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• Dont Neglect the People That Support You Part 2

Dont Neglect the People That Support You Part 2

written on March 31, 2009 by Michele Ridella

Continuing on with methods to help you retain your best and motivate the rest - this article focuses on challenging work.  Of course, the first hurdle is to define what "challenging" work means, so think of it in just that term, a hurdle.  You are the coach, the person who continues to set the bar higher, encouraging stronger performance from your team.  But how do you do this?  If you are working with a leaner staff than you had a year ago, you may already have divvied up work assignments.  But, we are not talking about adding to someone's workload.  We are talking about challenging them to achieve new heights in their performance.  Here are some thoughts to get you started:

• Give people the opportunity to learn and develop new skills.  This could be a good time to cross train people in different functions.  Or better yet, provide stretch assignments with little or no specific directions from you, giving people the latitude to figure it out on their own.  Keep in mind that training does not need to cost you anything.  Look around internally to identify opportunities.  Have you recently implemented a new computer system that should have more than one knowledgeable user?  What are the activities that come to a halting stop when that one person is not at work that day?  Share the wealth of knowledge to strengthen your people, individually and as a team.
• Offer new work experiences. Do you have a budding trainer in the organization, or perhaps someone that takes pride in their written communications?  Put them to work on new (and meaningful) projects.  If you outsource any work right now, can that work be brought in-house and assigned to people that have the talent and desire to do it?  Ok, maybe the talent is not there to the fullest degree, but do they have the desire to improve?  Remember, adults learn by doing and practicing.  That is how we all hone our skills - by applying what we have learned to the job at hand.
• Express confidence. In other words, be encouraging and be respectful.  Offer feedback that is designed to be constructive and helpful, clarifying for your employee what he or she did well and why the actions they took hit the mark.  Likewise, give your people the opportunity to talk about what did not go as well as expected.  Be specific and offer your recommendations for improvement.  Please note, recommendations are not directives on how to "fix" the error.  Allow your people to make mistakes and give them the chance to correct them, all on their own.
• Brainstorm that nagging problem. Get a group together and have each person throw their ideas out on the table.  Now identify the most optimal solutions and put people to work investigating and digging into ways to fix that problem, whatever it might be.  Create teams around improvement initiatives.  Have the team assign specific roles to each member and give them time to investigate, work on the issue and present their recommendations to management.  Voila - problem solved!  Now on to the next challenge.

Whenever I talk with someone about their accomplishments, they highlight cost savings, product improvements, winning back lost customers, streamlining efficiencies, etc.  In other words, they talk about what they have done to impact the bottom line.  Challenging work assignments help your people develop while contributing to the success of the organization.  Talk about a win-win.