124. How do I deal with lazy employees?

Transcript – Episode 124:How do I deal with lazy employees?

Joe: The first step in dealing with lazy employees, not calling them lazy.

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Joe: Welcome to the Boss Better Now podcast sponsored by Boss Hero School, where we teach leaders and business owners how to activate employee commitment in today’s everchanging workplace. So, how do you deal with lazy employees? Well, option A is to gossip with a colleague about these kids today and then go home and complain to your spouse that no one wants to work anymore. But since neither of these things is likely to fix anything, why don’t we skip ahead to option B, which is to understand both the proactive and reactive steps you have to take as a leader or business owner to spark effort from employees in the workplace. Now, notice the word swap that I made there, effort. That’s the conversation that I want to have with you today. We want to talk about where effort comes from and how you can spark more of it among the people that work for you. I am intentionally setting aside the word lazy because it’s a character defect. When you tell yourself that the problem you’re trying to solve is that you have lazy employees, you’re projecting a character defect onto them that may or may not be true. In fact, if you’re not getting the effort you want from employees, it’s almost never because they’re inherently lazy. But if you allow yourself to believe that you set up a root cause of the problem that in most cases have nothing to do with what it is you’re trying to fix. And so, let’s have the conversation today not be about lazy employees, but about where effort comes from and how you can get more of it. And let’s start here. We know where effort comes from in the workplace. In fact, we know that there’s a space between doing the minimum at work and giving it all I’ve got. And that space, that top gear, if you will, is what is known as discretionary effort. And discretionary effort only comes from engaged employees. Only engaged employees access that top gear. An engaged employee is someone who has an emotional and psychological buy in to the work that you’re doing. What leads to an engaged employee? Well, there’s a lot of conditions that contribute and many of them have to do with what is called meaningful work. The idea that my work matters. There are a couple of dimensions to meaningful work. There are a couple of dimensions to this idea that I am doing something that is some inherently fulfilling rewards or contributions that I clearly see as a result of my effort. One of these dimensions is purpose. The idea that my work matters, that it makes a difference. Do I see the ways in which my effort, my contribution is a positive influence on other people, whether that’s customers or co-workers or society on the whole. Am I doing something that makes a difference? Another dimension to meaningful work is strengths. Am I getting to use my unique talents and gifts and abilities in my work? When you position people to do that, you are going to get higher levels of effort from them because we in inevitably part with effort when we are doing something that we’re good at and that we find interesting or fulfilling or that unleashes our creativity. And yet another dimension of meaningful work is the idea of belonging. The idea that I am an accepted and celebrated and valued member of a team and that we are all working together on something that matters. And so, if you can create line of sight between why parting with effort influences the way that you’re perceived on the team, that can influence effort as well. We have to recognize that effort is a byproduct of an engaging employee experience. And if people aren’t parting with effort on your behalf, maybe it’s because they don’t realize that there’s something at stake. Maybe it’s because they haven’t been put into an environment where parting with effort gives them these rewards, gives them this experience that we know activates their effort consistently. It is kind of a loop. This is an important distinction. We as leaders have to create the conditions at work that lead people to become engaged employees. And so, if you can create some of those conditions around meaningful work, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, getting to use my strengths, you will get more effort from people over time. But what if you have a situation right in front of you where someone has clearly not given you the effort that you need? What do you do with it? How do you respond? Well, in almost any case, you’re going to need to have a feedback conversation. This actually happened to me recently. I asked my 13-year-old son to unload the dishwasher at home, and afterwards, I opened up a drawer, and I noticed that he took some of the measuring cups that were on the top rack and just kind of tossed them into the drawer. I called him over and I said, “Hey buddy, technically you did the chore here and you put the measuring cups away, but this is the very minimum effort. The right way to do it would have been to do this.” And then I stacked and nested the measuring cups inside themselves the way that they should be stored in the drawer. And he turned to me and he said, “Why does that matter? No one’s going to see that.” Now, this was clearly a moment for some dad wisdom, right? So, I started dropping dad bombs. Of course, I said, ‘Well, first of all, buddy, integrity is who you are when no one is watching. Plus, people who take pride in small things end up being trusted with big things. But here’s what I really want you to know, son. What I want you to understand is that when we hold ourselves to high standards, we never have to explain to someone why we didn’t. He and I stood there and we had a conversation. And that conversation had two components to it. I showed him the right way for it to be done. And I did it with patience. And then I compassionately explained why doing it that way with a higher level of effort mattered both to me and to him. If you’re in a circumstance where you see that someone did not give you full effort on something, a feedback conversation is warranted. But what that feedback conversation sounds like should be heavily influenced on whether or not this is a blip or a pattern. What do you what do I mean by a blip? Well, if it’s a blip if you’ve consistently gotten high quality work from this person in the past and all of a sudden, you’re seeing that they’re not showing up with the level of effort that you’re used to. I’m going to go about that conversation in a very different way