Managing & Developing Your Employees -- Pt. 2

"Never Stop Coaching Employees"

When you’re hiring employees, don’t settle. The second inviolable principle is: “never stop coaching your employees.” While there are many things you can “coach” your employees to do, what aspects of coaching do you focus on? Let me provide you with five suggestions.

1. Cast a Shared Vision & Continually Reaffirm It
First, cast a shared vision and continually reaffirm it.

Churchill [5]
In 1940, the then disgraced Sir Neville Chamberlain stepped aside and Winston Churchill was made Prime Minister of Britain without an election. Like so many great leaders, he inherited a problem that his predecessor had allowed to fester and grow. Churchill knew that Britain would be the last major defensive post in Western Europe that could stand up to Hitler’s attack. If England fell, the whole face of the earth would change. He knew that the weight of the free world was on his shoulders, and that he must rally his countrymen around a “shared vision” to hold back the German attack and ultimately lead them to victory.

Using his skills as a linguist and orator, and his burning passion for England and for the cause of freedom, he focused on rallying his country’s pride. This can be seen clearly as the clash that became known as “The Battle of Britain” (in the summer and autumn of 1940) approached. In a speech to the nation, Churchill put the stakes of victory on the line for his countrymen very clearly:

“I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us…Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be free and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands…But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new Dark Age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the light of perverted science…Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say: ‘This was their finest hour.’”

Across the country, glued to their radios, the people of England instantly understood the job ahead, the stakes, the style of the enemy, and the outcomes of failure or victory. There was no doubt about exactly what had to be done, no debate about whether it would happen.

Lincoln [2]
Likewise, it’s well known and documented that during the Civil War Abraham Lincoln -- through his speeches, writings, and conversations -- “preached a vision” of America that has never been equaled in the course of American history. Lincoln provided exactly what the country needed at that precise moment in time -- a clear, concise statement of the direction of the nation and justification for the Union’s drastic action in forcing civil war. Everywhere he went, at every conceivable opportunity, he reaffirmed, reasserted, and reminded everyone of the basic principles upon which the nation was founded. His vision was simple, and he preached it often.

We can learn much from these two leaders. We can learn that effective visions and organizational mission statements can’t be forced upon our employees. Rather, they must be set in motion by means of persuasion. Our employees must accept and implement them wholeheartedly and without reservation. When this is achieved, truly accepted visions tend to foster innovation, risk-taking, empowerment, and delegation. If our employees understand what is expected of them, what the organization is trying to accomplish, then it becomes possible to create a climate in which results and progress continually occur. When coaching your employees, cast a shared vision and continually reaffirm it.

2. Set Goals and be Relentlessly Results-Oriented [2]
Second, set goals and be relentlessly results-oriented. Goals unify people, motivate them, focus their talent and energy. As just stated, Lincoln united his followers with the “corporate mission” of preserving the union and abolishing slavery, and this objective became more firm and resolute with the onslaught of the Civil War.

Even so, Lincoln realized that the attainment of such a successful outcome had to be accomplished in steps. So he continually set specific short-term goals that his generals and cabinet members could focus on with intent and immediacy. And he created a contagious enthusiasm among followers by demonstrating a sense of urgency toward attainment of his goals. He wanted them all to be like the dog in one of his favorite anecdotes:

“A man…had a small bull-terrier that could whip all the dogs of the neighborhood. The owner of a large dog which the terrier had whipped asked the owner of the terrier how it happened that the terrier whipped every dog he encountered. That, said the owner of the terrier, is no mystery to me. Your dog and other dogs get half through a fight before they are ready. Now, my dog is always mad.”

Contemporary leaders often worry about how to keep a fire lit under their employees. The best way to do so is to set specific, short-term goals that can be focused on with intensity and immediacy by employees. And then coach them to be relentlessly results-oriented.

3. Reinforce Followership [6]
The third suggestion for coaching employees is to reinforce followership. That is because there are very few who will someday command thousands of troops in battle or direct the operations of a large organization. And yet, most of us spend most of our life being a follower. Thus, how does one become a good follower?

