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By MollyandLaney
Time and time again we see attorneys cross our desk who are frustrated with their production.
They are unable to produce the results that they set out to and they can’t understand why. There are multiple reasons, but the biggest mistake law firms make is trying to cross-train every person on the team. Attorneys like to cross-train because they want to make sure everybody knows how to do everything in case somebody quits, needs to be fired, or has a prolonged absence. The rationale seems like it makes sense, right? But in all honesty, it creates more confusion, causes people to quit, and ultimately diminishes the results you are trying to produce.
So what’s the right way? The breakdown in creating the results you want actually comes about because people are uncertain what their role is. You hire a new employee and you want to be sure she knows all aspects of the business. Then, as you start to add to your team, you seek out new members with similarly broad skills. By the time your third employee comes on board, we see this phenomenon called cross-training. One of the first calls we often conduct is to take law firms through a diagnostic of who’s doing what to reach goals. And we are just floored by how this seemingly one?hour call is turning into three separate one?hour calls. We have such a challenge getting the attorneys to agree to let each member of their team have a designated role. They want to make certain that everybody knows how to do everything, just in case.
But you can’t live your life according to the exceptions. You have to create the rules.
So what are the rules? The rules are that you have defined job descriptions, you have designated people who are working in departments or within their job descriptions, and they understand how 80 percent of their day?to-day life impacts your goals. Then, if you do have to fire someone, if you do have an employee leave, or if, God forbid, your employee does have a tragic accident or illness, your business can still operate. It can operate because you will have job descriptions, you will have a training plan, and you will know who is doing what to reach goals. So if something goes awry, you will have a path and a plan to be able to plug in the person who is going to take up the ball.
So the difference between cross-training and “what’s my role” is simple: cross-training is blunt force trauma day in and day out. Cross-training is reacting. Cross-training is operating by the seat of your pants and crossing your fingers that you hit the bull’s eye. Operating by “what’s my role” is defined job descriptions, defined process, defined system and a path to reach goals. “What’s my role” is very much proactive, with intentionality, and with a process to track, measure, and make certain nothing falls through the cracks.
Because at the end of the day, the mentality and the intentionality of making certain that everybody knows how to do everything really has an underlying current of a lack of trust — not necessarily a lack of trust in the people on your team, but a lack of trust that they know what the hell they’re doing, what you’re striving for, and where the North Star is. The “what’s my role” approach, and how you’re designing that and how you’re getting there, is very, very, very much the path and plan to achieving your goals.
So, with two weeks remaining in the old year, what are you doing differently as you step into the New Year?
Champions of your success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
So often we see bosses refer to themselves as “the jerk in the corner office”.
They are so used to getting ‘beat up’ in conversations from employees who are upset with them, clients who are complaining or trying to justify fees, and referral sources who aren’t delivering on their promises. Many have accepted, or even embraced, an “I’m just the jerk in the corner office” persona and often fall into a good cop- bad cop interaction with others…with them always being the bad cop. They become the excuse for someone being told “No” or held accountable. BIG, BIG MISTAKE. You might as well not even show up in the office because you just cut your own legs out from under you and undermined any authority you had, rendering yourself completely ineffective.
First, and absolutely foremost, you are not the jerk in the corner office. You are a part of the team and more importantly the leader. You provide vision, confidence and direction for your intrapreneurs. By interacting with yourself as the jerk in the corner office, you are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. It steals your personal power. You will witness the team as they begin to ignore any corrections or requests you make of them. Not out of disrespect, but because you yourself have thrown your hands up for the “good of the team”. They will assume you are just having a bad day and that whatever complaint you are bringing to them will blow over by tomorrow. Instead, they need to take your corrections and requests as essential teaching moments.
Second, usually the mindset “just the jerk in the corner office” is followed with “so don’t mind me”. With all due respect, no. As stated above, you and your opinions should be minded. Your impact on the team can’t be ignored and if you are, in fact, coming off like a jerk it IS impacting your business and can’t be overlooked. Yelling, hairsplitting and surly behavior shouldn’t be something you expect the team to let roll off their backs. It creates an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty which paralyzes your team. You can’t expect them to have initiative and ‘step up’ when they aren’t certain which day you are going to greet them with a growl. They have no way to know if your mood is in response to despondency with their work or if you are just grumpy that day. And since they don’t know, 1 out of 2 team members will assume you are disappointed with them. They will become tentative, unsure and this puts them back ‘in the box’ you worked so hard to get them out of. They will begin to walk around on eggshells, never confident in their decision-making capabilities. If you have a complaint or correction for your team, by all means, it’s important so share it. But don’t hide out behind “being a jerk” because the conversation makes you uncomfortable. It’s disempowering to you AND your team.
