Imagine getting in trouble at work. Imagine that your project failed or imagine that someone is always opposing you. Are you pointing fingers? Will that solve anything for you? Think about the difference between these two small words, who and what.
How would you react if Paul Projectmanager always disagree with you and makes your day miserable by being negative and destructive? Is Paul a problem? Are your ideas better if you get rid of Paul and fire him?
Stop thinking about who is causing the problem; start thinking about what to do to solve the problem.
By removing the person behind the “who”, you might just get a new problem as a new alpha member of the tribe steps up and becomes the new head of annoyment and source of all evil around the office.
What is causing the problem might give you a total different answer. It might end up with a who, but at least you are displaying ability to think first. Paul Projectmanager might just feel ignored; maybe you are being a bad manager? It might be an Andy Accountant that is being the problem because he smells and this is so annoying to all the other co-workers and nobody can fathom why you’re not doing anything about it. Or you might just need a candy bar vending machine to get the sugar levels rising?
I figure you have gotten the point by now.
Posted in For leaders, Small talk, advice, management by Frode Heimen |
I have been reading about Employee Engagement lately, like this post; What, Really, Is Employee Engagement? From Steve Roesler at Allthingsworkplace.com. This post is great because it includes 8 key drivers of engagement, and other recourses on the topic.
Read more… »
Posted in For leaders, advice, leadership, management by Frode Heimen |
Posted in advice, management by Frode Heimen |
After warnings, written warnings and clear feedback on the need for change, why don’t you just change? How hard can it be? As a manager you can feel the frustration inside like a steam boiler under pressure. Why do you have to keep doing this destructive behavior? IT IS GOING TO COST YOU YOUR JOB!
If you have these employees in your staff, fire them, fire them at once. They will only grow like weed in a garden if you let them keep doing what you actually tell them not to do, being not following routines, arriving late to work or pissing of customers. Read more… »
Posted in advice, management by Frode Heimen |
Posted in management, motivation by Frode Heimen |
I was asked this question today and it is a very hard question to answer, and since there is written mountains of books about this topic, this question is not easily answered in a talk by the coffee machine. So what makes a great leader? Do you have to be a well educated management master? Do you need to be a political superhero? Does your leadership need to change the world? No, I do not think so, but I believe that leadership is all about touching the souls of people around you. I want to share with you the essence of answer today.
So what does it take?
First of all I believe that you need to inspire and motivate, this might be the most important ability you need to posses. Inspired and motivated people can make anything happen.
But inspiration and motivation won’t get you anywhere if you don’t have a direction. A leadership vision is a must. Where do you want to go? Can you get everybody around you to go there? What does it take to get there? And what kind of behavior is necessary to get there? What are you willing to do to get there? If you know, your leadership will be more authentic.
Defining your values is like putting a compass on your map. If you are faced with a crossroad, clear values will guide you to the right direction. Honesty, Trust, Ambition, Creativity, Humor, Knowledge, Friendship, Fun, Joy and Greed are all values. What is your drive against your goal? Why do you want to lead and what values do you want to represent?
Knowledge is a key that is left out in the rain all too often. I have met a lot of leaders during my 20 years of working, and only a few read books about leadership. This is the thing that puzzles me the most. Why do such a few leaders read about leadership? Being a leader, is like being an athlete, you won’t get good unless you practice. If you do not practice and learn you will never become great, read and try, fail and do over. Dare to be different and dare to challenge yourself. By getting new inputs and by trying it out in life, you will keep on developing and evolving as a leader. You might be good, you might be great, and you might even have days that feel like you just won the Olympics.
Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals in the Beijing Olympics 2008. Do you think he settled with being able to swim 100 meters? You might not become a leader of great heights.
But as a leader you have an obligation to the ones you lead, to keep practicing, becoming better and evolving, because it might be you who make or break their career, there is people depending on you to step it up, anybody can swim 100 meters with little or less practice, in the other end there is Michael Phelps, you might not win an Olympic gold medal, but you will find gold if you practice.
I want to challenge you to read a book today, please do share with me, what book, and how it influenced your leadership style!
