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What drives you crazy about owning and managing your wood flooring business? Trying to get paid? Scheduling crews? Getting change orders approved? Dealing with customers? Having to cut your bid? Signing 27-page contracts?
My guess is that dealing with your employees is what keeps you up at night. How do you get them to be accountable, mistake-free and on time? How do you make disciplined, goal-oriented and responsible employees? How do you get them to show up on time, do what you want, be accountable, take responsibility, do things right the first time and help improve your bottom line? Take a look at this common dilemma and question I get:
"I'm just a small company. How can I get my employees to do what I want them to do? An employee mistake can cost me everything, so I can't let my people make any big decisions."
To know the answer, try answering these three questions:
1) Do You Chase Wheelbarrows?
A few years ago I was visiting one of our job sites for my general contracting business. As I drove to the site, I noticed one of our long-time laborers cleaning the slab with a broom and shovel. He was sweeping debris into his shovel and then walking about 100 yards to the trash bin. He repeated this for several minutes until I finally stopped and asked him: "Where's your wheelbarrow?" He said his boss didn't give him one. I then asked if a wheelbarrow would make the job go faster. He said yes, so I asked him why he didn't have one to use. He said his boss never gave him one, so he did what he could to stay busy.
I went and looked for the foreman. After looking for a few minutes to no avail, I looked for the superintendent. He was in a meeting, so as the big boss, I went to my truck, got a key to the storage bin, unlocked it and got a wheelbarrow for the laborer. I solved the problem! Or did I? Have you ever fixed a problem yourself but not addressed the bigger problem?
Here's what was really wrong with that picture: The laborer was not trusted with a key to the bin. The laborer was not responsible for: thinking, decision-making, choosing the right tool, or obtaining results. He wasn't responsible for anything, actually. And meanwhile, the foreman and superintendent were not setting clear targets and goals, not explaining the big picture, not trusting people, not giving up their authority, not training their field crews and not communicating properly.
2) Are You a Firefighter?
Do you ever feel like a firefighter running from one fire to another with only a garden hose, putting out everyone else's fires? Do you do your employees' work all day and then do your work all night? What wheelbarrows do you chase?
Why can't your employees handle more responsibility? In a recent poll of field employees, 66 percent were asked to make decisions, but only 14 percent felt empowered and trusted to make decisions. They were afraid their boss would yell at them for mistakes. Rather than risking it, employees didn't take on more than they had to. The root of most people problems is the boss, not the employee.
3) Who Owns the Problem?
When the boss owns every problem, only he or she can solve it correctly. When you solve other people's problems for them, they rely on you to solve all their problems. When people aren't responsible for any problems, how can they be responsible for any solutions? Do your employees rely on you to solve their problems?
When you continually solve everyone else's problem, your employees can't grow and become the best they can be. When you treat employees like children who can't think and don't know any better, they act like children and only do what they're told to do. It's your job to train your employees and make them responsible, because you can't do everything.
You Can't Do it All Yourself!
Small business owners start out as the sole proprietor making every decision. Successful business owners realize they can't do it all themselves and seek people they can trust and grow with. Look at the bigger companies. They have multiple levels of responsible people who make most everyday business decisions. The owner (rightfully) decided he wasn't the only smart person on the planet.
The No. 1 reason employees don't accept accountability or responsibility is that they don't know exactly what you want them to do. You tell them, but they can't fully understand. The No. 2 reason employees don't accept responsibility is because their boss doesn't trust them.
Follow this five-step process to get your people to become more accountable and responsible, to clearly understand what you want them to do, and to feel trusted and empowered to get things done.
1. Establish Clear Expectations and Understanding. Tell them, show them and draw a visual picture to explain it again. A good leader holds meetings with foremen and crew. Hand out agendas complete with project goals and deadlines. Next, your foremen should delegate their responsibilities to their crews, telling each member what they specifically need to accomplish and what the deadline is.
2. Create a Scorecard and Tracking System. In order to make people accountable and responsible, there must be simple milestones and deadlines to achieve and track. Your team members need to know where they stand in order to meet your daily or monthly goals and expectations. I created a "Hardhat Scorecard" to track the progress of job activities. With it you can outline huge goals, plus three action plan goals. (E-mail [email protected] to receive a free scorecard.)
3. Define Levels of Authority. Can a certain employee buy materials or tools? How much can he spend without approval from his boss? Given clear rules and parameters, your employees will become empowered team leaders. Given no or little authority, they are unaccountable and unresponsible. Be sure to set clear limits to an employee's decision-making, however.
4. Be a Coach, Not a Controller. People want to be coached, not controlled. The best coach usually wins the most games. The more you control, the less your people do for themselves. The more decisions you make for them, the fewer decisions they make. The more questions you answer for them every day, the less they have to think and learn. Is that what you want?
5. Celebrate and Reward Success. You know what else good coaches do? They regularly recognize, praise and encourage their players to become the best they can be. Mak it your priority to look for the good instead of pointing out the bad. Start a weekly award for the field crew person who saves the most money, does something excellent, has the best attitude, makes the best decision or goes the extra mile for the customer. Some weeks you'll pick winners, other weeks, let your employees choose. Lunch and dinner gift certificates, tickets to ballgames, Tshirts and tools work wonderfully here.
By implementing these simple steps, your people will grow and want to take on more responsibility. The key is your decision to let go of accountability. Get started right now by taking three things off of your 'to-do' list and delegating them to someone else. Enjoy!