One of the most productive and courageous things you can do is learn the skills to have an “Empowering Conversation” with your team; taking those too often awkward or tough conversations and transcending all involved to move forward in an impactful way. For a free copy of our web-recording “Keys to an Empowering Conversation”, including a written copy of the 8 Keys, email us today at info@yeschick.com.
Champions For Your Continued Success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
Do you find most of your days you lose control, no matter how hard you work to create your ideal day?
It’s frustrating to lose control of your day, but you can either throw your hands up or decide to “do the best you can” or decide to take charge, set limits, and refuse to let your day push you around. We receive phone calls daily from team members who want to know how do I “get my boss organized?” We always suggest they not try to explain to the boss all the things he or she does that drive them crazy. After all, we know first-hand that you aren’t trying to drive your team crazy on purpose. If you knew how to be more organized and get all your to-do items done, you would. But as an entrepreneur, that’s not always a strength of yours and quite frankly, it’s often why you hired team in the first place…for help!
Not sure if your workplace is controlling you or this blog applies to someone else? Take the quiz, “Is your Workplace Controlling You”.
Working harder won’t solve the fundamental problem. It will only leave you, and your team, more exhausted and strained. However, there’s good news. Typically, the boss is really only suffering from an unintentional lack of focus. It comes with the territory. Keep in mind, they have 1,2, 3 or more team members coming to them with questions. And clients and business associates. It’s easy for them to get overwhelmed and off focus with so much coming at them each day.
Often for the boss, it is hard to articulate and specifically say they want the team’s assistance or help. In reality they begging for it. If they could do it all on their own, they wouldn’t have hired team. The request for help usually shows up as comments like “I need you to step up.” The miss is that the team honestly doesn’t know what that means. They don’t know what that tangibly means they should do differently when they sit down at their desk in the morning. Successfully getting help, or team to “step up”, is dependent on the ability to articulate exactly what that means and bridging the gap between the vocabulary of a boss versus a team member.
We’ll share the fundamental secret with you. There is no specific day-to-day task that will allow your team to step up or run with the ball, because it’s not a “to do” item, it’s a change of mindset. We know deep down you don’t want the team to simply come in with a notepad and leave with a glorified “to do” list of your blow by blow instructions to follow. Deep down you know that alone won’t make a difference. It will just become a nag list for the team to bother you about. It, alone, won’t help you stay focused on your top three most important activities. It’s just moving around “To-Do’s”.
What every attorney really wants is a team to help them be able to focus on the activities that will produce revenue. In Don’t Be a Yes Chick, we share the Nine Ways to Respectfully Focus Your Boss that support this mindset change. One of our favorite of the nine is #2 – Permission Standards. For a free copy of this insight, email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
We’ve seen exceptional people quit lucrative jobs because of the team players they were forced to work with.
The team you work with is the make or break part of your ability to succeed in the workplace. In the workplace there are two sides of the equation, namely, those whom look to you for support, and those whom you look to for support. In other words, are you working in and providing others an environment of co-workers who inspire and allow growth?
The biggest trap you can fall into is the trap of “I can do it faster myself” and this is one we have fallen into ourselves time after time. If you are overloaded with work and feel you don’t have the “time” to stop and train someone how to help you, things will never change. You will continue to be overloaded and overworked.
The other devastating effect of “I can do it faster myself” is that you not only harm yourself, but you take away an opportunity of growth for your team. A team that grows together stays together. To empower yourself and your team, create growth opportunities for you and them. As you move forward, they move forward in unison. No talented team member is going to be satisfied without growth.
If you’re still overwhelmed by the thought of training a new person, think of how much time you’re already dedicating to dealing with issues of problem employees. How much time do you spend cleaning up their messes, having corrective conversations with them, or calming down your boss when they are in an uproar? Are you really saving time and energy by not correcting your team issues?
