Joel D Canfield is a Business Heretic. He writes books and other stuff to help you succeed, however you define success, using the trust that comes from putting a more human face on your business
New Business Heretics Weekly Radio Ballyhoo thing posted wherein Tom and I talk about quality, real and perceived, tough ethical decisions, and finding a diverse brainstorming group.
So, how’s this working for you? High enough signal-to-noise ratio? Anything we should be talking about, but aren’t? Wanna join us?
Look; there’s a comments section down there! Maybe you should say something.
Just a few weeks ago, I met Caitlyn James in the comments section of Jonathan Fields’ blog. It’s not quite the same as discovering someone at the malt shop, but it works for me. Today’s post is the first time we’ve had a guest post at Business Heretics; Caitlyn is an educator (I use that word because ‘teacher’ is easily dismissed as simply a profession, but ‘educator’ hopefully makes it clear that she is on a mission in which she intends to accomplish more than surviving long enough to collect a pay packet.)
Caitlyn writes today about young people and small business finding each other.
Caitlyn James
The age old cry of the adolescent: “you’re not my boss!” Is there a generation gap — or perhaps a failure of respect? Are “kids these days” slackers in ways we weren’t? Are expectations — on either side of the “gap” unreasonable?
I thought we, the “olders”, figured out that no one was in charge of us. Now, we have taken that to its most logical conclusion and become masters of our own domains (not in the Seinfeld way) and we own businesses that put us in charge of others. Except that those for whom we are, now, boss know that no one is in charge of them. Hmm.
Pesky kids . . . and 30-somethings. (No pesky 40-somethings, though! 
)
There is information everywhere about business. Kids know early that financial success is often preceded by a financial crisis or two; that working for yourself is the way (at least one way) to riches. For many young employees, they know they have options.
If you’ve hired well – but it isn’t going well, I have some thoughts. Undoubtedly, the ideas will apply regardless of employee age, but the focus is on the young employee.
After meeting our basic survival needs: food, shelter, etc., we all need to have fun, freedom, belonging, and power. Need.
Not so that we have a good life, but so we stay alive.
These needs are basic, and monkey studies have shown that deprivation of something like belonging to a group, which might be considered “icing on the cake” can lead to death. In less extreme research, links to disease, immunity problems, and mental illness are well-documented results of stress and lack of:
If you create a workplace that helps employees meet those needs, you will have a happy and productive workplace.
For a kid who has aspirations (of grandeur?) freedom and power may be big motivators. Put that person in a situation where they make no decisions, or where competence doesn’t matter (button-pushing), or it matters so much that the standard feels impossible to achieve, and the kid will be miserable. And, quite likely, make you miserable, too.
Sometimes, you can structure small, incremental steps to more power, but school systems & parents are empowering children well and early. Small steps may be perceived as condescending more than as rites of passage. So, what to do?
Put your young & ambitious employee in charge of something. A project, a recurring task (like month end something or other), a section of the office. Let them know they are not on their own, but that the responsibility for the final outcome is theirs. If it is not going well, they are to report to you immediately. If they delay & the outcome is unsatisfactory, they should know, in advance, that this project/task/section will no longer be theirs to manage. Should you have to take away that particular job, take the time to debrief. If there is no sense of responsibility, i.e., it is someone else’s fault, and no spark of an idea about how to do better next time, discuss this. Document it. It is likely you will be asking this person to leave your employ, but not until they have had 2 more chances in a couple of different capacities to prove that they can either step up to that level of responsibility, or are willing to toil at the more mundane parts of the job, for now.
Mentoring the next generation is our job. It might take them a few months of part-time work, or a couple months of more regular hours to go through an entire process but providing opportunities for young employees to meet some of their basic needs at work is more than an economic exchange. It is a chance to give back to the community a more productive & realistic employee, and in the happiest of circumstances you have created a chance to begin a process of grooming your next manager!
After you’ve left a comment below, head on over to Caitlyn’s blog and see what else she has to teach you. Thanks, Caitlyn.
I had a very rewarding interaction this past week. Someone with whom I’ve had a secret conflict, a silent frustration, has responded to a wild rant with an olive branch.
Get to the Root
Okay, my rant wasn’t so wild, and wasn’t even really a rant, it was more, “this is how I feel, and we have to change something or we can’t operate any more.”
The clincher? The subject line to my email (yeah, yeah; email is totally wrong for this, usually, but it was truly the right choice this time.) My subject line was “we need to communicate better” and then I talked about how I felt regarding the disconnect we’d experienced. While the issues were all over the map, the other person recognised that, at its core, our challenges were completely about communication. Not character, not ethos, not ability, not even respect.
Being able to clearly define the root of the challenge, and communicating my acceptance of that, was key to opening the floodgates of some of the most rewarding communication I’ve had in years.
Strip away the emotions. Get what they did/what I want out of the way. Dig down to the one thing that could change it all.
Exposing roots = crucial conversation win.
We all know someone who’s always promising but never delivers. We also know that we eventually stop trying or caring or trusting. It’s not always clear why.
So I’ll tell you.
Trust was the important word in that sentence. In “The Speed of Trust” Stephen M. R. Covey uses the illustration of trust as a tree, with four main components.
Trust is Like a Tree
Under ground are the roots. They picture the part of trust that’s not visible to others: integrity. Others can’t see, just by looking at us, whether we have it or not.
Partially hidden and partially above ground is the trunk: intent. Intentions can be hidden, or signaled by our actions.
Integrity and intent make up the character portion of trust.
Above are the branches, the visible supporting structure of the tree. That’s our capabilities, our skills. These are fairly evident to most observers.
Finally, the fruit: results. Until we deliver results, real trust can’t exist. Capabilities and results are the competence portion of trust.
What happens when someone promises results, but doesn’t deliver? Trust is damaged. The only way to rebuild trust is to deliver results. Deliver enough results, and damaged trust can often be rebuilt.
But damage trust again without rebuilding it first, and rot sets in.
We’ve already got rotten fruit; a lack of results. Soon, the branches of capability are effected, and we start to wonder if this person actually knows what they’re doing.
Before long, the trunk is showing signs of decay. Do they ever intend to act? What are their intentions?
That leads to root rot: we no longer believe in their integrity.
And now, the tree is dead.
No dead tree ever produced fruit. No results, no trust restored.
It’s easy to see this in the other guy. Stop and ask yourself: how many times in the past month have I had to explain to someone why I didn’t deliver? Sure, each isolated case can be explained.
But if there’s a pattern, there’s a problem.
Stop. Think. Are you hacking at the roots?