

Management Success Tip:

When employees feel enthusiastic about their work, it shows up in how they perform and how they treat customers. This, in turn, influences customers and their desire to buy or use your services. So, these three needs matter – they drive employee performance and business performance. Employee loyalty is not dead; it’s not even on life support. It’s there. Management needs to feed it regularly and give it air to breathe.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

Our company is going through some hard times because of the economic uncertainty. We are tightening our belt and trying not to lay off our folks, but we may be forced to. How do we make the best of a bad time for our business?

It is easier to be open with employees when the news is good. When business realities get more difficult, many managers tend to adopt a bunker mentality, developing strategy behind closed doors as employee anxiety mounts, trust declines and rumors fly. Than you have a real morale problem and the potential of productivity going down and customer complaints going up.

Even bad news has the potential of strengthening the relationships with your present and future employees, when communicated clearly and effectively. Here’s how

1. Communicate widely, honestly and often.
Tell employees about the hardships facing the company. It is likely that they have already sensed the situation, but it is important that they hear the news directly from management.. Acknowledging and discussing the company’s position is the first step to keeping people involved and thus committed to solving problems they understand.

2. Fill in information gaps for your employees.
If layoffs become necessary, people won’t be shocked if they have been able to see them coming. Constantly update your people through emails, voice mails, face-to-face meetings and even webcasts. In times of uncertainty, no news is NOT good news.

3. Give the most pressing information first.
When the question on every one’s mind is, “Is there bad news ahead?” let them know. Then the second question is “What about me?” Provide honest communication even to say, we don’t know, but will let you know as soon as possible. And then do that.

4. Tell employees that they are appreciated.
Reinforce that they are valued, and that they will play a vital part in the organization’s future success. Increase motivation and recognition efforts.

5. Realize that good news is important too.
Don’t get so bogged down in the negative that you forget to pass on the good. Long-term success follows a series of smaller “wins,” and announcing these wins as they occur will help rebuild employee confidence and encourage them to continue to be productive.

Management Success Tip:

Employees need leadership at this time. They want to know where the company is going, how it’s going to get there, and what is needed from them so that they can get immediately on board. Don’t wait until the plan is perfect – it never is. You can say right now this is what we need to do and management will keep you informed of changes. And don’t forget to thank them again for their work and commitment.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

The Secret of the Starting Question

The ability of the group to respond to a question is significantly impacted by the quality of the question asked by the facilitator. The starting question is the term we, at Leadership Strategies, use for the question the facilitator asks to begin a discussion. Typically, a starting question is used at the beginning of every agenda item in a facilitated process. For example, for creating a plan to fix the hiring problem a facilitator might use the following agenda:

A. Getting started (purpose, personal objectives, process, ground rules)

B. How does the process work today?

C. What are the problems and root causes?

D. What are potential improvements?

E. How might we priorities these improvements?

F. How will the new process work?

F. How will we implement this new process?

G. Review and close

Agenda items B through F represent the core of the work for the facilitated session. For each of these agenda items, there is a time when the facilitator asks a question and expects the participants to begin responding. The ability of the group to respond to a question is significantly impacted by the quality of the question asked by the facilitator. It is much like starting a fire. If the facilitator uses the wrong material to ask the question, he will get this flickering flame that he has to blow on and feed continually to just keep it going. If the facilitator uses the right material, she will quickly have a bonfire of responses with people hardly able to wait to make their contributions.

What is the secret of the starting question? How do you get the bonfire of responses? Let’s examine these two questions to understand the secret.

Question Type A: “The first thing we want to talk about are inputs. What are the inputs to the scheduling process?”

Question Type B: “If you were about to develop the school schedule, what information would you need to have close by?”

