Learn Management From The Business Coach

Tips For Managing People From The Business Coach

Growing up, you were probably told some of the things I’m going to list here. To become an effective business coach and manager, you must unlearn much of what you were previously taught.

1. You were told to demonstrate unconditional love to your fellow man.
In the world of effective business management, you must fire people who will not work hard and who refuse to be actively engaged in the pursuit of wowing your ideal and likely buyers.

“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.”
-Vince Lombardi
(An American football player, executive and coach who is most known for his role as the head coach of the Green Bay Packers during the 1960s, winning the first two Super Bowls in both 1966 and 1967)

2. You were told to bring enough cookies or candy for everyone in the class.
In the world of effective management, you must create a clear distinction between how you treat your all-stars and how you treat everybody else. An effective manager only gives cookies to his top performers. In fact, you may even want to take the cookies from the underperformers and give them to the diligent and honest team members.
3. You were told not to judge people.
In the world of effective management, you have to hold people accountable for delivering on your brand’s promises. Therefore, you must judge people by their performance.

“Somebody once said that in looking for people to hire, you look for three qualities: integrity, intelligence, and energy. And if you don’t have the first, the other two will kill you. You think about it; it’s true. If you hire somebody without [integrity], you really want them to be dumb and lazy.”
-Warren Buffet
(Billionaire founder of Berkshire Hathaway and considered by many to be one of the best managers of people and most successful investors of all time)
4. Listen to what everyone has to say.
In the world of effective management, you only want to listen to your ideal and likely buyers and to the constructive criticism provided by people who clearly know what they are talking about.
5. You shouldn’t compare yourself to others.
In the world of effective management, you have to look at members of your team and decide who is the best fit for the job based upon their daily performance. You must become very good and confident in comparing the work performance of the members of your team.
6. You should trust people and believe that most people are inherently good.
In the world of effective management, you simply cannot afford to run around trusting people. You must build systems to help you prevent fraud and you must keep an eye out for fraud at all times or you are going to have cash stolen out of your register, customers missing their orders and your taxes unpaid. In the world of business, only the paranoid people survive.

“Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive.”
-Andy Grove
(One of the founders of Intel and their former CEO)

7. It’s okay to yawn if you are tired.
In the world of effective management, you must decide to bring energy to the workplace every day. If you yawn during a meeting with your boss or in front of a customer, you just disrespected them in a powerful and almost unforgiveable way.
8. It’s important to share how you feel.
In the world of effective management, it does not matter how you feel. I have learned as a business coach that it only matters what you do.

“You can’t get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good.”
-Jerry West
(National Basketball Hall of Fame player and a renowned sports executive)

As a business coach, I’ve discovered that most small to medium-sized businesses have assembled a weak team that consists of their brother-in-law, people they know from high school and people they should have fired four months ago. This is usually the result of an owner who is really scared about the concept of hiring people who may actually be more intelligent than him or because the owner is really weak when it comes to the process of hiring, inspiring, training, and requiring employees to be accountable. Because of this, the business owner is stuck in a perpetual reaction mode as he attempts to figure out how he is going to fill in for Employee A who called in sick and how to apologize to the customer for the negligence of Employee B. Over time, conditions deteriorate and employees who choose not to perform begin to be treated as though they are victims who need coaching, mentoring, and encouragement instead of being treated like the negligent, revenue sucking, energy stealing, company-demotivating, wrong hires that they are.

My friend, I have learned as a business coach that you want to hire the best people you possibly can so that you can focus your time on my three Ps of business:
1. Making great products
2. Working with people you like
3. Producing a life-changing profit

As you grow your company, focus on bringing on team members who are committed to helping you achieve the big, hairy, audacious goals of your company. Once you have built an incredible team, your business’ potential will finally be unleashed. When you take the combined passion, talents, and life experiences of an honest, diligent, and skilled workforce and put it behind your proven product or service that has already begun to gain traction (sales), get ready for game-changing growth. When you take the combined laziness, lack of accuracy, negativity and lack of skill found in a negligent workforce, it doesn’t matter how good your product or service is, your company will struggle. The mindset, the talents, and the experience of your team members always prove to be the big connection between your great systems and great results.

31.3 – Create an Environment Where Talented, Honest and Diligent People Want to Work

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to speak, as a business coach, to many corporations at countless events. One of my favorite events I’ve ever been invited to speak at was a business leadership training for a professional contractor’s association hosted at the home offices of Mike Counsil Plumbing (www.MCPlumbing.com) in San Jose, California. Every aspect of their business is run in a first-class way and because of this, it was an absolute pleasure to be around their staff and at their facilities. Mike Counsil and his team are focused on creating an environment that absolutely blows away the work environment and atmosphere at any other construction company’s home office, and his company is thriving because of it. Every employee I spoke with loves working there. Their training systems are first class and consistent. The tracking of their daily key performance indicators is transparent and recorded on a big digital board for everyone to see and their décor is inspiring. Mike’s vision for his company’s future is sincere, future-focused, and all about growth. Mike Counsil Plumbing is an example of a business that is doing it right.