People Problems... Solved

  Robin White-MooreBusiness owners have all heard the advice to focus on customer service to stand out from their competition. But what if your employees do great work but give terrible service? How do you approach them to talk about it? And what if that employee is your brother?

Business consultant Robin White-Moore teaches construction companies, educational organizations, churches and governments how to simplify their operations and relearn how to talk.

“I really use basic concepts: People get into making life too complicated. If you’re not doing the basic fundamentals right, you will not be successful,” she says. “Companies get so into the competition and the money and the revenue and the bottom line that they’ve forgotten how to communicate with employees and customers.”

White-Moore, president of Moore Motivation, spoke at the OFA show in Columbus, Ohio, in June. Lawn & Landscape caught up with her to talk about how business owners can better manage their employees and be more productive.

Do you hear a lot of the same problems from the different industries you work with?
I have to be honest: All of the problems are people problems. It’s as simple as it gets. But people make it so difficult. It’s that one difficult person, that one negative person who creates so much turmoil in the office. I always like to compare them to the drama queen: If they’re bored, they begin to create chaos. I tell presidents of companies, you’ve got to keep them busy, keep them challenged, and make sure they’re feeling that sense of purpose. Otherwise they’ll start creating problems.

It’s the one thing that is the commonality of all these industries I’ve worked with: the people issues. Some people don’t want to be part of a team or don’t know how to communicate or avoid conflict.

The No. 1 topic right now that people are requesting me to teach is customer service. How can our staff and our teams and our companies have the best customer service? They know that’s what people are looking for. It goes back to being able to be kind to others or not thinking about yourself first. That’s the hardest part: Some people don’t want to be part of a team, they don’t care. It’s just a job, they’re checking in, checking out. It’s just a paycheck for them.

I’d rather have somebody with no skill level and a high attitude. I can teach skill, I can teach technique, I can teach you to do a job. I can’t teach you to come in and be happy every day. I know you might be going through some issues at home, but I can’t teach you to put that to the side because people can’t do that.

What can businesses in the service industry learn from each other?
Look at the hotel industry. Some hotel chains are absolutely amazing on customer service because they give consistent training to all of their staff. Some are franchised or privately owned and you’ll go to one and it will be amazing and you’ll go to another and it’s just absolutely horrible. The biggest thing is consistency in training and consistency in how you want your service.

Smaller companies can be better at that because they’re such a small group, you really can pinpoint where your weak link is or where the person is who isn’t doing their part. In a larger company, it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle with larger numbers.

What can smaller companies learn from larger ones? I think it’s pretty industry-specific. One particular focal point is loss of communication between upper management and staff. Smaller companies and smaller organizations can really be involved.

With a lot of the companies I go to, most of the staff attending the workshop will say, ‘This all sounds good, but why isn’t upper management here to share the same message?’ And, ‘They want us to come to training, but then they don’t even do this.’

I think there’s something lost with that larger company atmosphere. With smaller companies – 20, 30 staff – everybody’s there. The president, the vice president, everybody. I’ve been in the family room of the owner of the company, and all of the staff has been around me and we’ve done a team building workshop in the house of the owner. That, to me, says a whole lot about what he wants invested in his company. You don’t see that a lot in larger companies. They don’t even know there’s training. They haven’t been to training in 20 years because they think they’ve heard it all.

How can someone with little or no management training better motivate their team?
You have to open up lines of communication and give people mutual respect. Let them know where you’re coming from. I tell managers all the time: Just be you. Be realistic. Be honest. People can see right through you, anyway. The best thing for you to do is just involve your team, be supportive and build that rapport.

Managers tend to be promoted because they’re good at what they do, but they’re not always necessarily great at communicating to their team. They’re good employees, but sometimes the people skills aren’t there.

You’ve got to learn the personalities of your team. Learn the strengths and weaknesses of your team. You’ve got to know who your high achievers are, and you’ve got to know who your low achievers are.

Colin Powell said, ‘You’ve got to prune the organization.’ You’ve got to prune them once in a while. You just hang onto these people because they’ve been there forever. Their skill level may be good, but their people skills are horrible. You’ve got to evaluate people all the way around. There are a lot of quality people out there – you could have a great team. It’s your choice. You create your environment. The manager’s No. 1 responsibility is to get people to perform. Managers have to know that environment and create that environment for them.

