Everybody knows that happy people do good work.

It might be true but it’s misleading too. Happy people and good work are correlated but they aren’t cause and effect. In fact, research shows that it actually works the other way around, people who do good work are happy.

Any manager who believes that to get good work out of their staff means making them happy first is looking down the wrong end of the telescope. Managers should focus first on making their staff successful — helping them grow, appreciating their work, making them feel responsible — and they’ll be happy.

Not an end it itself

But neither happy staff or good work are ends in themselves.

The result of all this good work and happiness is better experiences for customers.

Happy people doing good work put more effort into creating better products and providing better service. It doesn’t take Sherlock to work out that customers love the results: products that sing, beautiful design, effortless functionality, smiling service, attention to detail, total presence, focus. You name the measure, anything positive scores more highly with a happy, successful, engaged, and motivated workforce.

Which is good, but still it isn’t the nub — happy customers aren’t an end in themselves either.

All the happiness that’s floating around is useless without the success and sustainability of the business itself.

Start the ball rolling

Leaders shouldn’t challenge themselves just to make customers and staff happy (I’m sure you can do both if you try. Every time). The real challenge is to do it whilst making more money than you spend — which, by the way, lights up owners with success and happiness too.

So here at last is the point: successful sustainable businesses are made with happy and successful customers benefiting from happy and successful staff.

How to start the ball rolling? Make your staff feel successful.

Of course you have to pick your moments, but in general the trick is to do whatever it takes. You might have to set the bar a little low in the beginning, give praise for even the smallest thing and highlight effort rather than results. Whatever it takes.

But when the ball is rolling, use its momentum to climb those hills.

Neatly filed under Leading,Skippiness
Tags: happy, motivation

Does it have to be the leader who comes up with new ideas?

It’s certainly part of the job.

Somewhere in every leader’s job description is something about formulating and managing strategy so it’s definitely in the mix, but must it be their job and their’s alone?

No matter how good a leader you are, there’s one cliché you can’t outrun: nobody is as smart as everybody. And nobody can have as many ideas as everybody can have together.

That’s just maths.

The equation? Great stuff is more likely when you have more people dreaming up great stuff.

So if you’re looking for a source of red hot ideas on how to improve service, cut costs, sell more, or any other kind of innovation … don’t just look in the mirror.

Go to the front line, ask a question, and get your pen out.

Most employees deal with more problems, complaints, issues and snafu’s in a day than you’ll hear about in a month. They’ve been struggling against the system for years and are chock full of ways to improve everything from the voice mail message to the value proposition.

If only you’d ask.

And that’s a BIG point.

A my-door-is-always-open policy never really works. People are too busy, too shy, or just don’t think their idea is important enough to cross the boundary – even if it’s as simple as sticking an envelope in a suggestion box.

Innovation isn’t a waiting game. It’s farming — sow the seed that ideas are important, provide a climate that encourages them to show their heads and grow towards the sun. Reward anyone who helps them on their way.

In other words, you have to ask for help and then show — through action and attention — that ideas are worth nurturing. That ideas have value.

The upside is plain to see. Highly engaged employees actively looking to innovate and serve customers better.

As a leader, you probably can’t stop yourself having ideas, but remember that you’re not alone.

Don’t wait. Seek out and encourage your colleagues, cultivate the ground and shower the best ideas with follow-through.

Neatly filed under Leading,Managing,Skippiness
Tags: listen, people, service

Boiled down to it’s essence, leadership is about looking at the lay of the land and making decisions. From which emails to answer to which investments to make, via hirings and firings and meeting agendas.

As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as the right decision, just a good one — most of which are equal parts analysis, advice, time pressure and honesty, all shaken together with a jigger of gut.

It’s that jigger of gut I’m interested in here.

How do you hone it and how can you help others do the same?

Decision Muscles

Decision making is a muscle. There’s no tissue involved but to get movement you have to contract it all the same. And more contractions make for stronger muscles.

But good decisions don’t come from muscle-bound hubris, they come from careful practice in the school room of experience where you learn lessons along the way. Lessons like: nothing is really black-and-white, everything is a compromise, and any decision is better than indecision.

It’s an old, old story. The fresh young thing asks the wise and successful owl, “How did you achieve so much?”

“Good decisions.”

“And how do you make good decisions?”

“Experience”

“And how do you get experience?”

“Bad decisions.”

Learning Opportunities

Being a dictator may be the fastest way to move things along and it’s certainly the easiest way to slow things down, but that kind of control comes at a cost. Every decision you take is a learning opportunity lost to somebody else.

Of course, some decisions are yours and yours alone. But they’re rare.

More often than you think, somebody else is better placed and better served to make the call. You can give guidance if you like, walk them through options and tease out their thinking, but if you want your people to grow you have put them in play and let them learn.

They’ll make mistakes and choose paths that you wouldn’t. They’ll gain experience too.

A jigger of gut isn’t made of instinct. It comes from exercise, practice and time on the field. Whenever you can, step out of the game and ask somebody else to make the call. You’ll probably get a good decision, and you’ll certainly get a stronger team.

Neatly filed under Leading,Managing
Tags: decisions, experience