Borrowing from Meilinger’s work on the “Ten Rules of Good Followership”, let me provide you with several suggestions on how to “coach” your employees to be better followers. Be forewarned: “We need to practice what we preach.”

o Teach them to not blame their boss for an unpopular decision or policy. Their job is to support, not undermine. Leadership is not a commodity to be bought at the price of followership. If an employee asks you whether or not you agree with a particular decision of your boss, your response should be that it is an irrelevant question. The boss has decided, and we will now carry out her orders. That’s what good followers are expected to do. Loyalty must travel both up and down the chain of command.
o Teach them to make the decision -- then run it past you. Encourage them to show initiative. No one likes to work for a micromanager. We all believe we are smart enough and mature enough to get the job done without someone hovering around and providing detailed guidance. One reason bosses tend to become micromanagers is because they see their subordinates standing by and waiting for specific instructions. They then feel obliged to provide it. You can short-circuit this debilitating spiral by simply encouraging initiative. Allow them to accomplish the task and then (and only then) expect a briefing on what was done.
o Teach them to do their homework. Teach them to give you all the information needed to make a decision. They need to understand that when their supervisor gives them a problem to solve, it is essential that they become an expert on the subject before they attempt to propose a course of action.
o Teach them to keep you informed of what’s going on in your department. People are naturally reluctant to tell you about their problems and successes. Creating an open environment of sharing will enable a larger amount of information to float upwards. It also enables you to recognize those employees that are making a real difference.
o Teach them that if they see a problem, fix it. They need to understand that it doesn’t matter who gets the blame or who gets the praise. General George C. Marshall, the Army chief of staff during World War II, once made the comment that there was no limit to the amount of good that people could accomplish, as long as they didn’t care who received the credit.

4. Empower Employees [2]
Fourth, empower your employees to achieve the objectives of the organization, department, and team. People generally want to believe that what they’re doing truly makes a difference and, more important, that it is their own idea. Thus, good leaders learn the value of making requests as opposed to issuing orders.

Leadership, by definition, omits the use of coercive power. When a leader begins to coerce his followers, he’s essentially abandoning leadership and embracing dictatorship. Dictatorship, force, coercion – all are characteristics of tyrants, despots, and oppressors. Competent leadership, on the other hand, delegates responsibility and authority, and empowers subordinates to act on their own. It attempts to gain commitment through openness, empowerment, and coaching.

Teddy Roosevelt grasped this fact very clearly when he wrote: “The best leader is the one who has sense enough to pick good men to do what he wants done, and the self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while they do it.” [7]

5. Encourage Innovation [2]
Fifth, encourage employees to be innovative. One of Lincoln’s favorite stories was designed to encourage people to innovate, to take action on their own initiative, without waiting for orders:

“There was a colonel, who when raising his regiment in MO, proposed to his men that he should do all the swearing for the regiment. They assented. For months, the regiment followed the rules. The colonel had a teamster named John Todd, who, as roads were not always the best, had some difficulty in commanding his temper and tongue. John happened to be driving a mule team through a series of mud holes a little worse then usual, when he burst forth into a volley of profanity. The colonel took notice of the offense and brought John to account. ‘John’, said he, ‘didn’t you promise to let me do all the swearing for the regiment?’ ‘Yes, I did, Colonel,’ he replied, ‘but the fact was the swearing had to be done then or not at all, and you weren’t there to do it.’”

Genuine leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln, are not only instruments of change, they are catalysts for change. Lincoln effected the change needed by creating an atmosphere of entrepreneurship that fostered innovative techniques.

How did he do this?
o First, he allowed for mistakes. Lincoln viewed the failures of his generals as mistakes, learning events, or steps in the right direction.
o Second, Lincoln essentially treated his subordinates as equals. They were colleagues in a joint effort. He had enough confidence in himself that he was not threatened by skillful generals or able cabinet officials. Rather than surround himself with “yes” men, he associated with people who really knew their business, people from whom he could learn something, whether they were antagonistic or not. An often overlooked component of leadership is this ability to learn from people and experiences, from successes and failures. The best leaders never stop learning.
o Third, he refused to resign himself to the limits imposed on him by flawed systems rather than rethinking those systems. As a result, innovations such as hot air reconnaissance balloons, pontoon bridges, ironclad ships, and breech-loading rifles were introduced during his administration.

Rather than inhibiting progress or sapping energy, innovative thinking actually increases an organization’s chances of survival. Lincoln realized that, as an executive leader, it was his chief responsibility to create the climate of risk-free entrepreneurship necessary to foster effective innovation. We need to do likewise.

Endnotes
[1] Adapted from “A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology” by Bob Lewis
[2] Adapted from “Lincoln on Leadership” by Donald T. Phillips
[3] Adapted from “It’s Your Ship” by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff
[4] Bits & Pieces, May 28, 1992, Page 5-6
[5] Adapted from “The Mark of a Leader” by Doug Keeley
[6] Adapted from “The Ten Rules of Good Followership” by Colonel Phillip S. Meilinger
[7] Adapted from “Leadership Gold” by John Maxwell