Mar 7, 2008

Employee Empowerment
When people ask me about my management style, I usually respond with something corny like “employee empowerment.” The idea is that the people I work with are smart enough that they don’t have to be managed. They know the company goals and they know how to take care of a customer. Let the employee manage themselves. They’ll hold themselves to a higher standard, make their own deadlines based on reality and work load, and they’ll put the customer first because of their own inner drive. Overall, I think this management style has worked for me. It might be the lazy man’s way, but I think if you have good people, you’ll see great results. It’s less time consuming than other management style’s and I think the employees get a lot more, long term gain out of this style of management.

When Employee Empowerment Doesn’t Work
But, “employee empowerment” doesn’t always work. You don’t want to use this style when you’re working with people that don’t care about quality, their customer, or future. These people live for today, not the long term. They over promise and under deliver. They say they’ll be there and never show up. They promise you’ll love the work and you end up hating it. They swear they didn’t see the errors you point out. They make excuse after excuse. They make errors without any excuse at all. They promise to change and they don’t. You don’t want to work with these people but sometimes you have no choice.

When It Doesn’t Work
When I notice that empowerment isn’t working, I switch to what I call “Reward Management.” This is typical in some industries such as the construction industry. This is also typical when you’re working with sub-contractors. The basis is, you only get paid when the job is done and when the job is done right. This is the last leg for me. I’ll call it quits if they can’t get the job done, maintain a great quality, pickup the phone when I call, or they can’t get it done when they say they’re going to get it done.

That’s it. Those two things are my only management options. Sometimes, I get handcuffed to a bad worker. Sometimes, I get a guy who starts a project and they’re so deep in the project, its hard to get them off of it. From experience, its always worth getting them off of the project as soon as possible. Don’t give them a third and forth shot, just get rid of them.

Conclusion
Good people are the hardest things to come by. When you find them, treat them as good as you can and be prepared to treat them better than you treat yourself. Don’t double cross them because you’ll need them in the future. And get them on your team as soon as you can.

Bad people are a dime-a-dozen. Dump them as soon as you can. Don’t give them a third chance and don’t think they’ll change.