We are kind of talking about some other things here and you know the fertile tax show is basically about using technology for a small to midsized company. That’s really what it is. We don’t always do lot of product reviews and that sort of thing. I’d like to maybe start doing some more product reviews but we like to some business tips and that sort of thing. And I came across to a really cool article here and it’s called Business Solutions Magazine. I’m taking up that on up a little bit, can you see that focusing on business solutions.
And let me it get a little sip of coffee here. I'm a coffee addict. I really live on this stuff. Eight o’clock coffee is one of my, anytime is eight o’clock for me. I love eight o’clock coffee.
Anyway, the article was just simply called five tips to be a better boss. I owned a small business practically all my working career and I’ve supervised employees and I’ve built some decent sized companies, I’ve worked for some other companies where I was in-charged as a manager, in management. A lot of small business people, a lot of entrepreneurs really don’t have always the formal training it takes to be a good boss but these are five very common sense tips. This is called a Danish Shell business solutions magazine and I'm going to here go.
Here we go, number one: Don’t manage by fear. In other words, threatening to fire employees, threatening to deduct their pay is not always a motivator to your people. If you think that’s the only way to manage people, its not. And it’s a bad idea.
Number two: Take a genuine interest in your employees. You know you have to get to know people a little bit to understand what motivates them, all right. and listen and learn not just how capable they are in doing their job and what kind of person they are. So, take the time to learn something about your employees, be genuine in that interest, and be sincere. You know, you spend probably more time with your employees’ everyday than you do your family so; I always tend to think of my employees as associates, my compadres. They are helping me pursue my dream and they should be treated lastly.
Number three: Be clear and concise. In another words avoid vague instructions, you know what? One guy, he thought if you gave kind of vague instructions on how to do the job this was somehow teach the employees how to think for themselves but really what it did was it frustrated everybody because they weren’t getting the results they thought they should. So, when you do give instructions or jobs restrictions or description, whatever, be very clear and concise in that message so that that individual or the group of individuals knows what is expected out of them.
Number four: Don’t ask employees to do something that you wouldn’t do yourself. If you’re not willing to put into hard work and the effort yourself, why do you expect your employees to do more? If you’re going to ask your employees to do something unethical because you wouldn’t do it that’s wrong on so many levels.
Dan gives an example of how the company had to give away, drawing and he was told before he went “no matter what name you pulled out of the basket announces this person”, because that was a major customers wife or something like that. And so, he went there, he thought about it, grabbed out the paper and gave it to the appropriate, the actual winner and not the wife. The old man left resigning from his job. and you know, it was kind of weird because I had the similar situation happened to me down in Indianapolis one time at a drawing for a real nice camera or something, a digital camera something like that and one of the people that I worked with says, now look no matter who we pull is actually going to be this person and I said absolutely not. I will have nothing to do with that. You know you just want to go there on that.
And, this is I think the best one of all, act with urgency on performance rather than waiting on performance reviews. No, many companies have their formal performance review plan and as when you sit down quarterly, semi-annually, annually, how well you’re doing, what are you not doing so well at, etc. that is not the time and place to bring an employee and totally, I use the expression T-bone but broad side that employee with negative performance review. They should’ve known you were unhappy with issues from the very beginning rather than waiting for three months, six months, or a year to say you’re not cutting the mustard here, here, and here. No, no, no, that’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s not good business, don’t do that.
If you got a problem and conversely if they’re doing a job well, let them know right away. That is a part of taking interest in your employees as part of team building, as part of good management. Deal with such situations early on, head on, and avoiding any unpleasant surprises. You want that work atmosphere to be as pleasant as you can possibly make it while still being productive and getting the job done. I think these are great tips to be a better boss.
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