Vicki Anderson

Well, here it is 2011. Another new year along with resolutions and goals to be accomplished. Yet, 30 days from now most will be abandoned. This happens not only for individuals, but also for organizations. We start out with a new strategic plan or a new set of guidelines, but as we get busy, we forget about referring to the goal and do what we’ve always done–which gets us what we’ve always gotten.

Any time you make new goals, resolutions, or practices, you have to define a way to make it consistent. Develop a way to monitor and keep you on track. It’s like starting a diet and saying, “I’ll just cut back on what I eat.” However, you don’t keep track of what you eat, so you don’t really know whether you cut back or not. Then you wonder why you didn’t lose any weight and give up.

The same is true of any goal you have in an organization. Working to change behaviors is hard work. Old habits die hard because we feel more comfortable and competent in them. We don’t like the learning curve and incompetence that comes with trying something new. If you are trying to build a stronger culture of employee involvement you have to keep reinforcing the values and behaviors that will gain you the results you seek. Watch for people doing the right things and recognize them. If people are falling back to the old ways, say something. Talk about natural consequences. What is likely to happen if you don’t change? What will happen to jobs, your customers, your business, or your employees? Be vigilant and don’t allow complacency to set in.

If you want 2011 to be any better or different than 2010, it takes work to consistently move you toward your goal. Take it a day at a time, but measure your progress. Look for small incremental movement. Doing makes it so.

When I started consulting about 16 years ago I wondered what I would call my business the first time I had to issue an invoice to a client. I hadn’t intended to be a consultant and therefore hadn’t thought about what to name my business. One thing I did know was that I always wanted to be a resource to my clients, colleagues and friends. I like sharing what I have learned and putting people together with the information or people they need. Therefore, I thought it would be good to name my business Anderson Resources. It has turned out to be a good choice as my business has evolved over the years.

I recently received an award from my local chapter of ASTD, a training and development professional society. It was for my distinguished service to the chapter over the years as a resource. I have always been willing to help by providing information, assistance, referrals, and anything else that was needed to help the chapter members gain value from being there. It has made me reflect on my career and value my contribution as a resource.

As a leader you are a resource to your team and to other teams who need what you have to get the job done. You are a resource for materials and equipment, direction, research, networking, rewards, and many other things your team needs. Have you ever thought about the many ways that you serve others by leading? If you believe in servant leadership, as I do, then serving others is the only way to achieve success. By serving others we help them be successful, which reflects back on us. Our teams don’t succeed because we made them, they succeed because we allowed them, encouraged them, and supported them. As a resource, we contribute value.

In today’s work environment of job instability, the only thing truly portable is knowledge. Employees and employers alike have a lot to gain by developing learning organizations. Employers gain by having motivated, involved employees. Employees gain by enjoying their work more while adding to their personal worth.

In order for organizations to be competitive today, most work requires judgment and initiative. Even in routine tasks, employees need to notice errors in quality or processes that would require their adjustment. Employees are in the best position to recommend and make changes
Everyone is motivated by what interests them and is important to them. By developing and challenging your employees to learn, you also get them involved in their work. You are creating an environment where employees can be motivated to take pride in their work and gain more job satisfaction. So many managers make the mistake of focusing on money as the only or main motivating factor for retention of good people. Money is universal—everyone wants to feel they earn what they are worth. We have been conditioned to measure ourselves by money. However, the most effective long-term motivators are factors that go along with money. Many studies have been replicated over the years which show that people who achieve job satisfaction, feel appreciated for what they do, and develop increased skills are far more motivated to contribute to their work environment than those who are paid well, but get no job satisfaction, development, or appreciation for the work they do.
So, what can you do as a leader to develop and challenge your employees? Learning can take many forms such as classroom training, seminars, self-paced courses, coaching and mentoring, working on an improvement team, reading books and articles, temporary job assignments, addition of job responsibility, and training/teaching others. Developing people also means keeping people informed about what’s going on so they can make informed decisions about their work.

Look for opportunities to help people feel they make a contribution to your organization by inviting them to take on more responsibility or have input to decisions when they seem ready. This develops decision- making skills. Remember that according to Marcus Buckingham’s “First Break All the Rules,” employees join companies, but they leave managers. Employees are likely to feel more loyal and productive for managers who take an interest in them by developing them.
While employees do leave their organizations for other employment, it is often because they are not able to achieve their career goals in their current organization within the time period they want. If you have done everything you can within your organization to develop and coach, you still may not be able to prevent that. However, if you do not develop and coach them, they will leave earlier. At least you will have had the benefit of their expertise and involvement for an extended time.
Take time to engage your employees in dialog about where they want to go and what they want to learn. Find out what they like and don’t like about their jobs. Ask for ideas about ways to improve the things they don’t like or the processes that don’t work efficiently. Help them be realistic about what can and can’t be done. Listen and mentor. You’ll find you not only improve your employee retention and engagement, you will increase your own job satisfaction as well.

Being a leader isn’t easy. It takes courage.
- Courage to tell someone that their performance isn’t up to par.
- Courage to help them when it would be easier to let them go and find someone else.
- Courage to take the time to be empathetic about someone’s personal problems.
- Courage to hold people accountable for making needed change when it would be easier to let them go back to what’s comfortable.
- Courage to give credit to those who have done the work when it would be easy to take the credit as the manager of the department.
- Courage to make changes in your own behavior that you would like to see others do.
- Courage to fight for your ideas and the ideas of others when upper management doesn’t want to listen.
- Courage to let each day’s problems stay at work instead of taking them home.
- Courage to have confidence in your vision of what could be and take action to make it happen.
- Courage to delegate to others with support so that they may learn from failures and grow from successes.
- Courage to be honest when it might be easier at the moment to lie. It always comes back to bite you.

Being a leader is a big responsibility. Having courage is not easy, but it will develop character that commands respect.

In leadership development we talk a lot about managing, motivating, and leading your staff, but what about managing your boss? I have always believed that if you want a good working situation it is important to tune in to the needs of your boss.

I have worked with several very difficult and demanding bosses and people would ask me how I could stand working for them. However, I rarely had any issues with them because I figured out what they wanted and needed so I could provide it to them. Just like customers who don’t get the service they expect, bosses can get demanding and difficult when they are often disappointed with the performance they get from their employees.

Make sure you are clear about what your boss expects from your performance. If they do not volunteer the information or are vague in their instructions, ask enough questions to make sure you understand and can deliver what they want.

Make your work as error free as possible and turn it in on time. I had a boss who saw any error in a written document as a license to edit it. He also liked giving others an assignment to write something, but ended up using it as a draft to help organize his thoughts. What I learned was that if I asked enough questions and made the document error free, he rarely changed my work. However, I saw others who would give him a very rough draft thinking it didn’t matter because he would change it anyway. He saw that as an open invitation to rewrite it and often took it in another direction, which really frustrated them.

Something else that is important in managing your boss is keeping him or her informed of your activities and accomplishments. You don’t have to be bragging all the time, but frankly, your boss is too busy doing their own thing to notice everything you do. If you want to get credit for the good work you do, then blow your horn once in a while.

I don’t consider this sucking up to the boss. Instead, you are building credibility with the boss. You find out what they want and deliver it to them. That makes you a highly desirable employee. When you let them know what good work you are doing that they might not see, it gives them a chance to recognize your efforts, further giving you credibility. In today’s competitive workplace, if you want to stand out, you have to manage up.