I was talking to an old friend this morning (who happens to run a law firm now, go figure) about some stuff involving the new business I may launch.  In the course of my discussion with her, the conversation gravitated towards how she was looking to grow her own business and the issues that often come with that. 

And as I expected, her problem centered around one thing – finding good people. 

If there is one universal thing that plagues small businesses, that is it.  While working with IM guru Rich Schefren, I had the opportunity to survey literally thousands of small business owners, and employee issues always topped the charts.

The truth is that finding, and more importantly, managing people is really really hard.  No mention of it is ever given in any specialty classroom (lawyer, doctor, engineer, etc) and even in business schools where you have entire semesters dedicated to management, it’s always centered on softball subjects with little or no application in the real world. 

After all, working relationships are relationships just like anything else.  And people are complex F’rs.  For 99% of the population, work is something a lot more than your paycheck.  Nobody wants to feel like they are selling their soul for $15 bucks an hour.  Even the ‘tard on the fryolator at Burger King. 

And those ‘tards are the ones I want to talk about. Because for the vast majority of you small business owners out there, you are not hiring VP’s with years of experience and a $200k price tag like me – You are hiring the college kid, housewife/husband looking for some extra cash, or the person, sans-doctorate from Stanford,  to help answer phones or file paperwork. 

And this same exact boat my friend is in. 

Now we have already established that I am a lazy bastard, and “unconventional” would be a polite way to describe me.  But I also do have a background in psychology, am a pretty good natural leader, and my particular style allows me to push people much harder than anyone has a right to, and still be somewhat respected by my team later. 

Yes, I have fired people.  Yes I have had people quit because they didn’t like me. But, I think you would find that as a general rule, my teams kick ass, my teams really like what they do, and my teams would speak well of both me and what we were able to accomplish together. 

So how do I do it?  

I treat them all like human beings and make sure they know what their job is – From the highest paid executive, to the lowest paid assistant.  Profound isn’t it?

Finding good worker bees

 I’ve discovered that the trick isn’t finding good people.  It’s making those people good.  Let’s face it, anybody, even the most stone-stupid mother F’rs can alphabetize.    So how is it that my friend can’t find a damn person that can just do their job and file legal documents correctly? 

My guess is this:  It’s not that they can’t alphabetize, it’s that they could give a shit about doing it correctly.  And that’s not an employee problem, it’s a manager problem.  (Granted, it is possible that this person is just an idiot, but having 3 in a row tends to make me think otherwise)

The difference between senior muckedy-mucks and lowbies

I’ve noticed that a lot of managers spend a considerable amount of time thinking about what makes their executives happy and productive.  What motivates them, what they are looking to get out of a job, what their career path is.  But what I have also noticed is that once you hit the “glass floor,” (which is usually around the coordinator or assistant level in a big corporation) , managers tend to see people as a hired hand who is just there to collect a paycheck. 

But if you take a step back and get rid of the corporate hierarchy and just look at Sally the VP and Bob the Assistant out of the context of work, are they any different?  They both have lives, other responsibilities, aspirations, problems, dreams, careers. 

Now it may be because I grew up really poor, but I can relate to the worker bees.  I know exactly what it is like to feel like people see you as expendable, or the look in their eyes when they think your only use to society is to do a menial task just to pay your bills.  After all, YOU are the one who took the job for $12 an hour as a file clerk, and if you wanted more out of your puny life and had any ability at all, you would do it right? Wrong.  Remember, even in my own Rockstar case, after I had graduated with my MBA in the Top 3 of my class, I was still working at a 24 hour convenience store shilling gas and 2% milk until I landed my big break 6 months later. 

Trust me, I know that some people do fall into that “slacker” category their whole lives.  But that also does not mean that they like it, haven’t dreamed of more, and don’t have the potential to do more 

At a bare minimum, everybody wants to feel like they are doing something of value. 

And sticking files in a cabinet just don’t cut it.

Tip 1: So what if their job IS just to Stick Files in a Cabinet?

This is where it gets hard, and most managers fall short – YOU have to motivate them.  And your immediate response is that “I don’t have the time to make sure than some dude making $15 bucks an hour is happy about their job.”  And my response is, well, then your employee is gonna suck. 

It’s that plain and simple.  If you don’t challenge, motivate, and listen to ALL of your employees, your business will ultimately suffer for it.  Now, I know first-hand how counterproductive this sounds.  Your time is worth $200 an hour, and theirs is worth $15, so even logically this makes no sense. 

My answer is threefold.  First, once you discover what makes them tick, motivating them  appropriately probably won’t take too much time. Second, it only takes 1 pissed off employee screwing up things at exactly the wrong moment to royally screw something up for you.  And third, I have found than in many, many cases, your employees become so good at what they do, it actually takes YOUR game up a notch or two. 

