BREAKING THE RULES Chris Byrnes Recently I was waiting to catch a connecting flight to visit a client and was browsing the latest titles in an airport bookstore. I found a book written by two young Gallop researchers entitled "First Break All the Rules - What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently."
The Gallop Company has been around for 67 years, and is perhaps best known for their "Gallop Poll", which by the way accounts for just 1% of their revenue. These days Gallop generates over 25% of its annual revenues from management consulting and training. Corporations mobilize their private jets and pay $40,000 for a speech by co-authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman to hear what is basically a simple common sense approach to good management and staff motivation. Gallop believes these two young men have cracked one of the most elusive mysteries in business; what separates great bosses from the rest.
Gallop went to work to determine how to efficiently measure and effectively manage employee engagement. Gallop analyzed psychometric, attitudinal, and financial data across more than 10,885 business units in 51 organizations and 23 industries. In short they found that great bosses get the best out of workers by not trying to change them. They believe that fixing weaknesses is a waste of time. Rather, great bosses match employees with jobs that fit their strengths.
Great managers don't train gruff people for customer relations. They find people hard-wired from childhood for empathy. Everyone has natural strengths and talents. Even pessimists, who see the glass of water as half empty, make great lawyers according to Buckingham and Coffman!
Great bosses never treat two workers equally. They find that mediocre workers will improve only incrementally, so they invest far more time with their star performers. They also waste little time terminating under performers. They see it as an act of tough love to save them from "a job that is eating them alive."
They believe too many workers are "retired on active duty" or ROAD warriers, and they have unearthed 12 questions that separate the ROAD warriors from those who are engaged in their work. You know the people who genuinely can't wait to get to the office so they can do their best for the company. They suggest the more "yes" answers you get to the following questions the more engaged the worker, the less likely they are to leave, the higher the customer satisfaction, and the higher the profitability. Here then are the questions they believe you need to ask each member of your staff.
Gallop is using these questions in a variety of industries with some success. For example they interviewed 110,000 IRS workers in the USA and found the most common comment was "I really hate my job, but I only have 20 more years left." They are developing programs for schools and hospitals to find out who really is cut out to be a teacher or a nurse.
I'm in a lot of radio stations over the course of a year, and I encounter all kinds of people. Recently I was in a boardroom rewriting the imaging for a new client, and had asked the creative writer to help craft my words and phrases into "local speak" (there are parts of the world where some people don't always understand everything I say or write, and I'm not sure why!). I started by asking the creative writer to tell me about the radio station and what he thought were the true listener benefits? His response shocked me. He said the station was terrible, the music sucked, the jocks were lazy and he couldn't understand why anyone would listen, let alone advertise on the station. This person had been at the station for about two years, and I'm guessing had told others how he felt about the product. Here was a young man who was not suited to his position, and in fact hated his job. No one had ever sat him down and asked him any of the magic 12-questions. I spent a few minutes talking with him and quickly established that he never wanted to be a creative writer, but this was the only job he was offered so he took it to get his foot in the door.
A wise General Manager I worked with said "People love to be loved, need to be needed, and want to be wanted." He made a point of meeting with each member of staff at least once a month and would genuinely praise them for something specific that had impressed him. He was always "campaigning in the halls" and created an amazing work environment. When I think back on it, he was really asking those same 12 questions in his own way.
In my younger days as a PD, I made lots of mistakes, and perhaps one of the biggest was thinking I could change the style of a new talent. I liked his delivery, and his work ethic, but he was a little wild for the adult targeted station I was programming. No problems I thought, I'll knock the "potty mouth" attitude out of him and he'll sound great. We drove each other nuts for three months, and in the end I helped him get another job at a rock station. From that day onwards I promised myself that I would match the person to the job and via coaching maximize their strengths and largely overlook any weaknesses, unless it impacted on their ability to do their job, or the radio station in general.
I was recently told a story about the owner of VOCM in Newfoundland. Every Christmas the station owner Mr. Butler would wander the halls bearing gifts. "I'll never forget how great it felt when he complimented me on a couple of very specific projects that had happened during the year, wished me Merry Christmas, and handed me a turkey and bottle of wine" said the person who shared the story with me. They went on to say "No doubt, as he moved from one employee to the other, his assistant was updating him on who we were and what we did. But, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that he cared enough to do it."
I'm not sure "breaking the rules" is always the answer, but I'm sure you'd agree we all need to find new ways to get the best possible performance out of each employee. Reading this book might be a good start. The sequel has already sold almost 300,000 copies and is called "Now Discover Your Strengths." Each book has a one-time use password included, which allows the reader to go on-line and take a 180-question test to identify their major strengths. |