The Metiss Group's Blog

What is more important?

• Making 20 sales calls or closing $500,000 in new sales?
• Conducting weekly cycle inventories or .5% inventory shrink?
• Publishing regular newsletters or 97% customer retention?
• Creating weekly collections reports or receivables less than 30 days?
• Attending safety classes or zero days lost to workplace injury?

All too often leaders and direct reports are so focused on the activities they lose sight of the ultimate objective.  Leaders should make sure their direct reports understand their objective, have the resources available to achieve that objective, and then get out of the way.

Does it really matter that the sales associate made only 7 sales calls but still achieved the $500,000 sales objective?  Leaders have a tendency to micro-manage the day-to-day activities because they are the easiest to affect.  Instead, clearly define the expectation – objective, time frame, resources, and restraints – and hold their direct reports accountable for the results without getting immersed in the details.

Leaders who focus on goals and empower their direct reports with the resources to achieve them experience more success.

When leaders are asked how things are going, many will answer with something about how busy they are – just not enough hours in the day, can’t get anything done, running around like crazy, etc., etc.

Perhaps the simplest way for a leader to motivate, empower, and free up time is for them to ask their direct report: “What three things could I be delegating to you?”

After agreeing what can be delegated, the leader should lay out a development plan to prepare for that delegation. The development objectives should roll right into the quarterly expectations and performance measures.

This may not feel comfortable for the leader who believes “no one can do this better than I” but the leaders must remember that to get to where they are today, someone sometime gave them a break and trusted their abilities.

Leaders who empower direct reports with increased delegation have more success.

Successful people are outstanding performers.  Outstanding performers stay on top of their game.  They are lifelong learners, committed to learning everything they can about their profession, their business, their company, their company’s competitors, and life in general.  As the Chinese proverb says, “if you quit learning, you are not standing still, you are losing ground.”

Supporting direct reports as they learn and grow is the leader’s job; learning and growing is the direct reports’ job.  When encouraging direct reports to learn, set goals.  Instead of “learning PowerPoint,” how about “learn PowerPoint and prepare a staff presentation on September 1st?”  Or, “increase industry knowledge by reading the Wall Street Journal health section each day and report back at the end of the quarter those things learned.”

Personal development is important and leaders who empower direct reports to set goals make the success real.

As 360-degree leadership effectiveness tools become better indicators of perceived leadership behaviors, more and more companies are embarking on formal 360-degree evaluations of their leadership teams.  These insightful reports help leaders focus on developing the leadership skills observed by others as being most needed.

However, prior to conducting 360-degree evaluations and delivering results, the leadership group must identify the leadership practices that are important to the organization.  Everyone should understand the organization’s leadership focus before getting their results.  Once leaders receive their reports, their natural tendency is to dismiss the feedback in areas in which they scored poorly.  Having committed to focusing on specific leadership styles before receiving feedback forces them to be more objective and embrace development opportunities.

Empowered leaders choose the important leadership practices before receiving 360-degree feedback and have more successful development plans.

Most leaders are familiar with the Chinese proverb: “Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.”  A leader should be challenging their direct reports to be always growing.

One easy way for leaders to develop their direct reports is to empower them to chair the team’s weekly staff meetings.  This popular empowerment technique achieves many purposes.  First, it develops direct reports to run effective meetings. Secondly, it saves the leader time, as they are no longer responsible for meeting preparation and follow-up.  Finally, leaders become more productive in the meetings as they are more focused on the content and less on the process.

Leaders who empower and encourage their direct reports to always be growing will experience more success.

“I hate performance appraisals!”

The worst part about that perspective is that both direct reports and leaders share it.  Why?  Too frequently, leaders have not kept notes and records of both positive performance and course corrections throughout the year, much less shared these observations along the way.  So while the leader dreads the process of trying to remember enough meaningful examples in a 12-month hindsight exercise, the direct report dreads the thought of being surprised by observations that may be no longer meaningful.

Leaders should provide regular feedback immediately as the opportunity arises and make a quick note-to-self about the content of the discussion. Then, the annual appraisal is a simple matter of collecting and sorting the notes.

The note should include the date, observed behavior, and the result. For example: January 29th – Jim stayed late to help Tim with client presentation; demonstrated great teamwork, end product was excellent  and we won the account.

The performance appraisal becomes a meaningful review of a culmination of 12 months performance and shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone

Empowered leaders prepare for the performance appraisal all year long to conduct successful performance appraisals.

Successful companies set goals. Without them, they have no defined purpose and nothing to strive for; consequently, they stagnate and struggle for meaningful accomplishments. Goals are steppingstones to an end result. They must be present in every business plan and become a regular part of ongoing business operations.

A leader’s goals and those of their direct reports should be aligned with the organization’s goals.  Whether a corporate, department, or individual goal, the goal should be measurable and time-bound.

A measurable goal specifically defines what is to be accomplished – the more specific, the better.  The due date for the goal should be just as specific.  “Reduce turnover next quarter” is not a good goal; “less than 10 avoidable ‘A’ player resignations between April 1st and June 30th” is a measurable, time-bound goal.  Instead of “increase sales”, how about “distribution sales greater than $5 million by December 31st?”

Teams empowered with specific measurable, time-bound goals experience more success.