Posted in management, motivation by Frode Heimen |
Posted in advice, coaching, management by Frode Heimen |
In almost any kind of job, it is the results that you produce that counts. You would have a special job if your results would be unimportant. I have a very result oriented job, as lead a group of people at a call centre. Everything is measured from number of abandon calls to average handling time and average waiting time. I have charts for about anything and everything can be measured. All employees are measured by the number of calls they can handle during the day, to average handling time, time on lunch and breaks, number of e-mail handled, average time between calls. If I want to I can bury myself in charts and statistics.
Historically I was measured by percentage. I was told that my department should answer at least 94 % of all calls. Still some people like to see this number that are totally irrelevant for my job performance as there are factors that I cannot control. Measure by percentage is crap and it gives me nothing as the number of callers is a factor I can’t control. If there is a major screw up in a major city I might get 500 extra calls within a few hours. And I do not have extra personnel hidden in a closet for use in such times.
I therefore focus on how many calls we can answer per week. I have xx employees that on average answer 43 calls each day. That means if I am going to answer 3200 calls in a week (5 days), I would need 15 people. If I then got 15 people and they answer 3000 calls I am not doing my job. If they do answer 3400 calls they do a great job.
I see stars, can you see them too?
To keep on increasing performance we need to get the group of people to lift their performance. If I focus on the results each day, the rest of the team will focus on the results as well. If I focus on reports and meetings and other stuff, they will focus on other stuff also.
That is why I live and breathe for results these days. I write the results on a white board 2-3 times a day. I send a group e-mail each morning with the numbers. We have a team competition that focus on individual performance. And we have a dedication to improve each and every one.
Take one man out of production to increase performance.
I still need the rest of the crew to focus as well, if you work in my business and are happy with a below average performance you will fail. All and everyone need to focus. And to help them to focus, one of the best employees are taken off the phone with only one mission in life, to improve one by one. If he can improve the overall performance with 8 % the result will be an increase in the number of answered calls by 5 a day. He managed within two weeks to improve two people from an average of 40 to an average of 65 calls per day. And there are still 12 people to go.
Currently running up to a 20 % increase of efficiency!
With this focus we are on our way to lift the performance by 20 % per person or to be able to handle 3600 calls per week with 14 people, not 3200 with 15 on the line, the same effect as hiring two more the old way. So by dedicating one man to increase the efficiency, I get the needed results.
And why is this good?
Nobody whines about high workloads, they are happier now and 0 customers in line is now a common view on the big screen. The ones that improve get a boost in confidence as they feel that they handle the job better.
I cannot promise to the directors that we always will answer 94 % but I can promise that we can answer 3200 calls per week and continue to improve up to somewhere around 3600-3800 calls. And if we get more callers to blow my percentage, and only then there will be need for more people to do the job.
The importance of a result focused environment
As an employee you will need to understand the importance of a result focused environment, as it contributes to the well being of the employees, the satisfaction of the customers and the cash flow and profit of the company. Imagine hiring two more people to get the same results? This would cost a lot of $ straight out of the profit. And if the company you work in have a profit, your job is secure.
As a leader you must continue to focus on results and train your employees to focus on results as well. Around the world there are a lot of companies bigger than the one I work at. Imagine having 100 people selling goods at your company on an average of $15000 a day. If they could improve by 20 %, it would be a good investment to hire a coach for a year to train them and pay the coach $100.000 to do it. You almost cannot afford not to focus on results.
Imagine running a massive call centre with 900 people answering 50 calls each day. 45.000 calls each day, and you got to increase capacity with 4.500 calls. You could either hire 90 more people at a cost of a fortune or you could pay one good coach or ten to improve the average number of calls by 10 %.
But you will not get there if you don’t have the result focus you’ll need. Both the leader and the employee are obliged to really focus on results, as the focus can make or break a company.
So suck it up and improve!
Posted in advice, coaching, management by Frode Heimen |
Imagine getting in trouble at work. Imagine that your project failed or imagine that someone is always opposing you. Are you pointing fingers? Will that solve anything for you? Think about the difference between these two small words, who and what.
Friend me on facebook
Follow me on Twitter
