The best way to develop an effective workforce is to hire well.  That is to say that you should hire well then pay well, train well, and promote from within.  How else are you going to retain these fine folks?  One of the challenges of promoting from within is that the skills that made someone successful at one level may not be the same skills required for success at the next level.  This issue is also known as the Peter Principle which, as you may well know, states that people are promoted to their level of incompetence.  Competence, however, is a variable condition.  Think about it, if you had your current position 10 years ago, would you have been able to handle it and do it as well as you do now?  Competence is not fixed and is based on the knowledge, skills, and ability at a given point in time. Change any one of those and the game changes.

Developmental psychologist Karen Adolph studies learning and cognition in infants and toddlers and I think her work is relevant here as well.  She found that as babies learn to crawl, they learn about edges and how it would be dangerous to crawl off an edge.  That is to say they know the rules of acceptable behavior at that level of development.  However, as they transition to walking, that knowledge does not translate.  Even though they knew the dangers as crawlers, as they upgraded to walkers, that previous knowledge was no longer used as they navigated the world.

As you promote from one level to the next, you can’t assume that because they thrived in their previous position that they will thrive in their new position.  It is a different set of rules. They can learn them, they just may need to some time and some coaching so they can learn the new rules.

Here’s an exercise that’s a real eye opener.  For some of you, this may even leave a bad taste in your mouth.  Take a look at the results your team is getting.  Make list of the results, good and bad, and begin to think about what these results tell you about your team.

Specifically, you are looking at their results and their behaviors to determine what is important to them.  What do they value?  What habits have formed?  It is vitally important to the success of your team, your company and you that your team build supportive habits.  But step one is figuring out the habits that already exist.

As you look over the list of results and behaviors, what values and habits begin to jump out to you.  Do they value getting results?  Is there a habit of taking responsibility?  Do they want to be liked more than they want to do what it takes to get things done?  Do they play it safe, take too many risks or have they developed a habit of finding a healthy balance of taking strategic risks and avoiding unnecessary risks?  Do they value doing the same thing or are they innovators?  Are they in the habit of being successful or unsuccessful?

Theses are tough things to consider, but to begin to move in a new direction, you need to know where you’re at right now.  More than likely your list will include both habits that support and do not support your team in being successful in their environment.  This list is the first step in moving them in the direction of being even more effective.

It is often said that failure is life’s greatest teacher and I think there is a lot to learn from our mistakes and our failures, but research shows that this is not the case.  MIT researcher, Earl K. Miller, and his associates have identified that success, not failure, has a bigger impact on our learning and on future behavior.

In a study of monkeys, the researchers identified that when the subjects completed a task correctly, they were more likely to perform the task correctly in the next trial.  When they got it wrong, there was no improvement in their ability to perform the task correctly.  As the researchers stated, “Success breeds success.”

Often times as managers and leaders, we focus on the negative rather than the positive. We focus on what someone is doing wrong rather than right.  After a while, we may only make a comment when something is wrong.  After all, don’t they know that I think they’re doing a good job?  Maybe, maybe not.

But based on this study, pointing out what they did wrong will have little impact on future performance.  They may fix it in the moment, but they won’t perform any better in the future because of it.  That being said, does that mean that you should never point out mistakes?  Of course not.  Just don’t think that pointing out mistakes is the same as giving effective feedback and encouraging future success.  If you want someone to perform better in the future, point out what they did right. You should also point out what they could do even better next time but by getting them to feel good about their performance, they are going to be naturally drawn to focus on making it even better.  We focus on what makes us feel good and we avoid what makes us feel bad.

A seminar participant was lamenting that she has to watch her employees like a hawk.  She said that if she didn’t watch them all day long and tell them what to do at each step of the way, they wouldn’t get anything done.  Can you see the problem with this situation?

What are these employees even buying her?  She clearly gets little done except for managing them.  Unless her entire job description is about managing these people, she may be letting some important things slip through the cracks.

From the employee’s perspective, how would you like to be watched all the time and told what to do all day long?  I’m guessing you wouldn’t find it to be a very stimulating environment.

My advice to her was simple, train these people to do their jobs.  If they are untrainable, find people who can do the job effectively.

When someone takes a new position.  There’s a lot to learn.  It is a bit like learning how to ride a bike.  Remember, when you first learned to ride a bike, you probably needed a parent’s help or perhaps you used training wheels.  Remember those days?  They helped you stay on track while you got the hang of things.  At some point, you develop the skills necessary to ride the bike on your own without assistance.

Imagine for a moment that you kept the training wheels on or if your parent had to help you every time you wanted to ride your bike.  Probably not the ideal situation for either party.  The same holds true for a manager/employee relationship.  Training wheels until they develop the ability to do it on their own.  Anything more than that borders on being a “helicopter” manager.  Does that mean you give free reign and don’t check in?  Of course not.  Help them develop the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be successful, monitor and guide them, and then get out of their way.

My wife’s grandfather used to walk around his factory every morning, greeting each employee by name and catching up on what was going on with their work and their life.  This morning routine took a good amount of time, but whenever someone mentioned that he might want to stop, he assured them that this was critical to the success of the factory.  He wanted his employees to know that they could always come to him and he felt that these morning chats also helped him stay on-top of everything going in his business.

Management by walking around may seem basic, but it is extremely effective in communicating to your employees that you value them and their success.  By walking around, even occasionally, your employees will have an experience of you being present, rather than available upon request or in times of crisis.

As you meet with employees during your walks, it is important to listen to them.  When people hear others talk about problems or challenges, there is a natural tendency to want to help and fix the problem by offering solutions.  If possible, resist this urge.  Instead, it is important to listen to what the other person is saying.  Are they asking for help or are they just informing you of the challenges they have had?

Listening is not a passive process.  It can require a lot of effort to pay attention to the other person, examine the situation from their perspective, clarify meaning, and interpret their intentions.  One of the biggest challenges people have while listening is breaking the habit of thinking of what they are going to say while the other person is talking.  To start, work on just listening to your employees without worrying about what you are going to say.  Listen to what they are saying, being careful not to interrupt with solutions.  Sounds simple enough.  But it is amazing how few people practice this simple technique.