Can you make unpopular decisions?

 

One discussion that came up in a recent training I conducted was when should a leader decide to fire an underperforming employee. The current mainstream in leadership thinking is when we have underperforming employees, we should empathise, support and help, and eventually get our people back on track. To give up on and transfer or fire an employee is sometimes perceived as a failure of the leader. This is a misconception. As leaders, we have to make the unpopular decision, when we know it is what's right for the organisation. Leaders cannot be squeamish. 

Photo courtesy of C. L. Lim

How much is purpose worth?

 

I recently read a comic strip in which the conversation went like this:

Worker A: If your boss gives you a meaningful purpose at work, would you accept a lower pay?
Worker B: No.
Worker A: That goes to show how much meaning and purpose is worth at work.

At first glance this sounds logical, but if we think deeper, this is thinking about the matter in a wrong way. If your boss tells you a purpose for the sake of cutting your pay, I would have serious doubts about that purpose and the intention behind sharing the purpose. So this comic isn't about purpose. It is about whether a leader treats their people fairly and respectfully. Think about these questions. Why do some people stay at a job despite being offered a higher pay elsewhere? Who do some people quit their jobs to take up lower-paying jobs in an unfamiliar industry? Ultimately people want more than money from their work life.

How much is purpose worth? Everything.

As leaders, how do we help our people find their purpose?

Just Remember One Thing

 

One common question people ask trainers like me is "What can attending your training do for me (or my staff)?"

It's a valid and important question. Why are we spending money, and also more importantly, many people's time, on training? What can we expect to change after attending a one-day training (or two-, or five-)? Will my people improve their productivity by 10%? Because of this line of thinking, many trainers try to squeeze a lot of content into one day. They want to make the time and money spent by the client feel more worthwhile. Unfortunately that often backfires. It becomes an intense and hurried lecture day, bombarding participants with concepts, which they will broadly understand, but will never apply, and will forget after 3 weeks. As a trainer, what I ask of each of my participants is to remember just one thing from the day. Take just one thing, and use it. Then it is yours forever. It means you have changed into a slightly better person. Then that day of training is worth your time. When we attend a training, any training, or an event, any event; are we prepared to observe and learn just one thing? Even if you are attending a dull academic conference, if you are observant and hungry, you will find that one thing to learn and make yours. It's up to you. Are you ready to find that one thing?

Leadership Pitfalls: "This is not what I want"

 

Do you sometimes get frustrated that your subordinates keep getting it wrong? You have already given them a direction. You'd expect they'd know what a good deliverable should look like. You can't be giving them detailed step-by-step instructions. If that's what they need, then you might as well do it yourself right?

The problem is sometimes we don't even know what we want, and we place the responsibility on our subordinates to come up with something that will impress us. We have our own past experiences, biases and preferences. If we are not able to articulate well what we expect, it is difficult for our subordinates to create something to our personal tastes. I have seen one business leader who gets frustrated all the time, rejects the work of his team repeatedly, and points out the problems with every piece of rejected work after the work is already done. But he does not set clear expectations up front. He and his team keep repeating this pattern. He gets upset. His team gets demotivated. They both waste a lot of time and energy. What can we do about this? 1. Set clear objectives. Even if you do not have an idea what the end deliverable should look like, at least be clear what it will achieve. You don't have to spell out how to do the job, just the outcome that you want. 2. Learn to let go of your personal preferences. If the deliverable meets the objective, accept it. Let go of "my way". Work should be done in an objective manner and not left to be interpreted subjectively.