Hopefully you realize the importance of a solid team to your own career growth as well as the company’s success. If you are ready to start taking the steps to build a solid team with integrity, passion, and potential join us for our free webinar, “What Your Support Team Needs to Know to Help You Succeed” on September 28th at 11am-noon EST. To register email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
I remember clearly the day my boss called me into his office to have a “talk” with me about the manner in which I was answering the phone.
I had been receptionist for about five months and my boss was usually that guy who dashed passed me in the morning to get into a meeting on time and was often still working when I left at 5pm. The thought of a one on one conversation with him pretty much terrified me. He was calling me into his office to discuss what I now understand was my horrific phone skills.
Interestingly, this conversation is to date, fifteen years later, one of the most powerful conversations I’ve had in my life. Rather than giving me the expected scolding for poor phone skills, he explained to me that we were an estate planning law firm. Now, being twenty-one and new to this job, estate planning didn’t mean a hill of beans to me. But he made it relevant. He explained how often the people calling us may have recently lost a loved one or may be dealing with a sick family member. He shared how when I answer the phone, I could be the first person a woman who has lost her husband of fifty years is speaking to for help. And if I sound brusque or agitated, because I’m busy doing something else and the phone interrupted me that it may be that widow I’m treating that way. Now I may not understand estate planning, but I had a grandmother I loved dearly and I remembered how devastated she was when my grandfather died. The thought that I could have been short with someone who was hurting like my grandmother had was a punch in the gut. I understood fundamentally in that moment, that even though I was “just the receptionist” I was empowered to make a tremendous difference for people who called our law firm simply by being present, kind and patient when I answered the phone. I got that this was so much more important than whatever task I was working on when the phone rang. Rather than walking out of that meeting with my head hung low, or with an attitude because I’d gotten reprimanded, I walked out excited for the next time the phone rang and I could make a difference. And never, ever has anyone had to discuss with me my phone skills. In fact, I’ve gone on to lead training programs on how to connect with clients when you answer the phone.
We’ve all had to be on the giving and the receiving end of these uncomfortable, tough conversations with people, either professionally or personally. Often, because we are uncomfortable, we rush through the conversation as quickly and emotionless as possible. However, the cornerstone of success and being at peace with yourself is the ability to have an empowering conversation. This is a conversation where you leave the other person empowered. You light the fire within them and it stays lit. When you rush through a tough conversation you end up having to have the same talk over and over again, because it doesn’t connect or empower the other person.
Having an empowering conversation can be broken down into eight essential keys. One of the simplest, but most powerful, of those keys is “Time and Place”. Often a conversation goes immediately off track because we didn’t pay attention to the timing and the place. For instance, don’t start a tough conversation with your co-worker when they only have 10 minutes before they leave work. It isn’t sufficient time and now they are just worrying about being late to pick their daughter up from daycare, not concentrating on what you are saying. Don’t have a “come to Jesus” talk with your boss about your maxed out workload when he is walking into a meeting with his biggest client. Not only does he not have time to talk but it’s distracting him from an important meeting. When you do have your empowering conversation, be conscious of ‘place’. Let the receptionist know to hold all calls and close the door so you can both speak comfortably and without interruption. Or step out of the office, go to Starbucks and talk there, away from the distractions of flashing voicemail and email notifications. Carve out the time and the proper place to be able to have an honest, empowering conversation. You’ll be surprised at the results of this simple key.
If you are ready to begin having empowering conversations, but not sure how to being, join us for our free webinar, “What Your Support Team Needs to Know to Help You Succeed” on September 28th at 11am-noon EST. To register email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
“Inspiration comes forth from within. It’s what the light burning within you is about, as opposed to motivation, which is doing it because if you don’t do it, there will be negative repercussions. Motivation is making me do something that I don’t really want to do. Inspiration is having the clear picture of what I am wanting and letting universal forces come into play to get the outcome.” – Abraham-Hicks
Funny how sometimes we received unexpected gifts in the strangest way. Ten years ago I lived in downtown Denver and had the greatest hairstylist in the city. She was the most expensive, took the longest time (3 hours) and it was a bear to get in with her…but when I left I felt like a million bucks. She was more than a “stylist”. Fabulous hair was just a strategic by-product of what I received when I made it to the chair every six weeks. But that ended once I hit my 30’s, along came babies and “the burbs”. Like most working mommies of two kids in the burbs, I found a new stylist in a very strategic way, the most convenient one I can find that will make my life 1/10th easier.
