Two profound statements on team managment.

August 19, 2009 · Filed Under Customer Service, Small & Medium Businesses · Comment 

I recently heard a business owner state that “it is easy to get what you want when you are clear on what you want”.

Following on from this I saw a blog post from Andy Sernovitz in which he stated “want to get people to change their behaviour? Take away the excuses.” (Andy was primarily talking about managing customers.)

Both of these statements are full of gold in managing and engaging team members.

We need to be very clear and precise about what we want from the team and how they will be measured. Also if we remove the excuses the results will follow.

Often management complain about the team not doing aspects of their job or not thinking of the customer. But have they been clearly told what is expected.  I mean clearly. Management may think they have told the team but is it in writing showing exactly the obligations, the measurements and the bonus upon achieving this.

It is necessary to teach the team the benefits of treating customer the way you would. The team are there to make money for themselves. It is necessary to show them the connection between the fact that way for the business to make money is to serve the customer. This sound trite and obvious but have a look at the exact messages that the management is sending to the team. What is being reward or recognised? Is it customer service or something else.

Remove the excuses. To often I see management accepting excuses from the team or having the systems set up so that it provides excuses to the team. Review all systems and procedures and KPI’s to ensure that customer service can never be ignored.

So remove the excuses and detail exactly what you want.

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