Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
those who follow their lead.
The second trust killer is when people say one thing and do another. Again, bosses are the main culprits. They tell people to take risks but excoriate them when they fail. They endorse stretch budgets and invite their people to dream big, but punish them if the numbers fall short, even at the end of a decent year. They proclaim a commitment to customer service, but let the factory ship less-than-perfect product to make the month’s sales quota. Or perhaps worst of all, they espouse the company’s values at the top of their lungs, but keep and reward people who don’t live those values simply because they make the numbers . All that tells the organization is, nothing I say means anything. Or put another way: don’t trust me.
Trust, ultimately, isn’t very complicated. It’s earned through words and actions—and integrity in both.
THE PERILOUS PROMOTION TRAP
----
For four years, I ran a single store in a large national retail chain, but I was recently promoted to oversee multiple stores across two states. I am finding, however, old habits hard to break—in particular, I still worry more about the performance of one store (my old one!) than what’s going on at all my stores. Any advice?
— HUNTINGTON STATION, NEW YORK
----
Y ou’ve nailed it—and bravo for that. Most people in your position don’t have the self-confidence to realize that they have fallen into one of the most common traps of moving up, that is, excitedly taking on a new job but keeping one foot in the old.
The facts are, with your promotion, two people got new jobs: you and the person who replaced you. As a leader now, your task is to unleash the innovative new ideas both of you have. You can’t do that—and neither can your replacement—if you are spending your energy “going home” all the time.
Instead, spend your energy getting to know your expanded new world—and raising the bar across it.
How?
Start by thinking of all your stores as laboratories. Yes, they all do roughly the same thing, but certainly some of them have unique methods or procedures that are more effective. Your job is to spot those best practices and champion them as if they were the best things since oxygen and hydrogen. In your new role, you want everyone in all your stores talking about one another’s best ideas, adopting them, and improving them. That will add a lot more value than you looking over someone’s shoulder.
Transparency is another great tool you can use to raise the bar. You already know which metrics drive performance in your business—inventory turns, sales per square foot, or some key measure of customer satisfaction. If those metrics aren’t already disseminated on a regular basis, fix that right away. Make sure every store sees the comparative ratings, ranked from best to worst. Such clarity works wonders. It’s a very motivating form of public recognition for top-performing stores, and it also signals to poor performers exactly where they can look for new and more effective approaches to the work. In other words, it supports and expedites continuous learning and improvement.
A final way to raise the bar and avoid the “foot in the old” trap is to move quickly to conduct regular, rigorous performance evaluations of all your managers. Your qualitative assessments will be based on how well people demonstrate the desired values (that is, behaviors) you have laid out—such as transferring and adopting good new ideas—and your quantitative assessment will be based on the transparent metrics system you’re driving. The assessments together give you a real opportunity to reward and celebrate your best people, support and coach your middle group, and weed out underperformers. The outcome: higher performance standards for everyone.
Your new job is bigger than your old one, but more important, it is different. You’ve got a lot to do now, but it doesn’t include what you used to do. Leave that
The second trust killer is when people say one thing and do another. Again, bosses are the main culprits. They tell people to take risks but excoriate them when they fail. They endorse stretch budgets and invite their people to dream big, but punish them if the numbers fall short, even at the end of a decent year. They proclaim a commitment to customer service, but let the factory ship less-than-perfect product to make the month’s sales quota. Or perhaps worst of all, they espouse the company’s values at the top of their lungs, but keep and reward people who don’t live those values simply because they make the numbers . All that tells the organization is, nothing I say means anything. Or put another way: don’t trust me.
Trust, ultimately, isn’t very complicated. It’s earned through words and actions—and integrity in both.
THE PERILOUS PROMOTION TRAP
----
For four years, I ran a single store in a large national retail chain, but I was recently promoted to oversee multiple stores across two states. I am finding, however, old habits hard to break—in particular, I still worry more about the performance of one store (my old one!) than what’s going on at all my stores. Any advice?
— HUNTINGTON STATION, NEW YORK
----
Y ou’ve nailed it—and bravo for that. Most people in your position don’t have the self-confidence to realize that they have fallen into one of the most common traps of moving up, that is, excitedly taking on a new job but keeping one foot in the old.
The facts are, with your promotion, two people got new jobs: you and the person who replaced you. As a leader now, your task is to unleash the innovative new ideas both of you have. You can’t do that—and neither can your replacement—if you are spending your energy “going home” all the time.
Instead, spend your energy getting to know your expanded new world—and raising the bar across it.
How?
Start by thinking of all your stores as laboratories. Yes, they all do roughly the same thing, but certainly some of them have unique methods or procedures that are more effective. Your job is to spot those best practices and champion them as if they were the best things since oxygen and hydrogen. In your new role, you want everyone in all your stores talking about one another’s best ideas, adopting them, and improving them. That will add a lot more value than you looking over someone’s shoulder.
Transparency is another great tool you can use to raise the bar. You already know which metrics drive performance in your business—inventory turns, sales per square foot, or some key measure of customer satisfaction. If those metrics aren’t already disseminated on a regular basis, fix that right away. Make sure every store sees the comparative ratings, ranked from best to worst. Such clarity works wonders. It’s a very motivating form of public recognition for top-performing stores, and it also signals to poor performers exactly where they can look for new and more effective approaches to the work. In other words, it supports and expedites continuous learning and improvement.
A final way to raise the bar and avoid the “foot in the old” trap is to move quickly to conduct regular, rigorous performance evaluations of all your managers. Your qualitative assessments will be based on how well people demonstrate the desired values (that is, behaviors) you have laid out—such as transferring and adopting good new ideas—and your quantitative assessment will be based on the transparent metrics system you’re driving. The assessments together give you a real opportunity to reward and celebrate your best people, support and coach your middle group, and weed out underperformers. The outcome: higher performance standards for everyone.
Your new job is bigger than your old one, but more important, it is different. You’ve got a lot to do now, but it doesn’t include what you used to do. Leave that
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