Fast forward 10 years and welcome to social media. I recently re-connected with “Kimmy” on Facebook and remembered why I paid double the price, spent double the time and had to book months in advance…and didn’t ever think of cancelling that appointment. Kimmy’s “wall” on Facebook was captivating with beautiful photos of her work, positive quotes and inspirational YouTube videos from the work of Abraham and Hicks, The Law of Attraction.
Needless to say, I am a returning client of Kimmy’s and am reminded, daily, of why I am now travelling 40 minutes for a cut and color. No, we’re not going to get started on a diatribe about social media…that will be another blog. What we want to discuss on this blog is The Law of Attraction.
Every day I wake to a different “Law of Attraction” YouTube video link from Kimmy in my text messages. All of them no more than 12 minutes. This week while chauffeuring my kids to sporting events I opened up one of the texts from Kimmy on “Motivation vs. Inspiration”. I almost fell over as I heard the most amazing way to articulate what Laney and I have been trying to communicate with our “Keys to an Empowering Conversation.”
The essence of the message was the startling difference between motivation and inspiration.
Motivation typically has a soul of “because I think I should”. O.M.G….Laney and I have been saying this for years! You can’t motivate people, you can only inspire them. Pep talks only last for so long. The teachings go on to say, motivation is PAST tense. “You don’t want to motivate your employees to work hard for you. You want to shine the light on the purpose and the intent.” At that moment I had an “ah ha moment”. Motivation is really fear based. Motivation, if you really think about it, typically has underlying tone of manipulation. If you don’t do X then you won’t ever get Y. You’re trying to convince the other person of why they should want “it”, how to “get it”. It is like constantly having to reignite a flame. Then the “motivator” begins to get frustrated, starts reading every book they can get their hands on to see how they can get better at their motivation tactics. They start signing up for every webinar and workshop offered on “motivating your employees (or husband or children) to do ___.” It doesn’t matter what’s filled in the blank just please teach me how to motivate them to care. And that is the crux of why motivation is a failed paradigm. When you find yourself having to reignite the fire, retool your toolbox with different, better tools to “help them along” you know your swimming upstream and stuck in the motivation trap.
Inspiration on the other hand they talk about is “because I WANT it”. Inspiration is ease and flow. And when you spend two minutes on ease and flow because the engine is already in place and can reignite on its own, that is inspiration. Inspiration is present tense. There is nothing anybody “has” to do but a lot of what you “want to do”. When you are talking with an inspired person about an idea, a project or something future based that you can’t even fully articulate, they chime in with “and then what about if we…” Or they say “I love the idea! Right now let’s finish the project we’ve already committed too and let me start poking around on Google about this new idea. I think I have some ideas but for now, let’s out it next on our project list. But I see where you’re headed and I’m excited. We just need to finish up our current project then I’m all yours to get this rolling.”
Think about it. Think about the past few conversations, interactions that you have had. Were they motivation or inspiration? It has become so crystal clear to us. And WOW, what a freeing feeling that there is actually a definition for the difference between the two. If you can stay awake to when you are motivating or inspiring someone, including yourself, you may realize that you just aren’t that committed to something you’ve been trying to motivate yourself about. It’s not the right fit. Move on and find what inspires you. Imagine a life of flow and ease when you only accept inspiration in yourself and others. It really is that easy.
If you would like to learn more about motivation vs. inspiration and the work that we’ve done around “The 8 Keys to an Empowering Conversation” join us for our free webinar, “What Your Support Team Needs to Know to Help You Succeed” on September 28th at 11am-noon EST. To register email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
Let’s be true to ourselves. We all know what a ‘Yes Chick’ is. We’ve all been next to one in meetings or been annoyed by them at times.
