Past Five: Personnel Management

I recently spoke with Mark Henricks at Entrepreneur about tips for improving your business golf game. This seems to be a pretty popular topic in the business world since many business people enjoy the game of golf and it's conducive to doing business. While the idea of business golf parlays business into a sport, many oversee the reverse connection - the game of golf easily translates into people management. Here's how...

The Swing

Your golf swing is what determines if your ball lands on the green or somewhere in the rough. It makes an enormous impact on the success of your game, just like your management style makes an enormous impact on the success of your people. Both require flexibility, energy and follow through.

The Fairway and Rough

It's always an easier shot when you're hitting from the fairway rather than the rough because the environment is much more agreeable. Same goes with managing people. People are easier to manage in a company within an agreeable environment, which requires a great company culture.

The Caddie

When you need a little help in golf, you turn to your caddie. As a professional, you should gain input and insight from the people around you to make the best decision possible. You need to leverage your relationships to better your company and your reports.

The Divots

When you create divot on the golf course, you repair it. Same goes with employee issues. If there's an issue with an employee that's proving to be hazardous, you tackle it and try to repair it.

The Green

On the green, it's all about the details. The smallest inch can sink a shot or up your handicap. With people, details matter. The smallest gesture can motivate masses and improve your company handicap.

The Club House

After the game, it's time to hit the club house for a few drinks with your buddies. Golf is a social game, as is business. It's important for managers to get their employees on a personal level, and maybe even take them out for a drink or two every once in a while.

I was at a meeting with a client a few weeks ago and we were talking about their department (staff of 100+) and the negative attitude that existed within it. We talked about the managers and they all seemed fairly positive, as I knew a few of them and agreed with his views. So, where does the negative culture permeate from?

I brought up an article in the July Fortune about sub cultures and who the people are within a company who actually can be depended on to impact change and culture. At The LaSalle Network, we call these people Key Influencers. These are the people who literally care more about the company's success than their career -at a neutral point - and realize that if the company succeeds, they too will advance their career.

Care more about a company you don't have ownership in than your own career? Isn't that silly? Not really. While sports analogies are overused, they come in handy on this one. If you look at people in say, basketball, who are on a bad team, yet they score 30 points a game, that usually is great for the individual for the first few years of their career. They then reach a point where they say, "I want to win a championship," and they begin to look at playing a lesser role on a better team or re-working their contract so they can get better players on their team. Eventually, they have to "buy in" to the system of what the coach has in mind as a vision for what the team, or company, can be.

The best example in sports is Michael Jordan. He realized that scoring 40, 50, 60 points in a game is great, however he would have to follow the lead of his coach in order to win a championship. Phil Jackson and his assistant, Tex Winter, installed a unique offense called the Triangle, and once Jordan bought into it...they won 6 championships in 9 years.

But Michael Jordan is the best player of all time you say? Wilt Chamberlin was once the best player of all time...he only won 1 championship. Dr. J the same..only 1 championship. Charles Barkely is a terrific player...never won any. Enough of sports, hopefully you see my point.

Back to business. It's not only getting your managers (best players) to buy in...which is important...in business you have to get rid of your negative influencers as well. Like a cancer, a negative attitude can spread to every part of your company. Can you change a negative attitude? I am not so sure because a negative attitude usually comes from somewhere other than work. It isn't what is happening to the person, because you can put the person on another assignment...another project...another department and they pick the negativity out of everything. The trick is how you communicate with the key influencers within your company and department.

I call it negative chess. You are playing chess against an unknown opponent, and you have to move your pieces around the negativity, so you can determine if it can be cured or if you need to manage that individual(s) out of the company. Step #1 is not what you may think. Before you counsel the "cancer," you need to get the pulse of those around the situation and see if what you are seeing or hearing is accurate. If it is, you then have to speak with your key influencers and figure out why people are letting this attitude take over the department. When they complain about something that isn't either a) worth complaining about, or, b)isn't true to begin with, are the key influencers countering the complaint? Are they challenging the individual?

By coaching your key players on how to develop a positive attitude within their groups, you have the oppotunity to work with and challenge your negative players. The truly negative people never want to admit they are negative, and perhaps need to leave the organization. However, if they are really good performers, you should want to work with them to improve their attitude, because perhaps no one ever tried to help them before. So, build up your case with actual points of negativity, point them out, and don't let the individual wiggle out of the situtation by passing blame. Then create a zero tolerancy of negativity.

If and when they go to their peers, your key influencers have been coached and developed on how to handle that...and if your team is strong, peer-to-peer management can hopefully overcome this cancer within your group.

It may sound like a lot of personnel management, however, you only have two other choices: 1) let the negative attitude take over the group 2) terminate the employee.