Hint: It’s something you probably don’t think enough about.
In Fawlty Towers, the 1970s British situation comedy which pops up periodically on TV, John Cleese plays Basil Fawlty, a harried hotel owner. During one show, Basil is asked if he likes the hotel business.
His answer: He feels he is constantly being tortured by “that annoying section of the general public who insist on staying at hotels.” As he later explains, his hotel
“would be a wonderful place to work, if it weren’t for the guests.”
If you manage people you can probably relate. On more than one occasion you have undoubtedly have said to yourself, “this job would be a walk-in-the-park if it weren’t for those darn employees who report to me.”
Let me share with you what I learned during my first go-round as a boss:
- Employees make mistakes.
- Not every worker is good at everything.
- When you, as the person in charge, are upset about something an employee has done, it is hard to think about anything else.
- Managing people is not my strongest skill.
That last one was the most important one.
Over time, I have gotten better at managing people. Here are four things that helped me. They might be helpful to you as well.
- Always make sure you are putting people in situations where they can succeed. Not everyone can do everything well. And people perform better—and are far happier—if you let them play to their strengths. You always want to be setting your people up for success.
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- When you are getting mad at an employee, for doing something wrong or that you don’t like, stop and ask yourself “what are all the good things about this worker?” It will help put your anger and disappointment in perspective. As you think through your answer, the odds are that the goodwill substantially outweighs the bad (otherwise why would you have hired them?)
- If the light is not worth the candle, in other words is the employee’s value is not significantly greater than the problems they are causing, they need to go. Yes, of course, you work with them to see if you can help them get better, but if the conversations and the coaching don’t work, it is time for them to move on. You can try to twist the organization into a pretzel to find a way to compensate for their (substantial) weaknesses, but why would you? You have already concluded that it is not worth the effort.
- If you decide to fire someone, do it immediately. Delays don’t help your organization—or the floundering employee. Did you ever find any benefit from ripping off a Band-Aid slowly? I didn’t. It just prolonged the pain. The longer you delay, the more you risk putting your organization in jeopardy.
Managing people is difficult. These four ideas could make it a little bit easier.
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