Small businesses can sometimes ignore that mantra of ‘hire slow and fire fast.’ What sort of advice do you give on managing people, particularly when they cause trouble for the company and aren’t a good fit?
I think the reason some managers don’t fire is because they don’t like conflict. It’s not fun to fire people, but it’s a necessary movement with your team. You have to be able to do that, not necessarily to stir things up, but to let people know you’re not going to accept this behavior.

One of the messages I hear you say often is, ‘Man up and do it.’
I think my words are usually, ‘Suck it up.’  That’s just my philosophy. My father instilled that in me. You work hard and you do your best and that’s what’s expected of you. I feel like people make life harder than it is. If you do the right thing and you work hard, it will all happen for you. So many people want to be the martyr and make excuses. ‘Woe is me, and this is what I deserve.’ No. You’re completely missing the point.

Managers have so many other things to worry about other than the people issues and having to fire people. They don’t want to do that, because they know it’s expensive, they’ll have to retrain someone. They don’t have the energy to do that. So they just allow that behavior to go on.

Someone said, ‘Behavior permitted is behavior repeated.’ I say that so often in my classes. It’s so incredibly true. If you’ve got someone and they’re negative every day, and we allow it, they continue to do it. Managers right now are putting out so many other fires that they don’t have the time to sit and say, ‘OK, enough is enough. This is what my expectations are.’

At this point now, not just in your industry, a lot of companies feel like they’ve had to lower their expectations because of a lack of work ethic and commitment and loyalty. A great person is a dime a dozen right now. A lot of folks are hiring people just because they’re breathing or they’re warm. It’s our fault when we don’t have a good team member, because we were panicked and in a mode of, ‘Let’s just get somebody in here.’

I get really frustrated going into some of these companies and you see this one person is just buying time until they retire. They’re the most negative, lethargic, unmotivated person. Why? Why have you allowed this?

Lots of companies are doing more work with fewer people. How can managers deal with growing levels of stress among their teams?
There are a lot of industries that are feeling that. They’re feeling the pinch; they’re overworked. There was a time where we really got spoiled because we had too much staff, and the work was spread comfortably. Now we’re having to work more.

I think the best advice that I can give is just step back, regroup. Get your team involved. You’ve got to get your team to communicate to you. You’ve got to make is safe for people to communicate that they’re feeling overwhelmed, that they’re feeling the pressure.

You’ve got to have a plan. Find out and go with your most important priorities. You’ve got to make time for your customers. And your customers are your employees as well, not just your external customers. You’ve got to listen to them. You’ve got to make them feel important and feel understood, that you’re at least trying to make it work and help them to get through this whole process. Times will turn around. It always does. But you’ve got to be able to open up those lines of communication.

How can owners of family businesses best avoid food fights at Thanksgiving?
After a session once, a gentleman came up to me. He has a family-owned company, and he’s not comfortable with how things are being run because of the personality conflicts that are going on. And I think that’s what happens most in family run companies because they know each other.

It’s very hard to fire people. It’s very hard to tell them what they’re doing right and wrong because they’re comfortable. My advice to that gentleman was: People don’t know their boundaries. It’s very hard after 20, 30 years of not having any boundaries to now having boundaries. It’s a very hard transition.

I told this gentleman: If this person was not related to you, how would you have handled this situation? And he said, ‘I would have fired him a long time ago.’ At this point, you’ve got to sit down and have a conversation, and let them know, here’s the reason this has been allowed – because you are family. But at this point, this is now detrimental to the entire company, not just our family relationship, but our business and our relationships with our employees.

It’s also very difficult for people who aren’t part of the family to work in that environment. It’s extremely stressful on them. They know that whatever they say goes on deaf ears because this person who they’re having trouble with is related to the boss. 
 
So what’s the answer in today’s economy – is it efficiency? Is it differentiation or specialization?
I think the best thing is to focus forward. Focus on the windshield and not the rearview mirror. We’re all kind of going through a crunch. We don’t need to live in fear.

People are focusing so much on the negative about what’s going on that they don’t look around and see the blessings and the things that are working well for them. There are a lot of companies that are successful right now, that are still doing quite well.

When you look at these companies, a lot of them are in customer service industries. You’ll look at their customer service, and you’ll see they’re being successful because people are focusing on that.

You’ve got to let your employees feel that there’s a sense of security. And in an insecure environment that’s very hard for managers to do. It’s a very nerve-wracking experience to feel like you don’t know if you’re going to have your job tomorrow. If you come into work today very nervous and tense and stressed out, you’re not going to be able to perform effectively.

The author is associate editor of Lawn & Landscape. Reach him at cbowen@gie.net.