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Ten Steps to Becoming a Great Boss: Being a great boss is not about you; it's about your employees. Reinventing yourself as a leader is the first step in building a better team.
Leader's Edge, January 2008
Fast Focus
- Everyone deserves a great boss. You can give your agency that gift by following some common sense ideas.
- Hire the best, pay attention, make expectations clear, get out of the way, and reward success.
Allow me to introduce you to your new hire: This is the person who is
going to make you look great. He will be a model worker and be emulated
by the rest of your employees. He will be a great listener and always
share credit for a team effort. He will demand an excellent output from
himself and from those under him.
Do you want this person to be the next one on your agency's team? Well
then, take a look in the mirror.
Anyone who is a boss today should try to transform him or herself into a
great boss. If you can do this, you will be bringing to your staff the
most important person in the company—reinventing a leader who is even
more vital to everyone's success. That could be you. It's not a
difficult position to attain, but like everything worthwhile in life, it
takes your attention and your positive energy. Oh, and reading a slim
little book. Sounds like a good way to start the year, right?
How to Become a Great Boss
Whether you're the CEO, sales manager, commercial lines manager or
leader of the agency support staff, you probably have room to grow. Very
likely, you can become a better boss. I know that's the case with me. As
a boss, I realize the many ways I fall short of being a great leader
like Jack Welch, Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. At the beginning of each
year, these thoughts of growth seem to surface. As we enter the year,
let's make a resolution to ourselves to become better bosses.
How? I regularly revisit that question by re-reading a slight but
powerful book. It's called How to Become a Great Boss: The Rules for
Getting and Keeping the Best Employees (Hyperion, 2002), by one of my
favorite business authors, Jeffrey J. Fox. I've had this book since it
came out and have read it many times over the past five years to help me
reflect on myself and to make personal promises on becoming a better
boss.
I highly suggest you get this book yourself, but I'm willing to give you
the CliffsNotes version and to relate some of my observations from
consulting with many brokers that relate to the topic.
The book opens with the question "Did you ever have a great boss?" and
then notes that "everyone should have one, but not enough people do."
That should be a mantra in our industry, where we see a perennial lack
of new talent coupled with an aging workforce. Can you afford, in this
environment, to give up your best employees? Being a great boss is not
about you—it's about them. How you recruit, motivate and train employees
is by being a boss whom people admire, emulate and seek out.
So here are my quick takes on the book's many short, easily digestible
chapters.
Top 10 Steps
In an early chapter, Fox outlines 10 steps to becoming a great boss.
When I read these simple rules, I wonder how many of them I attain. How
about you?
- Hire only top-notch, excellent people.
- Put the right people in the right job. Weed out the wrong people.
- Tell your people what needs to be done.
- Tell your people why it is needed.
- Leave the job up to the people you've chosen to do it.
- Train your people.
- Listen to your people.
- Remove frustration and barriers that fetter your people.
- Inspect progress.
- Say "thank you" publicly and privately.
These 10 items are really the heart of the book. Read that list again
and think about how truly simple and easy each one should be. Want a
great salesperson? Hire a great one, or someone who could become great.
Want to empower people to make your customers happy? Train them, knock
the barriers out of their way, and then leave them alone to do it. Have
a great month? Thank your staff in a meeting, with a party and in a
personal note in the company newsletter.
But how many times do we let day-to-day pressures get in the way of
making these happen? You're personally too busy, so you don't take
enough time for listening, observing and motivating your staff. Sales
are lagging, so you take on more client contact yourself instead of
putting your energy into supporting the efforts of your staff.
Set the Example
People aren't very complicated. They will do as you do. If you roll in
late or take long lunches, what do you think your people will do? Great
bosses won't let that happen. They will lead by example, and the effort
will show throughout their lives, not just at work. Whether it's work
ethic, agency culture or a sales and service philosophy, your agency's
employees will follow your lead. Your actions dictate theirs.
It's All About the Client
Fox turns some concepts on their head. For instance, who pays your
employees and provides them with health insurance? If you said "I do,"
you'd be dead wrong. Your clients do. Everyone works for the clients.
Therefore, every job should be designed to get or keep clients. And each
employee should have this perspective. A great boss will impart that
perspective and build the agency culture around it.
Groom 'em or Broom 'em
Great agencies and great bosses are constantly training, teaching,
improving and growing their employees. If they cannot be groomed to
constantly improve, Fox says you must "broom them." If you don't keep
your house clean, you'll be tolerating mediocrity, which he calls
management malpractice.
Hire Slow, Fire Fast
"The cost of a mis-hire is huge," says Fox. At certain levels, it can be
destructive to the agency. That's why you must take your time, clearly
considering candidates when you need to fill a vacancy. Then, if you do
make a hiring mistake, fix it fast by firing fast. The cost of
prolonging a bad employee's stint at the company rises greatly over
time. Don't let it drag you down. A side benefit to firing fast is
creating a culture that lets employees know you won't be tolerating
mediocrity.
Create an 'A' Team
Fox uses the equation "A + A = A." Add ability and attitude to get your
A player. Simply put as a sports analogy, a team of A players will
always beat a team of C players. Hire only A players and you'll beat
your competition. If you need to hire B players, make certain you know
you can groom them up the alphabet.
Live Your Principles
Here's where you get your employees behind you and emulating you.
