There’s
a particular phrase I hear over and over again, which mostly comes from
tradespeople, leaders of businesses. Of which I’m actually kind of getting
tired of hearing and hopefully, you are too. That phrase is, “there are just no
good people out there.” Well, I don’t think so. I believe there’s a lot of good
people out there, you’re just not attracting them.
It’s really interesting. Oprah Winfrey was told that she would never be good on
television. Mark Cuban was fired from a computer store job as a salesperson.
The founders of Home Depot were fired from their previous job before they
started Home Depot. Walt Disney was told he wasn’t creative enough. Michael
Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team and the Grand Ole Opry told
Elvis that he’d be better off driving trucks. Hmm, there are just no good
people out there.
I have a client that just made their second acquisition in the 10 months. In
this particular relationship, I coach the owners as well as their key
leadership personnel. There was one leadership team member I had a conversation
with a week ago from the new acquisition. He is no doubt a true professional,
however, he shared with me that he was about to quit before they were taken
over. Why? He felt that the owner just didn’t appreciate him. This gentleman
was all about ownership and leadership, pure quality individual. But yet he was
thinking about leaving the previous company before they were bought out. Hmm,
there’s just no good people out there.
I’ll tell you why there are no good people out there. It’s because certain
businesses are not clear on their culture and their brand and if you’re not
clear in your culture and brand, how are you going to possibly attract the
right people?
To put
all this in perspective, you just simply need to find follow the nine points of
systematization in a business developed by ActionCOACH which is a coaching
organization that’s been around for 27 years in 84 countries.
The first three are vision, mission, and culture. You have to get clear on your
vision, mission, and culture of the organization. I do not mean in your head,
however, articulated on paper, on a plaque and your website where everybody in
your organization could recite it and know what it stands for.
Number four, SMART goals meaning specific, measurable, obtainable,
results-oriented, and time-bound. They need to be very clear for everyone in
the organization to understand.
Number five is milestones. Don’t wait for the big grand-daddy of
accomplishments to celebrate. Test and measure the milestones along the way. I
had a client, that never did two million in revenues. His goal was to finally
break the two million mark. We created a milestone for July 1st which was one
million. His sales team knew exactly where they were to the penny each and
every day of the year. Very powerful, did they hit two million? Absolutely.
Yes.
The next is an organizational chart of what it looks like now and what you want
it to look like. This process sets that destination mastery of the organization
exactly the way you want it to look with the right people of when you obviously
can step away. Then of course you have position agreements for all your team
members. This way they know their roles and responsibilities. You also follow
up with quarterly reviews every 90 days. Next, you have the KPIs which are key
performance indicators. This is where your team is tested, measured, and held
accountable. The last is how-to manuals. This way everyone can go to the manual
and know how everything is done.
When your business is systemized and you’re crystal clear on the brand and
culture of your organization, the right people will begin to show up. In final,
if you’re one of those people that is using that phrase, “there are just no
good people”. I would wager to bet that there’s a couple of processes that you
need to put in place so you can finally attract the right people. Because
something you should know is that your competitors are attracting them. Hmm,
something to think about.