than I would if this was someone who was never given me quality effort. In fact, I’m probably going to sit down with that person and say, “Hey, I wanted to talk to you for a few minutes because I noticed that how this is being done, is it really happening to the level that you usually do it? Are you okay?” That’s the question that’s going to be at the center of my conversation with this person. I do want to define what isn’t happening that needs to be done. And I want to define that clearly around behaviors and circumstances. I don’t want to make it about their character. I want to be specific about what did or did not happen, but then I want to focus on them. Hey, what’s going on with you? This isn’t like you. Are you okay? And then stop talking and leave space for that conversation to unfold. If you’ve built a relationship of mutual trust and respect with this person and something is going on with them, this is a moment where you’ll probably hear about it. Maybe they’ve had a sick kid at home for the past week and a half and they’ve been up late every night or been woken up multiple times and they are literally just tired. The problem you’re trying to solve for them isn’t lazy and it isn’t that they’re quitting on you or not giving you maximum effort. In that conversation, in that approach, you’ve given them some insight into the standard slipping and reminded them that it really can’t while compassionately caring about what’s going on with them as a person. Do you think that’s likely to lead to more effort and a and a higher attention to quality and detail? I sure do. But what if it is a pattern? What if you have someone who has just consistently over time not given you the effort that you need from them? You still need to have a feedback conversation. And it still needs to focus on the specifics of what is or is not happening. It still should not be about character, but it should instead create line of sight between the quality of their work and the effort that they’re putting in, what they need to do differently, and why it matters to some of those dimensions of meaningful work that we just talked about. For example, let’s say that you’ve got somebody on a job site who is not moving as fast as everybody else. You might want to pull that person aside and say, “Hey, I’ve noticed that you’re usually the last person to pick up those heavy bags of concrete mix and you’re not moving as fast as everybody else. I need to talk with you about why that has to change.” And then you give them the specific feedback about what you want them to do differently. And you create line of sight between the new behaviors that you want and the benefit that they’ll get from it to those meaningful work dimensions. For example, you might say, “Hey, listen. I don’t want all the other guys on the job site to be looking at you as the one who’s not pulling their weight and that everybody else feels like they need to cover for you.” That that’s not going to be a good environment for you to succeed in around here, right? I need you to keep up with everybody else. Or maybe you connect the dots to a benefit that they’re going to get. Hey, when we all move a little bit faster, we all get to go home a little bit earlier. and I’m counting on you to help make that happen, not just for you, but for everybody else on the team. Now, when I talked to my son Miles about the measuring cups, the other thing that I did with him is I brought up this idea of high standards. And we had some interesting research that came out a couple of years ago about mentoring and about effort. And it was discovered that if we add some language to our feedback conversations that takes a mentoring approach and speak to and speaks to someone’s potential rather than their deficits. It supercharges their effort. That language is really one sentence. And that one sentence is this. I’m giving you this feedback because I have very high standards and I know you can meet them. So, let’s take the guy who isn’t moving fast enough with the bags of concrete on the job site. And we pull him aside and we say, “Hey, man. I need you to move a little bit faster, right? I don’t want you to be the guy that everybody’s looking around at and feels like you’re holding everybody back. And you know, when we get things done earlier, then we all get to go home earlier. And I know that that’s something that you probably want. And I know it’s something that everybody else pays attention to. So, we got to pick up the pace here a little bit. And by the way, I know you can do it. I’m giving you this feedback because I have very high standards and I know you are capable. That language speaks to the best version of them that you are seeing and that is going to end up producing a much better result from people when it comes to parting with effort. This is a concept that is called wise feedback because it treats them as wise as capable as having potential and the person giving them the feedback is wise enough to understand that penalty or criticism alone typically doesn’t lead people to want to change. Last but not least, if you are consistently not getting effort from several people across the organization in a position group or in a particular department, then take a minute and look at your training and onboarding processes. There may be some gaps or some deficits in explaining how things should be done or in the values and the commitments and the expectations that you have for how performance is executed in that role. So, there you have it. If you’re not getting the effort you want from employees, let’s take a look proactively at creating the conditions that lead to meaningful work. And let’s think about the conversations we need to have reactively where we’re giving clear feedback about the circumstances, we’re speaking to their potential, and we’re creating line of sight to that meaningful work. I’d love to hear from you. Drop a comment in the box below this video, or you can send an email to boss bettergmail.com. That’s also where you can send questions that I’ll answer on a future episode of our show. Thanks for being here. See you next time.

Joe: Do you need to take your leadership knowledge and skills to the next level, but don’t have time for overstuffed courses or lengthy training programs? Then you want to check out Boss Hero School. This immersive 3-day leadership development experience with me is like getting an MBA in people leadership in just a couple of days. We’re going to teach you the methods and the mindset to create environments where people join, stay, care, and try. For more information, visit boss heroschool.com. [Music]