Underlying all your actions must be a set of principles from which you
don't deviate. You teach them to employees, either outright or by
example. This will be the foundation of your agency's culture.
Delegate Down
This is easy to say but not as easy to do. Delegate work as far down as
possible. Not delegating down is "dumbing down," says Fox. Here's the
rub, though: Delegating without providing clear direction or proper
training is not delegating, but rather relegating. Relegating employees
to murky jobs sets the stage for errors and poor performance. To
effectively delegate, you must trust your judgment and experience. Then
let your people make the tough decisions and learn from their mistakes.
In practice, you must avoid letting employees "delegate up" by seeking
decisions from you on things they should be handling.
You Get What You Inspect, Not What You Expect
Delegating doesn't stop when you set expectations for what you want
done. In fact, that's just the beginning. Great bosses know that
inspection is critical to achieving your agency's goals. This is a
learned skill. Inspections shouldn't be intrusive, interruptive or done
impatiently. Don't leave this valuable task up to e-mails or voice
mails. To effectively inspect, you must meet with and talk to your
employees about their work. You want to avoid the potential gap between
setting great expectations and getting great results.
Pay Attention and Listen
A common error of many bosses is to believe your opinion is most
important. If you are approaching your employees with this attitude,
your ears will be closed and you will be unable to listen or pay
attention to them. Letting your mind wander in meetings or sitting back
handling memos or e-mails is not listening. One thing at a time. Focus
on what your employees are telling you and learn from it. But don't stop
there: Listen for ideas from everyone, from the receptionist to the
client.
Make a Promise, Keep a Promise
Want to ruin a client's trust or an employee's morale? Simply break your
promises. A great boss, says Fox, makes sure everyone keeps their
promises. People who keep their promises will flourish, and a great boss
not only enables that but makes sure of it.
Seven Common Words
Remember the seven words George Carlin couldn't say on television? Well,
Fox's words aren't quite as inflammatory, but in the parlance of the
office, they are nearly so. He thinks you should use these: "I don't
know. What do you think?" Wow, a boss who doesn't know everything.
Radical, isn't it? But it encourages your people to tell you what they
think you need to know (and not just what they think you want to hear).
You can tell an effective boss by whether this technique really works.
Don't Shoot from the Lip
There's a theme running through the book, that great bosses hold their
tongues and their thoughts. Here's another tip: Be careful what you say.
Sometimes the first thing coming to mind is not well thought out or
properly worded. Your words carry much weight and set the tone for the
agency. Fox shares a quote attributed to retired University of Michigan
professor Gene Jennings that is worth repeating: "To an employee, a
boss' whisper is like a lion's roar."
Never Be Little, Never Belittle
Humiliation has no place, public or private, in business. Never
embarrass a staffer, disrespect them or make sarcastic remarks about
them. Do not accuse without solid evidence. Great bosses are emotionally
tough and can make those tough decisions. But also, you must care enough
to be tough and kind, often simultaneously. Bullies, tyrants and their
like are weak, not strong. Those types of behaviors are signs of abuse
of authority and will gain no respect from employees.
Be Firm, Fair and Friendly, But Not a Friend
Set clear production and service goals, budgets and deadlines, then
firmly enforce them. Brook no excuses, but as you're holding people
accountable, be sure to reward success. Great bosses, says Fox, are
friendly, but not friends. That's the way most employees would prefer
it. Along with this, avoid relationships that can appear to result in
favoritism.
Spend 90% of Your Time with Your Best People
This might not sound easy to do. After all, the squeaky wheel gets the
oil, right? But if you want to enable your best employees to remain at
the top of their game, they need and deserve your attention. Put 60% of
your effort into supervising, training and coaching your A's and B's.
Spend another 30% of your time with high-potential employees. Spend only
10% of your time with your C's and D's. Many superstars, while appearing
independent and confident, actually thrive on attention. It makes them
perform even better.
Responsibility
Where does the buck stop? With you, obviously. It seems today there are
so many "role models" who parse language and skate around the actual
statement of "I did it" or "I'm responsible," but in an agency setting,
that's a recipe for disaster. A great boss doesn't look for scapegoats
or make excuses. Great bosses protect good employees when they make
mistakes and never sacrifice someone to save themselves.
Great Expectations
Another way to think about setting great expectations is to challenge
your people to do the extraordinary. It's not a matter of simply
stretching goals. Rather, it's an attitude. As with all elements of
agency culture and philosophy, this starts with the boss and, if
successfully transmitted, carries down through all the workers.
Room to Improve
So, now that you've seen the top-line summary of Fox's challenging,
common sense book, tell me: Are you a great boss? Probably, you're not.
I am not. We all have ways we can improve.
In my case, I continually am amazed at what I learn from reading a book
over and over again. I will never be the world's best boss, but that
will never stop me from changing and, I hope, getting better.
I challenge you to do the same. The next time you are on a plane, riding
the stationary bike, sitting on the beach or finding yourself somewhere
with a couple of quiet hours, do yourself and your employees a big
favor. Check out the full version of How to Become a Great Boss and
spend some time considering how you can unleash the great boss that's
inside. Remember, it's not about you.
As the book explains, it provides "the rules for getting and keeping the
best employees." Putting your best effort into being a great boss will
certainly help you, too, but in the long run, its best effect will be to
make your employees much happier and more effective and thus make your
firm more successful.
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