Time to “SPRING into action”
The perfect employee / staff member
With spring-time finally here, a feeling of “spring cleaning” normally comes to mind, where one can ensure that moving into and closer to the fourth courter or year-end, we want a clean and fresh house, clean last stretch, new fresh life, and for the purpose of this article, perhaps a “spring clean” in your business.
Two controversial statements arise when ‘cleaning the house (company)’ is stated:
The devil you know is better than the one you don’t (so let’s keep Joe, for we know his/her limitations, and we can work around this)
Time for a fresh start and ensure you have the perfect employee or staff compliment to carry your business forward
The latter is more than often the “what’s best for the business” answer, however how do you know you have an engaged and “perfect” staff member? In my opinion, ‘with a feeling that I have not worked a day in my life’, three words define this:
I have Purpose, Passion, Leisure in what I do
If all three of these elements are present in a staff member, you know you have a keeper. As an owner or entrepreneur – when he or she had started the business, it was due to a specific passion for something – be it sales, building stuff, designing, cooking, wine, computers, people etc. They found purpose & meaning in the work conducted and found likeminded individuals to take this new endeavour further. With ease and excitement (leisure),the owner or entrepreneur built an empire – and for this reason, I feel that the “devil you know is better than the possibility of finding the above candidate”, is a far-fetched statement and should never be the case – development of staff and finding key people should be the only way.
If we look closer at these three words:
Purpose definition: “the reason for which something is done or created or for which something exists” & “the action for which a person or thing is specially fitted or used or for which a thing exists”
Synonyms for purpose: aim, allow, aspire, calculate, contemplate, design, intend, look, meaning, meditate, plan
Passion definition: “a strong and barely controllable emotion. A state or outburst of strong emotion”
Synonyms for passion: affection, attachment, devotedness, devotion, fondness, love
Leisure definition: “an opportunity afforded by free time to do something. The definition of leisure is free and unoccupied”
Synonyms for Leisure: convenience, recreation, ease, freedom, liberty, opportunity, pause, quiet, scope, one's own sweet time, quiescence
Imagine having all your staff in line with these words… however, with the above in mind, the answer is “yes” to your question of “we are not all the same” – we find purpose and meaning in different aspects, we are more passionate about fishing, sailing, or traveling and spending time at the beach or in the bush is far more relaxing than work… perhaps the word “work” poses the problem? A “lifestyle” would be the better substitute for the word “work” and the difference between the employer and employee mentality are these three words.
To substantiate what I have said above; do yourself a favour and do a review of your top 10% to 20% of staff and compare them to your bottom 10% to 20% lowest ranking staff. What is the difference? The top performers come to work and have a specific purpose with their contribution, duties, and tasks. They are passionate in what they do and find it effortless in completing their work – it is a lifestyle. Imagine all your staff being like the top 20%.
Research conducted by Aquinis et al, revisits this assumption of a bell curve. According to their research, individual performance follows a power law distribution, where a small percentage of individuals (superstars) make a disproportionately large contribution to the results. They say that the top quartile of performers contributes about 40-50% of the total results, and a large percentage of individuals lie below the statistical average performance.
It is for the above reason that we need to, as mentioned previously, “spring into action” – as a leader, cleaning house should be to either develop your staff to #shiftthecourve, and shift this curve to lean more towards the 80 percentile, by creating purpose in what they do, allowing them to live for what they do and do so effortless – OR – they need to exit your future better self / company.
My challenge to you would be:
To evaluate yourself and understand your purpose. What is the reason ‘why’ you do what you do?
Are you passionate in what you do, are you doing what you love?
Do you enjoy this lifestyle (work)?
Furthermore, evaluate your staff and those who have purpose, passion, and leisure through what they do. Reward and praise them continuously – and for those who do not share the same, try your level best to develop them and test them, or perhaps it is time to spring clean…
So, with September looming, feel free to contact us at info@grokon.biz for a complementary ‘how to guide’ in terms of performance and discipline.
