The Root Causes of Employee Problems

Sometimes the best idea does not come from the consensus of the large group, but rather from the dissenting vote of the lone ranger. And for all the complaining managers do about their direct reports, the truth is that all problems with employees can be reduced to three root causes. These are the two primary items that this issue focuses on.

Corporate Acceleration

Aside from a variety of religious books (no need to stir up that hornet's nest here), the finest document ever written in my opinion is the Constitution of the United States of America. It provided a framework for effective democracies world-wide. At the heart of this approach to societies is the idea that the majority rules. The majority of voters select the president and the lawmakers. The majority of elected officials make a host of important decisions. In other words, the "majority" in any group makes the most critical decisions for the good of the overall organization.

Unfortunately, sometimes the majority is wrong. Sometimes the very best idea comes from one individual within the group whom every one else thinks is crazy. Actually, that's how history is usually created. One person sticks to his or her guns long enough until their idea is finally given a chance. Then slowly the idea catches momentum until suddenly the "majority" of people see the new perspective as the right way to do things. Many of the icons of business got their start this way:

Walt Disney was called a fool for creating a full-length animated film. People thought Ray Kroc was nuts for starting a nation-wide chain of hamburger joints called McDonald's. Michael Dell was completely left alone when he started selling computers directly to end buyers. Today he has overwhelmed Hewlett-Packard and is moving into other electronic products.

As you sit through meeting after meeting, be sure to listen to the lone voice that says the majority is wrong. Listen to their rationale. Dig into their thought process. See if there is any possibility that their idea could save your organization a ton of money. Think about it. Most people are too busy to examine every issue. Consequently, if a few key people support an idea, then a lot of other people will automatically jump on board. Pretty soon the idea attracts a critical mass of people and before you know it the "majority" thinks it's a pretty darn good idea. However, what if the first person was wrong and simply convinced a few others to jump on board and those few people each attracted a few more. Before you know it, a bad idea has suddenly become a good idea in the eyes of the majority. I think that's probably how slavery became acceptable several hundred years ago. It's also how the earth was considered flat. Before you go down the path of a very bad idea that could create enormous negative long-term effects, please consider the perspective of the minority. Even if the minority consists of one person!

Career Acceleration

In my experience, the most frequent complaint of all managers is they say that they simply have weak performers reporting directly to them. These managers invest an enormous amount of time and energy complaining about how their employees screwed up, lost key accounts, arrived late for meetings, have no vision and, in general, are not the same person they thought they hired.

If you happen to be one of these people, here are a couple of tips: stop complaining, stop being frustrated and stop playing the role of the victim.

All employee problems can be traced to three root causes:

1. The wrong person was hired.
2. The person was not trained properly.
3. The person was not held accountable with both positive and negative consequences.

Notice: by putting the onus of responsibility squarely back on your shoulders, you can now do something about it.

If you think that this problem is beyond your control, then you can legitimately waste time getting frustrated. However, once you realize that you (or someone else) have hired the wrong person, not clearly explained their role and/or developed them to be successful in that role, or have failed to hold the individual accountable for their behavior and results, then you can take the appropriate actions: fire the person or move them into a role they can be successful in, provide more effective coaching for the individual, and/or reinforce effective behavior and results with positive consequences and ineffective behavior and results with negative consequences.

Stop complaining about your people, identify the root cause or causes of the poor performance and take action immediately.

Take care and have a great month!

Dan Coughlin

Accelerate Update This section is always current to the current month

I suppose every book changes an author's life to a certain degree. My first book, which was self-published in 1995, was called Inside Out: A Catalyst for Conscious Living. It's out of print now for a number of good reasons. The layout, which yours truly did, looks like something a first grader could do today. And the ideas are very theoretical, which doesn't fit my approach anymore. However, I read the book a few months ago, and I was pleased by how clearly I had explained my early thoughts on improving performance.

My second book, Corporate Catalysts: How to Make Your Company More Successful, Whatever Your Title, Income, or Authority was published in 2005 by Career Press. That book was a step forward in clarifying my ideas on improving performance and understanding how to write a whole book. It's one thing to dream about getting a book contract and another thing to write a 70,000 word manuscript.

My third book, ACCELERATE: 20 Practical Lessons to Boost Momentum, which was published in May 2007 by Kaplan Publishing, has changed my business dramatically. Up until that book was published, I mostly did projects for four companies: McDonald's, Marriott, GSD&M, and Toyota. In the past 12 months, I've worked with business owners, executives, and managers within dozens of small, medium, and massive organizations in more than 20 industries ranging from boats to banks to software to financial services to trucking to lighting to home healthcare to hospitals to optometrists. It's been an exciting adventure.

If you want to see my speaking calendar for 2008, which we'll try to update every two weeks, please click here.

Currently, I have 66 speeches scheduled for 2008. If you would like for me to speak at one of your events in 2008 or 2009, feel free to contact me at dan@thecoughlincompany.com and I will be glad to see if we can make it work.

If you want to see my speaking topics and a video of footage from some of my keynote speeches, please click here.

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