Posts Tagged ‘training and development’
How to be specific and not too specific at the same time
Tell your employees exactly what is expected of them. But don’t tell them what to do. A client recently asked me how to balance these two instructions. We were building role descriptions and she wanted to know how to be specific enough that people knew what to do but also open enough that she wasn’t…
Read MoreThe one question that will transform your performance reviews
You can throw company happy hours, host team dinners, buy pinball machines and eliminate job titles all you want. But once you put an employee in a performance review, there is a strict hierarchy of who reports to whom. And that hierarchy is what makes it challenging to get good feedback: the employee knows you…
Read MoreThe formula for happy employees
One of the top three challenges that new employees have is unmet expectations: the job is not what they expected it to be. That means difficult conversations where they are telling you that they expected something different, and what are you going to do about it. Or even worse: they quit. One simple fix will…
Read MoreCan everyone in your business hear your customers?
Who talks to your clients every day? Is it you? Is it your salespeople? Is it the teams that serve your customers? Who listens to your clients every day? What customer-centric means Being customer-centric is not just about appreciation gifts, cards on birthdays, and a friendly demeanor. Being customer-centric means innovating for customers, not against…
Read MoreDon’t forget your lesson plan for the office
You remember school, and then school ended and you had some training at work, and then you were the boss, and you started your own business. At some point that formal “learning” ended. But is “learning” actually complete? Continuous improvement If you answered yes then you are probably not a regular reader of this blog.…
Read MoreWhat to do when people are bad at their job
The first thing is to tell them. People miss this one simple step more often than you would imagine. The test Most managers believe that they are telling their employees what the problems are. The test happens when you fire that employee: if the employee is surprised the problem was the manager, not the employee. …
Read MoreHiring for Competence
Knowing the key competencies required to work in your company is a foundational element of hiring the right people. In a post entitled Hire Wisely, we looked at the differentiating between what can be taught on the job and what the candidate has to bring with him or her already. Much of the latter comes…
Read MoreTraining versus Coaching
Training and Coaching are two words often used interchangeably. Most companies have some form of training, and a consequence of the confusion between these two terms, is that they do not also add a form of coaching, thinking it is all already done. Let’s start with definitions. What is the difference? Training is, in essence,…
Read MoreStrategy, meet Technique
We have talked about aligning company goals across departments and teams. All business owners want to avoid contradicting priorities and confusing instructions. Remember to start with “your mission statement and values, review your guiding principles, and account for the resources of each department.” Then “Have a strategy in place, and make sure your new goals…
Read MoreTrust and Credibility
I have spent the last week embedded with business owners and job seekers, with conversations revolving around both finding clients and finding employment. Today’s post is a shorter one, but I want to comment on what the above situations have in common: your Personal Brand. Most of us are – like it or not –…
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