By Mark F. Herbert

Times like we are in now are always interesting. The economy is down and people are hanging on for dear life. I am unfortunately hearing that there are managers and executives out there that have returned to the worst possible motivation technique available to encourage their employees- the old “you are lucky to have a job pitch”.

I have another set of pronounced biases. I believe that most employees show up on day one wanting to do the right work and do it well. If in fact they don’t I find that there is one of three primary “root” causes.

• You hired the wrong person.
• We put the “right” person in the wrong job.
• We re-trained people to be incompetent.

So let’s examine all three possible scenarios ...

Hiring Right.
From a previous article I talked about what I consider to be the keys to hiring “right”:

• Include attributes in addition to skills in your hiring process
• Incorporate Responsibilities Into All Job Descriptions
• Provide Appropriate Training
• "Retrofit” Skills and Attributes of Existing Staff
• Coach and Mentor

I am not going to go into what all the “attributes” I look for are here. They are available in a separate article titled Are You Hiring the Right People? 

Right Person, Wrong Job. 
We put the “right” person in the wrong job when we:

• Don’t clearly identify the skills and experiences they need to be successful.
• Provide clear expectations and support as they make the transition.
• Use “mistakes” as learning opportunities for us and for them.
• Assume they had the “tool kit” and understood the position before we re-assigned them.
• Promote based solely on “technical” skills.

Re-training for Incompetence.
So at this point you are saying- “No one intentionally trains somebody to be incompetent!” You are absolutely right. We don’t do it intentionally, but there are a number of ways that we un-intentionally and methodically accomplish our “un-planned” objective. Here are a few of my favorites:

Using numbers as the only way to measure performance. I would submit in many U.S. companies the primary measure of performance is “shareholder value” also known as stock price. We build shrines to it. We measure it to the detriment of almost everything else. Leading experts believe that much of the financial crisis can be traced back to this. We ignored engagement, turnover, and other indicators to chase stock price.

In my previous industry we worshipped capital ratio. I found this interesting. We could be losing market share, wallet share, and face a decreasing demographic profile for our customer base, but the regulators wanted to talk about capital.

Spreading staff too thin. These days one of the war cries is more with less, work smarter not harder or some spin on that. There is a point of diminishing returns. Staff simply can’t do the right work and do it well.

Again to use an example from my recent past we tracked headcount very closely. We had managers who were not hiring staff to keep their numbers down. As a result we saw two things happen; we had managers performing functions at a much higher cost per transaction than our competitors, and they were doing this at the expense of other value added activities involved in managing their business. Activities like outreach to customers and the community, coaching staff, and other critical tasks.

Unrealistic short term expectations. We set ourselves and employees up looking for “magic” solutions. I get requests from organizations who want to “do” engagement; at a retreat or over a very short period. It doesn’t happen that way! We expect mastery rather than competency from new hires. Competency is being able to perform the essential functions to meet expectations. Mastery as it implies involves practice and refinement.

Little “t” versus Big T. I see in many cases that we teach people to “team up” within their own department or unit. This is great as long as it isn’t to the exclusion of the overall organization!
I have seen a lot of written of late about whether “personal” loyalty is and should be a critical attribute for hiring and retention of employees. In my mind loyalty is a two way street and it is earned. An employee should never have to choose between what is right for the “team” and what is right for the organization. The job of a manager and leader is to create those links not obscure them.

Rewarding mediocrity. One of our favorite words in the corporate vocabulary today is consistency. Treat everyone the same. Be tepid. Do not provide recognition for outstanding performance through compensation, promotion, or other avenues.
This one really bugs me. I can’t tell you how many times I see organizations where the average performance rating is a 4 on a 5 point scale! I tell them, “Wow, you must be a dominant player in your market”. I hear “No, we actually haven’t hit our goals in years.” We do not hold people accountable and
expect them to perform to our standards. We are afraid to tell them that they meet our expectations and that is a significant achievement. We tolerate performance that we shouldn’t.
We also prize “organizational history and knowledge”. That means people who have been with us a long time. My experience has been that tenure does not always translate to performance, nor does obedience.

Micro-management. I actually saw an entry on LinkedIn recently inquiring under what circumstances micro management is an appropriate management technique.

My response –  When you hire morons, for which you should be fired!”

I do see this happen more frequently than I would like. If you don’t trust your people to make decisions or you can’t train them to make decisions then I have two questions for you:
     1. Why did you hire them?
     2. Why do you keep them?

This is a critical time for the U.S. economy and for most businesses. I would suggest that if you examine your processes and systems and follow the advice in this article you may find some real productivity improvements in your own organization. I know I have!

Mark F. Herbert is a speaker, author and consultant with over thirty years of experience helping organizations like Honeywell, SpectraPhysics, Mobius, Oregon Community Credit Union and others take their organizations from Compliance to Commitment™. He is currently a principal at the consulting firm of New Paradigms LLC. He recently published his book Managing Whole, One Man’s Journey, which is available at amazon.com or his website at www.NewParadigmsllc.com