Get A Clue, Lou!
Or what Professional Baseball Can Teach Professional Managers
1. Act decisively.
It is imperative that the president and vice-presidents (manager and coaches) immediately take action to demonstrate to the employees, customers, and stock holders that they recognize that there is a problem and that they will take necessary action to correct it.
2. Publish performance standards and hold all employees accountable.
You cannot expect employees to perform to the required level without knowing what that level is. Nor can you discharge an employee for failure to perform adequately if you have not specified what minimum performance level is required.
3. Train, develop, and coach employees.
After you have established minimum performance standards, give employees the help they need to meet or exceed those standards. If a salesperson is unable to meet quotas, you might send that person to a course in lead generation. Accordingly, if a hitter is batting .097 he may need more time in the batting cage or to review film of his swing with the hitting coach.
4. Be patient - to a point.
Nobody is perfect. We all make mistakes. A shipping clerk might send a package by UPS to the Federal Express headquarters (yes he really did). A batter might have an 0 for 22 slump. However, it is not fair to the team, or to the non-performing employee themselves, to allow it to go on forever.
“He’ll come around in time” is not an appropriate answer when you know it has dragged on too long already. As a manager, you get paid to make the tough decisions. Being “mister nice guy” has to give way, at some point, to doing what is right.
A customer service representative who only handles 80 percent of the average number of calls, but has been in the job for six years, is never going to reach the norm. A relief pitcher with ten years of experience who has an 0-4 record and an earned run average (ERA) of 24.31 isn’t going to be a closer.
5. Don’t put employees who are struggling into critical situations.
You wouldn’t ask a sales manager who has failed to close his last six opportunities to handle the biggest potential sale in company history. Nor would you use a relief pitcher who has blown his last 5 save opportunities, and has given up more home runs than the rest of your pitchers combined, as your closer. Use them in non-critical situations for awhile. If they handles those, they can work back into the closer’s spot. If they don’t, you have to get rid of them.
6. Get rid of non-performing employees.
After working with employees to identify and correct their weaknesses, if they still do not perform to the specified minimum performance level you have to get rid of them. While a team of 21 or 22 cannot compete for the long term against a team of 25, a team of 22 has a better chance than a team of 22 workers and three slackers.
More importantly, the people who are performing at or above the desired level will come to resent those who are not carrying their share of the load. That resentment may cause the high performers to reduce their efforts and output.
Part 4 My apology to those of you who are not sports fans.
Part 1 The beginning of this story.
Part 2 My assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a professional baseball team as it conducts its business of playing the game.
John Reh--
If you have any questions or comments about this article, or if there is an issue you would like us to address, please email them to me or post them on our Conference Room Bulletin Board to share with the entire group.
Other Management Feature Articles
