How to Treat your Over-achieving Team Members

Once upon a time, I worked for Kelly Services so that I could get new job experiences quickly and see the world in new ways. One of the places I worked at was Johnson's Supply who sold wholesale industrial supplies. Their one complaint to me was to slow down because they would run out of things for me to do.

When your hardest working, proactive staff do things like:
1. Try to talk to you face to face about major and crucial issues.
2. Try to suggest new ways to do things.
3. Refuse to write logs that list only five items when they do a range of 50 or more major categories of tasks.
4. Inform you that property the company gave them was stolen by someone else.
5. Get way more done in one day with high quality results that your other employees.
6. Try to work through team efforts, not always by themselves.
7. Try to discuss with you why they are unhappy working with you and that they are considering... leaving the company.
8. Ask why they have been making less than $21,000 USD per year for 6 years and would like a raise to say... $24,000 USD per year.

Don't:
1. Tell them that they should take care of this on email or IM. You are saying to them that they are of no value to you, not valuable enough to talk to face to face about the company.
2. Tell them keep their new ideas to themselves or argue each suggestion down as not usable.
3. Insist on the log when you will not read it and when you might start reading the first few lines of the emails they copy like they read all of your complete emails. Or start sending them a log every day also.
4. Lay them off or fire them. Instead, begin a police investigation and keep them on!! Of course!
5. Give them twice more to do and get upset when they don't get it done before 5 PM.
6. Tell them it is their job and not to involve anyone else.
7. Respond that they are dispensable, tell them you will replace them with someone at less than their current wages, and that, "I don't work for you. I don't even work for myself." Or... that your boyfriend has been good for the company. WT ... O?
8. Tell them you can replace them for less. Instead, thank your lucky stars they have not left you. You need them, and there is nothing to be ashamed of in admitting that.

Get a grip, CEOs, bosses, presidents, all the head honchos. You will lose your best people.


... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

Worst Way to Motivate Employees

Don't try to make your team feel sorry about the bottom line of the company. The best will LEAVE.

Our company has been really lucky since 1999 to have hard-working and extremely self-motivated/intrinsically motivated team and leadership. Our bottom line and number and quality of clients and partners and suppliers have improved each year also.

We would never try to motivate our team in the following manner: I read an email where I was cc'd by a CEO of another company to her employee. She used a threat of the fact that their company was low on money and wouldn't be able to pay bills to push her over-achieving employee to get moving even more.

Hmm... that would not motivate me at all. I think I might be looking for another job. Don't say things like that to your team, especially if that person is one of your top and over achievers.

Does Someone Keep Stomping on Your Ant Pile?

Ever know you and your team at work are just on it, pumping out great services and solutions so well together almost as if it were all choreographed by angels?

Like...



And then...



Talk with your team about why? And do you want to prevent it? Does it get in the way of progress or make way for new ideas? Do you know that the crazy people who stomp on your ant pile are actually maybe helping you to not get too comfortable? But if it is done too often, doesn't it take minutes, maybe years off your life and lead to high blood pressure and headaches? Do we all take turns doing it to each other at work? (I'm laughing here, sorry.) Ok, Suzanne! Back to work!

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.