Clay Clark himself says that without friction your success is only fiction. This week at the ThriveTime Show business coach offices, I learned more about managing people and how to hold people accountable. Managing is being in constant friction with people. Any time that there is something that needs to be done you can count on people to do everything in their power not to get that one thing done. This is where managers are needed and come in to play. Managers have the boss’ back by holding everyone accountable and focusing on making sure work gets done accurately and on time. The natural default of most people is to do as little work as possible. Gallup shows that 70% of U.S. workers are not engaged at work and according to Forbes 89% of workers admit to wasting time at work every day. Every. Single. Day. The friction is when you have a manager holding the team accountable to on one side and on the other side the team is trying not to follow the system.
Without friction your success is only fiction.
Clay Clark
For every ten employees, there needs to be one manager. If your team is asking you questions day and night if you are finding yourself answering all the questions, responsible for making sure all tasks get completed and then doing all the work you know yourself while team productivity decreases. It is time to hire and train up a manager. Now that you are ready to make the move and bring a manager onto your team. The next question is Who?
The managers or potential managers are typically your “A- players.
It is typically the A players that get promoted to business coach or management. To find who can manage to look for the employee who shows consistency. Look for consistency in the quality of their work, their mental state, their ability to arrive at work on time. Also, look for consistency in how your potential manager communicates with others. The skill of knowing how to communicate with those below, beside and above you is an invaluable skill that can be practiced and improved. John D Rockefeller says “The ability to deal with people is as purchasable a commodity as sugar or coffee and I will pay more for that ability than for any other under the sun. “
Decide on the hours of your management team. If you have more than one manager then you will need to stagger their clock in and out times. Make sure there is always a manager on duty as long as your team is on the clock. Any time there is a manager on the floor tasks will be done, on schedule, and most importantly customers will be attended to. As soon as the manager leaves the morale goes down and the incompetence goes up. Make sure your managers are on opposite shifts and not the same shift.
To recap a manager is needed for every ten employees. We need managers to hold the business coach team accountable and take the boss’s side in terms of the quality of business carried out and the timeliness of business carried out. The managers are found in your A players who consistently show up to work on time and can communicate well with the team. Once you have promoted or hired a manager then it is imperative to schedule your manager at the same time as your team. Adding a manager to your team means the number of people reaching out to you on a daily or weekly basis dwindles down. You have one go-to person who can answer the team’s questions and this newfound freedom allows you to work on the business instead of in the business. Thank you, Jonathan Kelly and Clay Clark for the mentorship and invaluable training.
