Discipline makes Daring possible.

Musings from The Disappearing Boss on People, Process and Responsible Autonomy for small-business employers.

Category: Employee engagement

Exceptions
February 22, 2019

Exceptions

Exceptions are where it pays to treat everyone the same. By which of course I don’t mean “computer says no”.

Much better to have a ‘golden rule’ to fall back on that enables anyone on your team to deal with the unexpected in a way that shows you absolutely stand by the promise that you make – even if the exception in question isn’t actually a customer.

Standardisation enables brilliant exception-handling, because it takes care of the routine and so frees people up to be human.

Handling exceptions brilliantly, as a human being, creates fans.

Practice makes perfect
December 19, 2018

Practice makes perfect

Too often we train people ‘on the job’ – which means they only experience whatever they encounter during training.

A much better way to train is to work out the likely scenarios and practice responding to them.

By thinking through likely scenarios first, you can capture the essentials you need your processes to cope with before you design them.

Then your team can get used to responding to them before they have to do it for real too.

This means that people can build up real experience systematically and very quickly.

And if you’re already comfortable with what’s likely, it’s much easier to deal with exceptions.

Good Company
November 13, 2018

Good Company

What makes us feel free?

  • Agency – making our ‘me-shaped’ dent in the universe

  • Mastery – learning new skills

  • Autonomy – being free to choose how we make our dent

  • Purpose – doing this for something bigger than ourselves.

  • Community – doing all this with ‘people like us’.

A business can be a great place to make this possible. Even better when “those that create value in the company benefit directly from the value they create”.

There’s a reason we originally called them ‘Companies”.

The Millennial Mis-match
October 30, 2018

The Millennial Mis-match

I hear a lot from fellow small business owners about millennials and their younger successors, mostly not good.

“arrogant and entitled.”

“the attention span of a goldfish”

“think they can choose when and where they work.”,

“think they should have a say in everything.”

“won’t be told.”

“can’t stick at anything.”,

“don’t distinguish between life at work and life outside work.”

“aren’t responsible.”

“always letting me down”

I think it’s unlikely that young people today are that different from me at their age.

It’s more likely that there is a simple mismatch of what ‘work’ means.

Like me, millennials crave agency, meaning, mastery and self-fulfilment. They also crave connection. They want to collaborate and co-create, not work for.

They want responsibility.

So why not call their bluff?

Give them responsibility, and the autonomy to deliver on it.

Support them, create feedback mechanisms that tell you and them how they’re doing.

Reward them for the results they deliver, not for being ‘at work’.

It worked for me, and you never know, you might just please everyone.