A Yes Chick is someone who nods her head and agrees even when she really has a better suggestion or approach that could save time, money, and frustration. A Yes Chick hears an idea that will cost the company money and manpower, but goes with the general consensus rather than objecting. A Yes Chick gets annoyed when others don’t complete projects and tasks on time, but she doesn’t speak up and hold people accountable for the good of the company and the good of the team. It is how we’ve been conditioned, or programmed to “do a good job” and keep our mouths shut. What’s hard to reconcile is how on Earth to identify a Yes Chick and then how to turn them into empowered intrapreneurs…always having your back.
Here are some truths that identify a Yes Chick:
? Nods their head in agreement to a mediocre idea because they are starving and just want to get out of the meeting or because everyone else is nodding as well.
? Doesn’t fully understand a shared idea or concept, but the little voice in their head told them to keep quiet because everyone else there was more qualified, and after all, they “got it”.
? They’ve been cornered in the kitchen by a team member complaining about the boss and even though they think the boss was right, they nod and sip coffee until they could make an escape.
Yes-ing, even for the best reasons, is a temporary reprieve from dealing with reality. It might be the right answer for the moment, but it’s the right answer for the wrong job. A constant yes-er can also “yes” herself right into Worker Bee Syndrome. Every true boss will eventually tire of someone who constantly agrees with him because there is no challenge or honestly there. The Yes Chick will just become a Worker Bee. Someone good for producing paperwork but never growing into that trusted circle of valued opinions every entrepreneur needs.
To hear how to eliminate the “Yes Chick” syndrome in your office and replace it with empowerment and accountability join us for a free webinar, “What Your Support Team Needs to Know to Help You Succeed” on September 28th at 11am-noon EST. To register, email info@yeschick.com.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
Today we ran into one of the biggest breakdowns in the hiring process.
We had to stop for a moment and blog about it because we see it SO often and it abolishes all the time, effort and money you’ve invested in your hiring process. We call it the “Quick Start Cluster”. For those of you familiar with Kolbe Action Modes® you know a Quick Start is the person whose modus operandi is to jump in quickly, aim, fire and figure out the rest later. This can be a very valuable trait, particularly in an entrepreneur. However, a Quick Start also tends to have low follow through and love the creative/brainstorming process so much they can carousal there and never get off. They can, in essence, over create where creation isn’t even necessary. Laney is a Quick Start, so we write this with complete understanding and appreciation of how a Quick Start thinks and operates.
In today’s hiring breakdown we have a classic Quick Start Cluster. Through our process, we’ve identified, interviewed and found five phenomenal candidates for a position. We were delighted to hear the business owner declare that he stinks at hiring and that his CEO will take over from here. His CEO will contact the candidates, interview them, and have the best of the best complete an assessment with his DISC™ consultant. Awesome! The Quick Start business owner was in on the initial discussions to outline what he wanted in this position, what worked and didn’t work in the past, and to brainstorm what characteristics would create success in this role. Then he got out of the way! And then…he got back in the middle of it and we have a Quick Start Cluster.
When we did a routine check in with the CEO to see how the interviews were going we got the response “The boss took the candidates’ resumes to brainstorm with a guy in his coaching class he likes to run things by.” Classic example of how a Quick Start can jump back into a process, AFTER the creative phase is over and start re-creating where no creating is needed. The creation has been completed, the brainstorming done, and now it’s time to anchor to process, implement and get it done.
From a hiring perspective, this is why you must have clarity before you ever embark on what you are hiring for and how committed you are to invest in that next hire. Once you put your ad out there, you must move quickly through each step in the process. Otherwise, your most qualified candidates will no longer be available. They go fast. You can’t sit on resumes for weeks and expect talented people to not be snapped up.
From a bigger perspective, the Quick Start Cluster happens in many processes when the Quick Start starts interfering in the implementation part of the process. If something isn’t working right, it’s a great move to pull the Quick Start in and use their ingenious problem solving skills. Otherwise, they need to be focused on other things requiring their creativity and let the process move on. If not they just slow it down when it isn’t necessary. (And again, Laney is a Quick Start and can vouch for admittedly getting ‘creative’ where ‘process’ was all that was needed.)
