Today, I want to discuss #9 of Gallup's Elements of Employee Engagement:
My associates are committed to doing quality work.
This is one that I often find bosses try to let themselves off the hook for being able to really influence. No dice. As a boss, your job is to build, develop and manage a strong team -- and then to clear obstacles out of their way so that they can do the job you've charged them with. A team that doesn't respect each other is not going to work as effectively or as efficiently as one that does.
I'll break it down to the four most common scenarios I see:
I feel like I probably shouldn't have to say this, but the reality is that there are plenty of managers who have toxic employees they need to let go, but don't for one reason or other. It could be authority issues. It could be HR's paranoia about legal action. It could just be because it's your bosses little brother and no one has the cojones to tell your boss that he shares genetic material with a twerp. Whatever it is, you don't need me telling you that you need to cauterize this wound by cutting him loose. Even if you find that you really can't, you can't play ostrich and think that your inaction doesn't or shouldn't matter. Or that it's not damaging your relationship with your staff.
Sometimes two people just rub each other the wrong way. Sometimes it was caused by something specific. Sometimes it's just an undefinable allergic reaction. If and when you come across this on your staff (or crossing across your staff), you need to play Couples Counselor. They don't need to fall in love with each other. But they need to figure out a way to work together. If this kind of conflict resolution is something you can't seem to figure out how to drive, then I'd recommend hiring a coach who specializes in this. Allowing it to go unchecked is granting your permission for two people's beef with each other to adversely affect everyone around them. No bueno.
This is the one I find being the biggest, most common problem, particularly in more creative fields. So many bosses are in love with the potential they seem in someone with amazing raw talent that they forget to consider how they function as part of a team. But remember, your team is looking to you to CLEAR obstacles, not throw more in front of them. If you allow this to go on, then their only course of action is to think that you are too oblivious to notice or too biased to care. In either case, you leaving a diva in their mix not only hurts their productivity, but your credibility as a leader.
In my experience, this one can be the hardest to actually solve -- so sometimes your best win here is simply support and empathy. When your staff believes that another team -- one that they must depend on or collaborate with to get their own work done -- is lazy, incompetent or simply too disengaged to rely on to deliver good work, you have to find a way to help. Unfortunately, many times, if that's how the team behaves, it's often because the boss allows it, or worse yet, models that same behavior. In places where you lack direct influence to change that situation, your only course of action is to find ways to help: starting by listening, acknowledging and validating that their frustrations with the other team are understandable. And then doing whatever you can to minimize the dependency and to get the support you need to address the issues you are seeing come from that group. What's most important is that your team trust that you are hearing them and actively working to try to solve this for them.
The truth is, there are a ton of reasons that someone on your team may not believe their colleagues are committed to doing good work. But the best, most talented people take pride in their work, and they don't want to be dragged down by others. As a boss, your responsibility is to help set the stage for them to be able to kick ass -- even when that means you need to give other people the hook.