What is it about the second question that makes it a better question? When we make this same inquiry to people we train in facilitation skills, here are a sample of responses we get:

Why is Question Type “B” Better? Uses their language (“school schedule,” “information”) More personal, addresses them directly (“you”) Action oriented (“about to”) Open ended (“what information”)

While these are true points, they don’t quite focus directly on the secret of the starting question. When we take the students through a quick exercise, they understand the secret in a way they helps them to retain it. The facilitator asks the students to close their eyes and listen to question type A. After saying the question, the facilitator asks them to open their eyes and to raise their hands if they saw something as he was reading the question. One or two typically say they saw a flow chart or diagram or something of that sort. Most indicate they saw nothing. However, when the facilitator asks them to close their eyes a second time and to then listen to question type B, we have a different result. Typically two-thirds, if not more, see an image. The image described by most involves sitting at a desk with items they use for scheduling arranged on the desk. Herein lies the secret of the starting question.

Secret #1 – The Secret of the Starting Question Great starting questions draw a vivid image of the answers. Use starting questions that draw a vivid image so participants can more easily see their answers and start responding.

Why is a vivid image key to the starting question? When the facilitator draws a vivid image, the participants can literally “see” the answers, and can begin responding right away.

Type A versus Type B Questions

Contrast this with the Type A starting question. While a Type B starting question draws a vivid image, the Type A starting question simply asks what you as the facilitator want to know. If you want to know the inputs to the scheduling process, you ask “What are the inputs to the scheduling process?” After you ask the question, the participants have to put their hands to their heads and begin thinking of answers. What are they doing? They are probably trying to imagine themselves back at their school the last time they did scheduling. They are probably trying to draw the image that the facilitator did not draw for them! Unfortunately, this effort usually results in the room going silent for several moments – just at the time when the facilitator is looking for responses. In essence, due to the poor starting question, the facilitator has driven the room silent!

It is important to recognize that Type A questions are the “default.” If you do not think about your question in advance, more times than not you will ask a Type A question. For example, suppose the agenda calls for the group to identify problems with the current hiring process. If you have not prepared an image building Type B question in advance, more than likely you will ask a Type A question (“What are the problems you have encountered with the hiring process?”).

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For more resources, see the Library topic Facilitation.

__________________________

Michael Wilkinson is the CEO and Managing Director of Leadership Strategies, Inc., “The Facilitation Company” and author of Amazon best-seller “The Secrets of Facilitation”, “The Secrets to Masterful Meetings”, and the brand new “The Executive Guide to Facilitating Strategy.” Leadership Strategies is a global leader in facilitation services, providing companies with dynamic professional facilitators who lead executive teams and task forces in areas like strategic planning, issue resolution, process improvement and others. They are also a leading provider of facilitation training in the United States.

“I find myself trying to avoid those annual appraisals with my people. Much as I try to keep the meeting focused, we always seem to get side tracked and involved in personal stuff.” – Health Care Manager

During a recent training on performance reviews, I asked managers when they experienced problems. Many said it was during the discussion phase. Either the person who received performance feedback became defensive, or the manager when asked to explain her comments, became flustered. Here are some communication errors or games that affect performance appraisals. See if you’ve played them.

As the Manager:

• Acting the nice guy: Wants to avoid conflict so rates everyone high to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings, regardless of performance.
• Changing in mid-stream: Backs off from giving feedback if the person gets upset or emotional.
• Disguising: Uses “sandwich” technique of good news – bad news – good news or slips bad news in during unrelated discussion.
• Going one way: Gives either all negative or all positive feedback, leading the person to believe he can do nothing wrong or nothing right.
• Going through the motions: Sends a clear message that this review is done out of duty and discussion is discouraged.

As the Employee:

• Stonewalling: Flatly rejects feedback as wrong or unusable or biased.
• Excuse making: Always blames someone or something else. Favorite phrase is, “Yes, but…”
• Clamming up: Will not respond to questions or discuss performance problems.
• Counterattacking: Collects or creates and presents “evidence” to prove manager is wrong.
• Bargaining: Focuses on the ratings rather than the feedback, negotiating to improve the score.

Here are three tips to improve your communication whether an employee or manager.

1. Don’t assume anything. Don’t let an employee or your manager think that you know what is going to be said. You may be wrong and therefore get off to a bad start.
2. Don’t interrupt. Let the person have her full say. The person who is stopped may feel that her opinions are not important.
3. Don’t react too quickly. We all tend to jump to conclusions. The person may use a word that makes us see red, or may express a situation badly. Try to understand, not necessarily agree, with the other’s viewpoint.