Dealing with a situation like this requires the technique we talk about in Don’t Be a Yes Chick’s team tele-training program. It’s the ability to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations and let the Quick Start know they are becoming the bottleneck. In addition, understanding The Kolbe Index A™ can really help give your entire team a common vocabulary so you can easily say “We are complete with the Quick Start phase of the process and we are at the point to move on to a Follow Thru part of the process. If we run into a problem, you will be the first person we call for. Otherwise, the process is working so let’s not re-create it.” And if you are a Quick Start, you need people around you that will be honest and let you know when you are causing an interruption where it’s not needed. You want people on your team that will let you know about your blind spots and help you get out of your own way.
Your team can learn how to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations as part of the “Don’t Be a Yes Chick” team tele-training program. Our next 12-week program begins October 10th. Contact us at info@yeschick.com for more information.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
Today we ran into one of the biggest breakdowns in the hiring process.
We had to stop for a moment and blog about it because we see it SO often and it abolishes all the time, effort and money you’ve invested in your hiring process. We call it the “Quick Start Cluster”. For those of you familiar withKolbe Action Modes® you know a Quick Start is the person whose modus operandi is to jump in quickly, aim, fire and figure out the rest later. This can be a very valuable trait, particularly in an entrepreneur. However, a Quick Start also tends to have low follow through and love the creative/brainstorming process so much they can carousal there and never get off. They can, in essence, over create where creation isn’t even necessary. Laney is a Quick Start, so we write this with complete understanding and appreciation of how a Quick Start thinks and operates.
In today’s hiring breakdown we have a classic Quick Start Cluster. Through our process, we’ve identified,interviewed and found five phenomenal candidates for a position. We were delighted to hear the business owner declare that he stinks at hiring and that his CEO will take over from here. His CEO will contact the candidates, interview them, and have the best of the best complete an assessment with his DISC™ consultant. Awesome! The Quick Start business owner was in on the initial discussions to outline what he wanted in this position, what worked and didn’t work in the past, and to brainstorm what characteristics would create success in this role. Then he got out of the way! And then…he got back in the middle of it and we have a Quick Start Cluster.
When we did a routine check in with the CEO to see how the interviews were going we got the response “The boss took the candidates’ resumes to brainstorm with a guy in his coaching class he likes to run things by.” Classic example of how a Quick Start can jump back into a process, AFTER the creative phase is over and start re-creating where no creating is needed. The creation has been completed, the brainstorming done, and now it’s time to anchor to process, implement and get it done.
From a hiring perspective, this is why you must have clarity before you ever embark on what you are hiring for and how committed you are to invest in that next hire. Once you put your ad out there, you must move quickly through each step in the process. Otherwise, your most qualified candidates will no longer be available. They go fast. You can’t sit on resumes for weeks and expect talented people to not be snapped up.
From a bigger perspective, the Quick Start Cluster happens in many processes when the Quick Start starts interferingin the implementation part of the process. If something isn’t working right, it’s a great move to pull the Quick Start in and use their ingenious problem solving skills. Otherwise, they need to be focused on other things requiring their creativity and let the process move on. If not they just slow it down when it isn’t necessary. (And again, Laney is a Quick Start and can vouch for admittedly getting ‘creative’ where ‘process’ was all that was needed.)
Dealing with a situation like this requires the technique we talk about in Don’t Be a Yes Chick’s team tele-training program. It’s the ability to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations and let the Quick Start know they are becoming the bottleneck. In addition, understanding The Kolbe Index A™ can really help give your entire team a common vocabulary so you can easily say “We are complete with the Quick Start phase of the process and we are at the point to move on to a Follow Thru part of the process. If we run into a problem, you will be the first person we call for. Otherwise, the process is working so let’s not re-create it.” And if you are a Quick Start, you need people around you that will be honest and let you know when you are causing an interruption where it’s not needed. You want people on your team that will let you know about your blind spots and help you get out of your own way.
Your team can learn how to have the “honest, while respectful” conversations as part of the “Don’t Be a Yes Chick” team tele-training program. Our next 12-week program begins October 10th. Contact us at info@yeschick.com for more information.
Champions of your continued success,
Molly and Laney
By MollyandLaney
The decision to let an employee go can be one of the most torturous decisions. It’s wrought with emotional guilt and uncertainty.
