Break the Habit... Not the Employee

In my early 20s I worked for my family's construction business traveling the country installing storage and conveyer systems for some of the largest distribution companies in the world. Because we employed over 100 workers spread across 8 or 9 job sites at a time, AND because I was the youngest foreman in the company, I received an early and extremely important education in employer / employee relations.

I remember calling my father one morning because several of the guys on my crew were consistently showing up late to the job site. I didn't call to ask for advice...I called to ask for permission to fire at least one of them.

As I was explaining my frustration (complaining), my father asked me a simple question...

If you fire them, who will do the work that needs to get done today?

As I unsuccessfully stumbled through my answer, he came up a with a simple solution - Since the start time was supposed to be 7am and some of the guys couldn't come in on time... the new start time for my entire crew was now 6:30am. If anyone showed up late in the future, the new start time would be 6am. Amazingly, within one day, this new policy completely eliminated all of the tardiness problems.

This was my first lesson in combatting the bad habits of a team rather than trying to find and hire those elusive perfect employees.

Recently, I revisited this lesson when our newest employee showed up late one morning.

Nicolas is the rockstar of FlexScreen's social media content and someone who I know will be an integral part of the success of our company in the future. As he pulled up 20 minutes late for our departure time (we were doing a video shoot with a customer), I had a choice to make -

I could strongly vocalize my frustrations, quote company policy, threaten his job etc... or I could find a way to combat this one potentially bad habit.

Because Nicolas is such an amazing young person and we have a great working relationship, some good hearted (and relentless) teasing along with my public sharing of the video that I took that morning is more than enough to make my point. I am confident that he will not be late again unless there is some unforeseen crisis. However, I wonder what would have happened if I had come down hard on him? Would he be just as excited about being part of the team after that?

How many talented people have left good organizations because of a manger who decided that their "pound of flesh" was worth more than the future contributions of that employee?

I would love to hear about some off the creative ways that you or other leaders within your organization have battled the bad habits of your team rather than simply telling people to "follow the rules or find a new job".