Management Success Tip:

Think back to a recent discussion you’ve had giving feedback to an employee or receiving feedback from your manager. Were any of the above games played? If so, what could you have done differently? Also see Performance Appraisals: A Quick Guide for Managers.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.

This is a guest post from coach and consultant, Dean Middlebrook of Management Development & Marketing at Canon Europe Ltd.

(Although the following blog post mentions therapists and clnicians, the guidelines are useful to anyone who is interested in using coaching for themselves, even if they aren’t interested in seeking professional levels of competence in coaching.)

In a clinical setting the terms ‘shadow of the therapist’ and ‘wounded healer’ are often used synonymously to describe an unhelpful and un-therapeutic relationship where the clinician misuses the client relationship to work through his/her their own healing needs. The focus moves away from the client’s needs and towards the helper’s emotionally unhealthy and potentially harmful agenda.

Now, of course, the coaching relationship isn’t generally a therapy; however, the idea of the ‘shadow of the coach’ and the ‘wounded coach’ are compelling topics that I think need to be raised in coaching development programmes. And upon reflection, I’ve observed toxic coaching is the following forms:

1) Need to control the agenda within the client relationship
2) Need to create an unequal balance of power within the coaching relationship
3) Need to take responsibility for the solutions to a client’s difficulties
4) Need to create a relationship of dependency between the coach & client
5) Need to take on the role of ‘saviour’ and ‘rescuer’
6) Need for client to praise, respect, adore, and flatter the coach
7) Need to instruct, sermonize, direct, and give advice
8) Need to feel superior
9) Relishes in the power of the coaching role without sufficient training and supervision
10) Over indulges in too much self-disclosure
11) Expects gratitude on the part of the client
12) Becomes defensive, resentful or aggressive when challenged by clients
13) Takes coaching relationship into the therapeutic realm
14) Probes without clear ethical boundaries
15) Pathologizes a client’s problem
16) Always blames the client when the coaching relationship breaksdown or when the relationship fails to show meaningful outcomes (refuses to take any responsibility for the failure to achieve meaningful outcomes)
17) Misuses knowledge to assert authority
18) Intellectualizes issues as way of asserting credibility and respect (i.e. “I’m smarter than you, so you had better listen to me”…or, “I know you better than you know yourself”)

What do you think? Can you add anything to the list?

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I recently read an article on personal health that included the Mayo Clinic food pyramid. Hummm, do you suppose that a leadership pyramid impacts organizational health?

The two foundational sections (fruits and veggies for those of you who are interested in personal health as well) for leaders wanting to positively impact organizational health and well being are, I would argue (drum roll): Creating Reality and Coaching (Figure 1.)

Creating reality, establishing the contextual landscape, is the concept that leaders set the stage, create the container, and generally help the organization frame how it perceives the world. Call it organizational culture, the emotional system, or leadership presence, how you show up, interpret events and react to them sets the tone for the group you lead. It is very difficult for an organization to operate outside of the “reality” perceived by its leadership.

Remember “leadership by walking around”? Well, one thing leaders can do when they walked around is coach those they encounter. For leaders to intentionally create reality, they have to get out and talk to people. After hello and some small talk, what better than to have a coaching conversation? This is not a 30-second elevator speech. A coaching conversation at the base of the leadership pyramid needs three or four good questions that establish common ground, explore the landscape, course correct if needed, and create the reality you desire. For example:

• What are you curious about these days?
• What keeps you up at night?
• What about our company excites you the most?
• Who else I should be talking to?

If you have time, make up your own questions based on what you are curious about, what keeps you up at night, and what excites you the most about your company.

Moving up the leadership pyramid, we’ll come back to the circle at the end, we enter the zone of carbohydrates – leadership that provides the organization with energy. Purpose. Vision. Goals. I lump these three together to take advantage of their synergy.