It is more common than not for us to have the same conversation with a business owner, about the same employee, for years…yes, years! Just when a business owner has ‘had enough’ the employee pulls off something ‘good enough’ and buys some extra time. Often the business owner hesitates on letting someone go because they admittedly may have contributed to the problem. Their complaints about the team member often include acknowledgements of not providing the proper training, or time to work with the employee on systems to help organize the work load. Because they know they haven’t kept their word in some areas, they are hesitant to let the employee go and the problem becomes a circular, recurring vortex of frustration and emotionality.
The most honest admittance about firing is the business owner who will admit, “I just don’t have the energy to deal with rehiring and retraining right now.”
Firing someone will never be easy. Whenever we are dealing with another human being, it is hard to make a decision we know may impact their life, their children’s lives and their well-being. However, you can apply a process to let someone go with the least amount of suffering possible while retaining your integrity, compassion and sanity. The face to face termination may still be tough, we all have compassion and emotions, but you can be confident in your decision and what is best for your business.
If you’re wrestling with the pain of firing then we recommend you grab a pen and pad of paper and conduct what we eloquently refer to as a “brain dump”. Sit down and get it out. Write down every frustration, annoyance and toleration that has kept you up at night about this employee. Don’t worry about what is right or wrong, just get it out. This is for your eyes only. You have to get all this out of your head and on paper so there is room for you to think more rationally and calmly about the situation. If you don’t ‘dump’ all of the ‘stuff’, it will cloud your decision-making ability. A major reason why bosses have a hard time making a final decision is because they start the decision process with all this ‘stuff’ rolling around in their heads, come to the conclusion they’ve ‘had enough’, then by the time the next day rolls around and their emotions have calmed they are questioning their decision. Applying a process to the decision that isn’t based on just emotional frustration can significantly reduce your self-torture and improve your final decision.
You might be in a place where it is time to take a hard look at the potential of embarking on the firing process. Rather than focusing on the ‘right and wrong’ of the situation, work to determine which of the following three applies to the team member in question.
1. They are not a good fit for your team. This wording is important. Often we keep people on our team because they have potential or they are a good person. That doesn’t mean that they are a good fit for YOUR team. You are not determining if they are talented or a good person. You are determining if they are what your team needs to grow.
2. It’s a training or systems issue. The ‘miss’ you may be having with your team member may be that they need more training or a system to follow. This can sometimes be hard to determine because a frustrated team member may be showing up as disinterested or uncaring, when in fact they are just completely frustrated that they’ve asked you ten times for help on something they don’t understand and your response was to hand them a 3 inch binder to read to figure it out on their own. (Which they read, only to be more confused because the binder is out of date and doesn’t match any of the software or terminology you currently use.) You could have a great employee on your team who just doesn’t have the tools or training to get your attention, in a way that doesn’t annoy you, and let you know what they need to succeed. Instead they are showing frustration or ‘checking out’ because they’ve tried everything they know to get your help and it hasn’t worked. No one is ‘right or wrong’ in this scenario and both parties could certainly have handled things better, but they key we are trying to get to is that it could be just a training or system issue that needs to be addressed, not a termination issue. And if you fire and rehire, you will likely find yourself in the same situation because the problem wasn’t fixed.
3. Right person, wrong role. Sometimes you have a fantastic potential team member on your team that is put in the wrong role for their unique abilities. Like a flower placed outside of the sunshine it needs, they are wilting, not flourishing. Because business owners are often unclear when they hire exactly what they are hiring for, you end up hiring someone for help with client services and end up putting them in a production role doing administrative tasks. No wonder they aren’t flourishing! Because everyone wears so many hats in a small business, it’s easy for this to happen without us realizing it.
It isn’t always easy to determine which of these three you may be facing. Too often a business owner will get stuck trying to figure out which of the three applies and never take action. Often obtaining outside, objective help is the best route to go. Even if you pay for these services, it will likely be far less of an expense than the time you are spending every day dealing with this issue. Not handling the situation robs you of your energy and confidence, destroys the team and presents an unattractive situation to clients (whether you think they can see it or not – they can).
And honestly, you aren’t doing your team member in question any favors by keeping them on staff. Nobody wants to come to work every day and know they are failing.
Free yourself to find a great new team member and free your employee to find a workplace that is a great fit for them where they can thrive. It really is that simple.
This SmartFire Solution™ process allows you to let someone go with the least amount of suffering possible while retaining your integrity, compassion and sanity.
