82% Have This Problem

                82% of businesses have this problem.  

                           Are you one of them?

          "If it weren’t for customers or employees, my job would be easy…" 

This is a sad way to live, but unfortunately, many business leaders find themselves in this predicament (at one time, I did).  In fact, when surveying businesses running on EOS®, 82% of them say that when beginning their EOS® journey, “people issues” were their #1 problem.  The good news; there’s hope.

If you find yourself having issues with problem clients, check out my “Pumpkin Plan” blog.  If you find yourself with problem employees, look in the mirror.  Seriously.  As a leader in your business, anything going right or anything going wrong is because of you…it’s your fault.  The good news is that if something is going wrong, you have the power to change it.

So where do we start if we have people issues?  Let’s start with “Right People*.”  In EOS®, we define right people as those who share our core values.  Once we’ve defined our core values, we must live and breathe them.  We must hire, fire, and reward based on our core values.

Once we’ve identified our core values and defined each seat’s roles in our Accountability Chart, we can define “The Bar.”  The Bar is the minimum acceptable behavior we’ll accept from current and future employees.  Once the bar is set, we’ll discuss it with our team in the bigger context of our company’s core values.  We’ll be talking about core values with our team on a regular basis, so go ahead and write a short speech to explain each value and what it means to the company.  Use “The Speech” during interviews, during employee performance reviews, and at every all-hands meeting.  Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself (I once had an employee tell me that they finally “got” one particular core value after hearing the core values described for 14 straight meetings!).

If you’ll take these first steps, your people issues will begin to go away.  Is this simple?  Yes.  Is it easy?  No.  But through this process, you’ll begin to coach your employees, and you’ll see many problem employees rise above the bar.  For those who can’t be coached-up, they need to be coached-out.  The good news is that our probability of hiring the right employees is now greatly improved since we’re using our core values and GWC™ during the interview process. 

Good luck…and reach out to me to schedule a free 90-minute meeting if you’re still having people issues.

*Shout out to Jim Collins