What Do Your People Want That You Fear Providing?

"Where do I stand? How am I seen? What do you think?

I don't mean to sound needy...but a little bit of information could go a long way with me."

- An employee (maybe yours)

Ok - I spent over 30 years in various levels of management and the last 5-6 working with business owners and their teams. Let's face it - we all know that employees want to meet with us but I have come to the conclusion as a group we fear having those conversations. Yes we fear them!

We fear that we will not have the answers to the questions that might come up -i.e. "if I'm doing a good job when can I get promoted, what is the "career ladder" for me here?" Being honest, maybe critical, when asked "how am I doing"?

Diana Southall of The People Plan brought this to my attention:

Ignoring your team members is actually 20x worse than being a critical boss!

In fact, a recent study of employees found that of employees who feel ignored by their direct manager, only 2% reported being engaged with their job, compared to 45% of employees who report their boss focused on their weaknesses, and 65% of those with a positive focused manager.

Almost half of these "invisible" team members reported to be "actively disengaged" - meaning that they consciously perform lower - versus 1% of those with positive managers.

Seriously, if you are not coaching your team (in practice, in weekly 15 minute coaching conversations), then they are like a boat without a captain - sailing toward the horizon with no particular place to go. (I just watched Pirates of the Caribbean again- what a fun study in leadership!)

To be effective, team members need to be

• clear on the ultimate purpose of their task, jobs and organization,
• given regular assistance prioritizing their efforts,
• performance improving feedback and training, and
• recognition when they get it right or step up.

Thanks Diana,  and I'll add "conversations and help in career development!"

We say to ourselves, "We don't have a career ladder here" or "I might say the wrong thing and they will start looking for another job", or "I don't know the right questions to ask", or "I don't know how to help them with developing their career", etc.

So we fear it and we ignore it - at our expense.

I just read a new book by Beverly Kaye and Julie Winkle Giulioni, "Help Them Grow or Watch them Go". 

They have broken it down into the simplest form and provided questions and blueprints for taking the fear out of these Weekly Coaching Conversations. You don't need a career ladder to keep your employees engaged and achieving their career goals - you simply help them be accountable for their own careers and provide opportunities to be promoted in place.

Here is my book report breaking down the key elements, or buy the book yourself.

Take action and the fear melts away. Your employees want to talk to you - so set up weekly 15 minute coaching conversations and begin coaching and engaging your employees. Start taking action, having conversations and the fear melts away.