Managing & Developing Your Employees -- Pt. 3

Do Everything You Can to Retain Great Employees

When you’re hiring employees, don’t settle. Secondly, never stop coaching employees. Finally, do everything you can to retain great employees.

As is also the case when it comes to customers, retention matters even more than acquisition. With customers, the usual figure is that repeat customers are five to ten times more profitable than newly acquired ones. Likewise, great employees are worth at least ten times what average ones are worth. [1]

So just as a dollar spent in customer retention can pay ten times the dividend of a dollar spent advertising for new customers, so a dollar…..or more to the point, an hour…..spent in employee retention can return ten times the equivalent investment in new hires. Do everything you can to make the thought of leaving your place of employment almost unimaginable for a great employee. This includes perks, bonuses, extra time off, flexible work hours, larger or better-positioned cubicles, and taking the time to make sure they know you appreciate the contribution they make to your organization. [1]

Hire great employees, coach them, and do everything you can to keep them. Let me give you five practical things you can do to keep great employees.

1. Know Them [2]
First, know your employees. Lincoln revealed the cornerstone of his own personal leadership philosophy, an approach that would become part of a revolution in modern leadership thinking 100 years later when it was dubbed “Management By Walking Around” by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman in their 1982 book -- “In Search of Excellence.” It has been referred to by other names and phrases, such as: “roving leadership,” “being in touch,” or “getting out of the ivory tower.” Whatever the label, it’s simply the process of stepping out and interacting with people. It is simply the process of establishing human contact.

We need to know how our people will respond in any given situation. We need to know who will have a tendency to get the job done on his own, or who will be more likely to procrastinate and delay. We need to know who can be counted on in an emergency and who can’t. We need to know who are the brighter, more able, more committed people. We need to know who shares are strong sense of ethics and values.

The most important asset a business organization has is its employees. So why not spend some time and money striving to more thoroughly understand who are your really great employees?

2. Listen to Them [7]
In his book, “Leadership Gold”, John Maxwell tells the story:

“A couple of rednecks are out in the woods hunting when one of them falls to the ground. He doesn’t seem to be breathing and his eyes are rolled back in his head. The other guy whips out his cell phone and calls 911. He frantically tells the operator, “Bubba is dead! What can I do?” The operator, in a calm, soothing voice says, “Just take it easy. I can help. First, let’s make sure he’s dead.” There is silence, and then a shot is heard. The guy’s voice comes back on the line and says, “Okay, now what?””

It is no accident that we have one mouth and two ears. Steven Covey writes: “When we listen with the intent to understand others, rather than with the intent to reply, we begin true communication and relationship building. Opportunities to then speak openly and be understood come much more naturally and easily.”

This is particularly an important point to know when it comes to great employees. Great employees really want to be listened to, respected, and understood. When leaders listen to them and use what they hear to make improvements that benefit the organization, then those great employees put their trust in those leaders. They want to work with those leaders. When leaders do the opposite – when they fail to listen – it damages the leader-great employee relationship. When great employees no longer believe that their leaders are listening to them, they start looking for someone who will.

3. Lead by Being Led
Third, lead by being led. As just stated, great employees want to be listened to. Great employees want their suggestions and recommendations considered and implemented. Our goal is to foster an environment in which our great employees sense little oversight and a large amount of freedom to “set the pace.” With great employees, we merely need to direct or point them in the proper path and allow them to lead us down that path. Rather than ordering or dictating, we need to refine our ability to direct others by implying, hinting, or suggesting.

One of the marks of true leadership genius is to create an environment that great employees relish to work in. Paraphrasing Lao Tzu: “A good leader is one who talks little, and yet, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, all his followers will say: ‘We did this ourselves.’” [3]

4. Don’t Send Your Ducks to Eagle School [7]
In his book, “Leadership Gold”, John Maxwell shares a lesson learned from Jim Rohn:

“The first rule of management is this: don’t send your ducks to eagle school. Why? Because it won’t work! Good people are found, not changed. They can change themselves, but you can’t change them. If you want good people, you have to find them. If you want motivated people, you have to find them, not motivate them…..Chalk it up to mysteries of the mind, and don’t waste your time trying to turn ducks into eagles. Hire people who already have the motivation and drive to be eagles and then just let them soar.”