• Purpose (why we are here) needs direction (Vision) and just enough structure (Goals) to keep people aligned. When your Purpose Mojo is working organization wellbeing is high, people are jazzed, and the energy is palpable.
• Vision supports all levels of the leadership pyramid – go west is the only direction needed when core principles are in place (Purpose) and people know where they are relative to each other and “west” (Goals).
• Goals allow us to measure our progress as we undertake intentional change, i.e. achieving our Vision. In today’s VUCA world (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) goals have a much shorter life span. For example, if the budget is going to change, and whose isn’t, goals have to realign and adapt to the reality that exists.

Protein is the next layer, the nutritional element that builds new structures – from enzymes to bones and muscles. In the leadership pyramid this layer is where innovation drives change and builds the future. It takes a while to see the effects of this layer, but without enough high quality protein (innovation and change) the whole organization becomes malnourished, unthrifty, and susceptible to dis-ease. As you fuel your organization with innovation and change, pay attention to the structures you are building and how they impact function – a runner would be slowed down by the muscles of a weight lifter and a ballerina would not get off the ground with an additional 20# of fat.

Which brings us to the next layer of the pyramid – energy dense fats. These are fuels that pack a whollop and, in excess, can topple our diet. In the leadership pyramid, this layer is the executive team. Building your executive team (or your key colleagues and advisors) is about finding the healthy ones and weeding out those that clog the organizational arteries. Think a light dipping oil verses Crisco. The “Mediterranean” Diet of this level establishes a team that is positive, has complimentary strengths, and integrity.

Sweets are at the top. They tempt us while reeking metabolic havoc on our blood sugar. A good sweet is a delight, savored, the experience drawn out, eaten a bite at a time. The top of the leadership pyramid is strategy; well made it goes a long way and is enjoyed by everyone. Leaders who spend an appropriate amount of time on the rest of the pyramid create the right sweet (strategy) for the meal (from creating reality to building their team).

So what is that strange circle in the middle of the Mayo Clinic Food Pyramid? The wise folks in Rochester, MN realized that a food pyramid is incomplete without exercise, which they placed in the base to indicate its value. For the leadership pyramid the circle is Self Care – the work you do to keep yourself strong, healthy, happy, energized, and rejuvenated. If you as leader don’t take care of your self, your organization will be on a yo-yo diet – chasing you from heroic feats to complete exhaustion. The leadership pyramid is complete when you replenish and are focused, present, and fulfilled.

“I’ve taken over a project team and there are several problem employees. One spends more time socializing than doing her job. Another is making too many mistakes that slow down the team. How should I handle these problems as the new leader?”

One of a leader’s toughest jobs is dealing with problem employees. The best course of action is to quickly take action – to identify the trouble and get to the root cause. Allowing the problem behavior to continue or escalate is counterproductive for the employee, for you and for the rest of your team.

Here are three common problems and suggestions for dealing with them.

1. Poor performance.
This may be due to a lack of skills or to faulty work habits such as being careless or disorganized. When you notice that an employee has made some errors, point out the mistakes immediately and monitor their work more closely. If performance difficulties continue, consider coaching or additional training.

2. Job incompatibility.
In some cases an employee becomes a problem because their skills are not compatible with their assigned tasks or regular duties. In this case, offering the employee additional training or assigning them a different set of tasks.

3. Disruptive behavior.
Take the employee out for lunch or a cup of coffee in a casual setting. State examples of the disruptive behavior and ask what’s troubling him. It may be a personal problem or a simple case of feeling unappreciated. If the problem is more serious, conduct a closed-door meeting and show documented examples of the problem behavior. Discuss the possible consequences he faces – change in responsibilities, demotion or termination – if their behavior does not change.

Management Success Tip:

It’s critical to document the problems and record all discussions and actions you’ve taken. Employees often consider written warnings more seriously than verbal reprimands. Creating a paper trail is important, especially if you decide to terminate the employee. Also see Performance Problems: Nip Them in the Bud and Employee Coaching.

Do you want to develop your Management Smarts?

• Build your skills with The Effective Manager.
• Sign up for Quick Wins: 101 Management Tips.
• Find performance boosters in the Smart Moves Blog.
• Fast track your leadership. Be part of a Success Team.
• Need a speaker? Get the Edge keynotes-webinars-workshops.
• Copyright © 2012 Marcia Zidle business and leadership coach.