What Makes Each One of Your Employees Tick: Lessons for Success
Dear past self,
In my life I have learned so much about what it takes to find success and what you must do to avoid failure. As I tell you about my experiences I hope that you can learn some lessons for success. So to start off let me tell you a story that I hope helps you to be able to better understand your employees. My first job when I graduated college was performing in home ABA therapy for children with autism. We would complete 3-hour sessions. There were times where I would leave a session and feel like I was really getting the hang of things. The session went great! I would drive to the next client’s house. And after 3 hours I would leave in tears, feeling like an absolute failure after the hardest 3 hours of my life.
From One hard Job to Another
After a year I moved into the school setting to a school called Spectrum Academy which is a school for children on the spectrum. These schools are able to provide services that most schools are unable to provide for these children’s needs. I taught PE and Health to middle school and high school students on the spectrum. That was the hardest job of my entire life, but might also have been the most fun job of my entire life too. It was hard! I don’t cry often, but I cried several times during my two years there. It always happened when I felt defeated. Like I had tried everything I could and was now at a loss with what to do next to help that specific child.
Over those 3 years, I worked with about 300 children on the spectrum. Each and every one of them was different, hence the term “spectrum”. I had to learn what motivated each kid, what rewards they liked, what teaching methods worked, what disciplinary actions worked, what communication style I needed to use, etc. And if I couldn’t figure out how each kid worked and apply those methods successfully, I would fail. Fortunately, I became pretty good at it and developed great relationships with those children, many of whom I am still friends with today.
How This Translates Into Management
I haven’t worked with children on the Spectrum for many years now and I still hold a very special place in my heart for those children. Those children helped me to learn and develop essential management skills for my career and even parenting skills for that matter. The individuals you manage may not be on the spectrum, but they too have specific needs, communications styles, motivators, and methods that work for them.
This can be a “spectrum” of needs and opportunities that you have to manage effectively on a daily basis if you are going to be an effective manager. To be an effective manager ask yourself these questions:. Do you take the time to get to know your staff? What strengths they have? What ideas they have? What’s going out outside of their work life? What motivates them? What communication styles work best for them? And ultimately how to ensure you get the most out of every single member of your team?
The Sanctity of Management
Management is a sacred position if you ask me. You hold such power over those that you manage. Their ability to be happy at work, to be successful at their jobs, to drive the success of the business and reach its goals, to feel the confidence to share ideas, voice concerns, and be proactive in their
roles. So much of this falls back on your management style. A bad manager can absolutely destroy somebody, not just at work but in all aspects of their life.
I’ve often heard the phrase, “Your staff are only as good as their manager”. And honestly, I believe it’s true. If you aren’t taking the time to get to know your staff on an individual level and learning how to work with each one of them to get the best out of them as individuals and members of a team.
Then you are failing as a manager, and you need to put more training and focus into those aspects of management. Your staff aren’t as productive as you want and expect them to be? Look inward first, what changes do you need to make? Is it your communication style? Do you not communicate often enough? Are their roles and responsibilities clear? Do you need to give more positive feedback? Do they have the tools to be successful in the first place? Have you built a foundation of trust and respect?
One Last Piece of Advice
There are always opportunities to improve your abilities as a manager. But you have to be proactive about making that a priority. You have to continue to educate yourself and think of how you must be a better manager first, then you will drive even greater success out of each member of your team. Remember to be a leader not just a boss. A leader leads from the front while a boss just gives orders. You can always improve. As you improve yourself, you will naturally see those around you follow and start to improve as well.
Sincerely,
Future Self
This is the first article in the series titled Lessons for Success that are a collection of letters from our CEO Tyson Hatch. In his many years working in the healthcare industry he has learned a lot and these letters are some of the insights that he wished he could have received much earlier in his career. He hopes that as others are able to read the words that he wishes he could tell his past self he hopes that you can benefit the same way that he knows that he would have.