This counsel very much applies to “retaining” great employees. Once you “know” who your great employees are, don’t try and turn your ducks into eagles. It just doesn’t work. Here’s why it doesn’t work:

o If you send ducks to eagle school, you will frustrate the ducks. Ducks are not supposed to be eagles – nor do they want to become eagles. Who they are is who they should be. Ducks have their strengths and should be appreciated for them. They’re excellent swimmers. They are capable of working together in an amazing display of teamwork and travel long distances together. Ask an eagle to swim or to migrate thousands of miles, and it’s going to be in trouble. Leadership is all about placing your great employees in the right place so they can be successful. As a leader, you need to know your great employees and let them work according to their strengths. As a leader, you should always challenge people to move out of their comfort zone, but never out of their strength zone. That is one reason you don’t send ducks to eagle school. Secondly…..
o If you send ducks to eagle school, you will frustrate the eagles. Eagles don’t want to hang around with ducks. They don’t want to live in a barnyard or swim in a pond. Their potential makes them impatient with those who cannot soar. People who are used to moving fast and flying high are easily frustrated by people who want to hold them back.

As a leader, your job is to help your ducks to become better ducks and your eagles to become better eagles – to put individuals in the right places and help them reach their potential. You shouldn’t ask someone to grow in areas where they have no natural talent.

Don’t make the mistake made in a story borrowed from Charles Swindoll’s “Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life”:

“Once upon a time, the animals decided they should do something meaningful to meet the problems of the new world. So they organized a school. They adopted an activity curriculum of running, climbing, swimming, and flying. To make it easier to administer, all the animals took all the subjects. The duck was excellent in swimming. In fact, he was better than his instructor was! However, he made only passing grades in flying, and was very poor in running. Since he was so slow in running, he had to drop swimming and stay after school to practice running. This caused his webbed feet to be badly worn so he became only average in swimming. But “average” was quite acceptable, therefore nobody worried about it – except the duck. The rabbit started at the top of his class in running, but developed a nervous twitch in his leg muscles because he had so much makeup work to do in swimming. The squirrel was excellent in climbing, but he encountered constant frustration in flying class because his teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He developed “charley horses” from overexertion, so he only got a “C” in climbing and “D” in running. The eagle was a problem child and was severely disciplined for being a non-conformist. In climbing classes, he beat all the others to the top, but insisted on using his own way of getting there!”

5. Give Them the Credit/You Take the Blame [2]
Finally, if you want to retain great employees, give them the credit and you take the blame. As leaders, we’d like to think that when people leave, it has little to do with us. But the reality is that we are often the reason. Some sources estimate that as many as 65 percent of people leaving companies do so because of their managers. We may say that people quit their job or their company but the reality is that they usually quit their leaders. [7]

So what is one solution to retaining great employees? Always give credit where credit is due and, conversely, accept responsibility when things go wrong. When a great employee does a good job, praise, compliment, and reward the individual. On the other hand, be prepared to shoulder the responsibility when they make mistakes. Always let your great employees know that the honor will be all theirs if they succeed and the blame will be yours in they fail.

Abraham Lincoln practiced this laudatory style right up to the final days of his life. During his last public address, made to gathering of people outside the White House on the evening of April 11, 1865, he was filled with modesty for himself and praise for the soldiers who had won the union victory: “No part of the honor, for plan or execution, is mine”, he asserted. “To General Grant, his skillful officers, and brave men, all belongs.”

Likewise, the president readily accepted responsibility for the battles lost during the Civil War. He tried to let his generals know that if they failed, he too failed. Throughout the war Lincoln accepted public responsibility for battles lost or opportunities missed. In the days following the battle of Gettysburg, for example, the president was distressed Meade’s delay in pursing Lee before his army made it back across the Potomac River. Well after the battle, in an attempt to spur the general into an active confrontation with Lee, the president sent him a letter urging an immediate attack. “If you can now attack him on a field no worse than equal for us,” said Lincoln, “and will do so with all the skill and courage, which you, your officers, and men possess, the honor will be yours if you succeed, and the blame will be mine if you fail.”

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