Become a success facilitator

One way to manage and motivate employees is to become a “success facilitator” – someone who makes employees as successful as they can be. If you can do this, you’ll be rewarded with harder-working, more productive employees. Morale will also hit an all-time high. Here are some steps to get you started:
• Assemble the right kind of team. When hiring, select people with different backgrounds and experience, so your employees have a larger pool of talent and experience to draw from when they encounter a problem.

• Set employees up for success. Start the first day new hires begin their tenure. Give them a good orientation, followed by a thorough training program. Make sure employees know exactly what is expected of them, and how their work will be measured. Give employees the tools and supplies they need to do their jobs.

• Don’t confuse being a success facilitator with being a cheerleader. Like any coach, you have to realize which employees need a little pushing and encouragement, and which need more discipline. Always maintain a positive attitude and focus on what employees need to be doing in order to succeed.

• Lead by your actions. Have a vision, show employees what that vision is, and show them how they can help you achieve it. If you aren’t focused on your mission, you can’t expect employees to be. And unfocused employees are typically unhappy, unproductive employees.

Adapted from Restaurant Hospitality
Reprinted with permission from the Manager’s Intelligence Report, www.ragan.com (800-878-5331)

Athletic coaches offer advice on how to promote teamwork

The best coaches in athletics know that having a bunch of talented players isn’t enough to make you a winning team. To succeed, those players have to function as a team. The same is true in business, according to management guru Stephen Covey. Covey recently asked some top athletic coaches for their advice on how to build team spirit:

• Care about the people who work for you. Pat Summitt, coach of Tennessee’s championship women’s basketball team, meets privately with each of her players four times a year. She tells them what she expects out of them, and discusses their goals – and fears.

According to Summitt, these kinds of meetings are crucial if you want to really understand employees – and be able to motivate them.

• Respect individual differences. Motivation techniques that work for one player may not work for another, says Ben Smith, coach of the US women’s hockey team. Example: Smith knows he can “bark” at some of his older players, because he knows they can take it. If he tried that tactic with a younger player, it might demoralize her. Know what kind of management tactics your employees respond to, and customize your tactics for each employee.

• Put the team above all else. Rick Majerus, coach of the University of Utah basketball team, insists that even his best scorers play tough defense – because it’s for the good of the team. At the same time, however, Majerus says it’s important that players realize not everyone can be a star. “It’s important that there are players that have roles that enable others to emerge as stars,” says Majerus. “It’s the same in a corporation.”

• Always get everyone’s input. If people are left out of decisions, they don’t feel like they’re part of the team. Hockey coach Ben Smith always asks his players what they think is wrong with the team – and what they would do to solve it. “It doesn’t do the class any good if the teacher answers all the questions,” he explains.

Adapted from USA Weekend

Reprinted with permission from the Manager’s
Intelligence Report, www.ragan.com (800-878-5331)