Wiggs’ Way

By Lance Wiggs, November 3, 2010 @ 11:14 am

Let Lance Wiggs help with your tricky business problems. Email him at advice@idealog.co.nz

Tough at the top

I’m pretty great at my job—let’s be honest—and I’ve had a few promotions recently so am now basically top of the heap. I hate it. Everyone looks to me for answers and I’m feeling the pressure to be right about everything. I’d feel like a fool asking to be demoted again but I really want to still be learning and being inspired by someone cleverer than me, rather than being the teacher and motivator. Help!

Grasshopper, Gisborne

Are you kidding? You have the best job around because you can choose to answer what you like but, more importantly, can help other people answer their questions. And who is to say that you can’t learn from and be inspired by the people that work for you? Why are you answering all the questions? Why can’t you make mistakes, and why aren’t you letting others make the mistakes?

The prime minister, CEOs of major companies and senior partners at professional firms are, like the rest of us, always learning. In fact they have to cram as much as they can to keep up with the demands of their jobs. The key people they learn from are those that work for them. So start thinking about what you can learn from them, rather than what you can teach them.

Make sure you are coaching and inspiring. We learn to work well by doing it, by coming up with and executing on our own answers and seeing the impact for ourselves. So turn the tables, and make sure you are helping your talented staff come up with their own answers rather than dictating. You’ll be surprised at the increase in motivation, and more surprised at the increase in quality work.

But if you still think you are the smartest person in the room, go find some people that are smarter. The best place to find them is in the pool of recent graduates. Bring them on board and throw them in the deep end. While you are at it, find yourself a mentor or three, and try to create a challenge beyond your current role.

Perks of the business

I run a smallish creative business and everything is going great, except my staff seem to take a mile when I give them an inch in terms of perks. A few of them have free car parking out front, but on any given day eight or nine cars are crammed in there and clients can hardly get in the door.

Flexi-time has degenerated so much that people come and go whenever they please, and the colour printer runs all day long with party invitations and missing cat posters. Fancy cakes are ordered for staff birthdays, our humble fruit bowl has been upgraded to a weekly organic fruit box delivery, the kitchen is always stocked with soft drinks and beers, and the ladies bathroom is awash with eco-friendly soaps, moisturisers and hair products.

It’s costing me a fortune, but how can I put the brakes on without coming across as a kill-joy?

Being the bad guy, Grey Lynn

Let’s start with the expanding fruit bowl, free beers, moisturisers and cakes. Basically, you need to set a budget and allocate responsibility. Add up the current costs and present them to a selected team. That could be the senior team, or it could be a selected or nominated entertainment committee consisting of mainly junior staff or assistants. Ask them to suggest ways to reduce the overall spend by, say, 30 percent. Have a good discussion and then together work out a considered budget for the next period.

The point here is to let the team figure out the amount and the best way to spend it. You’ll be amazed at how far money can go when there is a limit—those organic fruit baskets will be replaced by supermarket specials very quickly.

The key here is to pass the problem, and the responsibility, down the line to the people that care.

Next let’s deal with the flexi-time. The most effective way to change behaviour is to lead by example. Turn up early, work consistently through the day and go home at a reasonable hour. Make a point of popping by to see people early and late in the day, and let them know that you appreciate the work they are doing.

Quietly let your senior staff know you are a little disappointed at the working hours of staff, and that you’d really dislike having to mandate a change. Let them spread the word, and reward positive change where you see it. Finally, create an environment where being at work all hours is a good thing. Make it an incredibly fun place to work, or simply ensure that everyone has far too much to do. Target the slackers and make sure they have plenty of quality work, and that they are getting feedback if they are not performing. Ultimately it’s performance that matters, but even great staff should know that they are setting a bad example by treating work hours too casually.

As for those car parks? Follow Trade Me’s example. It allocates two of its three Wellington car parks to motorbikes and the other one to the local sales person. You could do the same—or allocate the parks to the best-performing, longest-commuting or, perish the thought, most senior staff.

Out of ideas

How can we get inspired? My colleagues and I work in the ideas industry and I feel we’ve lost our mojo. The company was once young and maverick but years later it’s become a corporatised workhorse, churning out the same old same old. Is that just inevitable?

All used up, Auckland

Inspiration comes at any age, but as you imply it’s easier when you are young and keen—for people and for companies. So perhaps the time has come to hand the mantle of generating truly inspirational ideas to the next generation. That’s not to say your company needs to go away, but merely that it’s time to attract, retain and accelerate the impact of a group of young talented staff inside your outfit.

Your own roles will still be inspirational—but it’s to inspire others to generate those ideas, to recognise rousing ideas when you see them and to help those ideas get executed. Yes, sadly for you, perhaps it’s time to lead the team rather than lead the ideas. But your clients will need your experienced and measured hand, while your staff need to be unleashed.

You are hiring great staff that kind of scare you, right? Now it’s time to give them a genuinely free reign. You may even find that you’ll get some of your own mojo back and start giving those whippersnappers a run for their money.

Comments

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November 6, 2010 @ 4:37 pm

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