I grew up an Oakland Raiders fan. When I first got hooked, the head coach was John Madden. He was an unleashed bundle of atomic energy on the sidelines, and it seemed every game had a fantastic finish. It was entertaining, with crazy emotional ups and downs.
Recently, I was channel surfing and stumbled on an interview Madden had done a few years back. At the end, he summed up his entire career as a “teacher.”
He elaborated by explaining that during every stage of his career he was in a role that required him to share his knowledge. He earned a teaching credential, put it to use as an assistant and then head coach at the junior college level, an instructor at UC Berkeley, as an assistant coach and shortly thereafter head coach of the Raiders, as a TV color commentator and as a key contributor to the popular game Madden NFL.
As a company leader, I see your role and your responsibility to be the same as Madden’s. I am not sure what your title might be: owner, general manager, CEO — it does not matter. You need to add “teacher.”
You probably think you do not have the time. I believe you must make an investment of your time to have a better business with better results.
You may push back, “I don’t have the patience to teach people.” Consider hiring someone with patience. But understand that you will need to instruct the person who you have training your team members. I recommend cutting out the intermediary.
I have had clients through the years who shared, “For what I am paying these people, they should already know what to do!” Really? We pay our presidents $400,000 a year; do you think any one of those men knew how to do the job when they took the oath of office? They did not; they knew only what they wanted to do. Each learned on the job.
You do not have to be Yoda, although I am certain that your people come to you with every possible issue. It is fine not knowing all the answers because successful teaching requires your ongoing learning. If your people see you learning and growing, they will soon understand that they need to learn too.
If your people see you learning and growing, they will soon understand that they need to learn too.
“What should I teach my people?” you ask. Having worked with hundreds of small and medium-sized companies, I am going to suggest several topics to get you off to a strong start.
Set the curriculum
First, to be a winner and lead a winning team, you need to define what winning is. You may set financial metrics, or it might be you want to achieve a volume number like client count. But what you need is to define winning for both you and the team. What is your version of winning the Super Bowl, the World Series or the NBA championship? Because this is something that people can relate to, and most importantly, it is visible and progress is measurable.
Second, you must instruct and maintain your desired work ethic. Because you own a business, I am willing to bet, sight unseen, that you were working when you were in high school, maybe before. You learned being on time means arriving early. You learned how to work, safely, to positively contribute and not to goof off or waste time. You learned how to work in a team, take direction, to make meaningful suggestions to improve things. You did not slow down or quit before quitting time.
Third, you must always lead by example. Most owners do not realize that they are constantly under a microscope and that everything said and done is seen, discussed, analyzed and evaluated by your employees.
Next, you must make time to “inspect what you expect.” If you don’t reinforce what you want, people will soon fall back to the habits you wanted them to move away from.
Finally, your company needs a short mission statement. This works to keep individuals and the team focused. Mission statements set the tone and the direction. If you currently have a mission statement, review it to make sure it is succinct and easy to remember. If you do not have a mission statement, now is the time to create one. My mission is “To facilitate success in business and life.”
There are three mission statements to consider emulating when creating yours. The first is from the Los Angeles City Police Department: “To Protect and Serve.” The second was used during the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo space programs: “To the moon and back.” The third is President Lincoln’s mission “To preserve the Union.”
Finally, having engaged employees is essential. In the book “First, Break All the Rules,” by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, questions from the Gallup Organization were shared as a way to measure engagement through regular check-ins with your employees:
- Do you know what is expected of you at work?
- Do you have the materials and equipment that you need in order to do your work right?
- At work, do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day?
- In the past seven days, have you received recognition or praise for doing good work?
- Does someone here, at work, seem to care about you as a person?
- Is there someone here at the company who encourages your development?
- At work, do your opinions seem to count?
- Does the mission of this company make you feel that your job is important?
- Are your coworkers committed to doing quality work?
- Do you have a best friend at work?
- In the past six months, has someone at work talked to you about your progress?
- This past year, have you had opportunities at work to learn and grow?
You must take your energy, time and attention to focus on growing good people.
You must take your energy, time and attention to focus on growing good people. Understand that this is a marathon and not a sprint; you need to be patient and consistent. Be the best teacher you can be, and then some. This is how companies move forward to achieve their goal to win.