So my advice to you:  Listen to them, find out what makes they tick, what interests them, what motivates them (cash will always come up, but in my experience, is NEVER anything more than a short-term improvement) 

Once you know what works for them, find out a way to incorporate that into the dullest, suckiest  parts of their job.   A perfect example would be a bright but bored clerk who spends 3 hours every day putting files in a cabinet.  Who WOULDN’T want to kill themselves and everyone around them with a sawed off shotgun after doing that for a few years. 

My recommendation would be to put them in charge of a project to come up with a new system to make your filing better.  More efficient, more accurate, whatever.  Have them analyze what they do, give them the inside dirt on what exactly you do with those files (making them feel more connected to something important that happens as a result of their work) and then entrust them with finding a way to make it better.  (giving them a sense of pride that their ideas are not only valuable but better than yours!) 

Once the project is complete, not only do you hopefully have a better system, but you also have an employee who now has a sense of pride in “their” system, they will also feel like they fit into the big picture in a lot more prominent way, and you can guarantee that things will be done right.  After all, something screwed up now is a direct failure of the system they built, and in turn a direct failure of them. In short, they got skin in the game.

Tip 2: Let them know what is expected of them and where their position fits in 

This is the second biggie I see all the time in startups – and if you are ever lucky enough to grow your business, it’s a show stopper. 

When most small businesses decide to hire someone, it’s usually because they are overwhelmed, not the result of a strategic growth plan.  An employee is hired because “There just aren’t enough hours in a day to get it all done.” 

So they put out an ad for “administrative assistant” or office manager, or whatever.  The ad usually reads something like this 

“Part time help needed for growing Legal office.  Responsible for filing, answering phones, and clerical work.  Computer knowledge required.  Friendly office and competitive salary.”   

You then find someone, hire them, and realize a month into it that either that person is an idiot, or just not the right person for the job. 

But if you stop to ask why, the usual response is that the employee was doing it wrong or their attitude sucked.  I then ask, well did you ever explicitly state how to do it right? Did you ever give them a job description to know exactly where they end and you begin?  Did you ever explicitly tell them how their role fits into the big picture? 

And the usual response is “How retarded do you have to be to not be able to figure out how to file a folder?  You don’t even need to KNOW the alphabet, its printed on the friggin folder”  (My friends tend to be a bit blunt : ) 

And one the surface that makes sense….but… 

Chances are that you have been doing things so long yourself, that many things just come second nature to you.  I mean it’s obvious than Cindy Duncan is filed in the same place as Hawthorne Dental.  Isn’t it?  Or that Joan Blackheart is the head of Blackheart, Smith, and Williams CPA’s.  I mean duh? 

Or that the fact that the legal briefings you had them look up go with the other briefings in the folder.  After all when you go into court, it’s obvious you will need them in chronological order, and not just thrown in the file, because that’s how you present them.  Anybody knows that. 

Except that the person you hired has never been in court, has no idea what the briefings are, never mind what they are for, and could care less in either case.

The point is that even the most mundane of jobs requires a detailed explanation.  You probably like things done a certain way for a reason.  Tell them that reason.  More importantly, let your employees know HOW and WHY they are important – what you use them for, what gets fucked up if they are not right, and exactly how you will castrate them if it’s wrong.

Specific job descriptions and responsibilities. 

In my experience, the best way to guarantee nothing gets done is to have two people do it.  If that occurs one of two things will happen.  First, an animosity will grow between employees.  Inevitably, one will be more aggressive and take the initiative, making the other person feel like they are wasting their time and pissed when the other gets praise for it.  Or, they will see that the other employee is doing it, and as a result, neither finish.   

There is no problem having people work on their own parts of a project, but you have to be painfully clear on who is doing which part, and when they have to work together make sure that it is on an equal footing. 

In an office setting, you may have 2 administrative assistants.  They are both required to cover the phone, research, file records, set up meetings, greet customers, ect.  Well, what if Jane is researching a document that has to be on your desk in 15 minutes, Joe is on the phone setting an important meeting, and a customer walks in the door.  Who stops?  Which task takes priority?  

These things need to be made explicitly clear, because if the ball drops, you have nobody to blame but yourself, and ultimately, it’s your ass on the line.

The Moral of the Story

My final advice is this:  Don’t treat people like shit.  Realize that while you are paying them to do a job, it does not mean you own them.  You can TELL them what to do, but I think you will find they do the absolute bare minimum if they do stick around.  You are always so much better finding out what makes them tick, and then using that persons unique skills, interests, and goals to help them motivate themselves.  It’ takes a little more time, but as I said, I almost always end up with something better than I could ever hope to have done myself.  

 I also fully understand that you are a busy camper yourself.  After all, you hired someone to help you. 

Just realize that a little time spent figuring out exactly what YOU want, taking the time to communicate it, and then taking the time to make sure that those around you have everything they need to become their own version of a Rockstar, is always time well spent. 

…and if you can’t or won’t, then hire me. I’ll take half of what you make as a result of my efforts, but then again, you won’t have to worry about how to get your new office boy to stop taking copies of his penis and faxing them to his friends.  I’ve already had that one : )

Be Cool. 

JJ