Make Sure Your Employees Don’t Leave Their Problems With You
Daryl Henry
Frederick County Businesses and Social Services Organizations Seeking a Trusted Insurance Advisor: Addiction Treatment, Child Care, Schools, IDD Service Providers, Home Healthcare, Mission Sending Organizations
The book Traction describes a problem that any manager can appreciate.? You start the day with a clean calendar.? Today feels like the day you will make a dent in that backlog of work.? There is room for whitespace.
Then your employees drift in the office. Soon enough, they come to you with questions.
“Daryl, I’m having a hard time getting in touch with an underwriter,” a customer service representative will say to me.
“Want me to give them a call?”?
The customer service representative is happy.? I have solved their problem.? I feel like a good boss because I am taking care of my employees.
An hour later, my Account Executive will give me a call.
“Daryl, this customer is asking me a really difficult question.? What do I do?”
“You want me to talk to the customer?”
The Account Executive is happy.? I have solved their problem.? I feel like a good boss because I am taking care of my employees, but now I’m feeling a little derailed from my plan for the day.
30 minutes later, one of my customers calls me.
“Daryl, we need a certificate of insurance to get on a job site.”
“No problem.? I got you.”?
I stop everything I’m doing and process the paperwork.? I am being a good agent by solving my customer’s problems.? Except now, I have not accomplished the things I wanted to do.? I have allowed everyone else to tell me what I need to do.
Don’t I have a team of people to help me with these things?? How did it all end back with me?
Traction calls this issue people leaving their monkeys on your desk.? If I’m not careful, I’ll end up with 20 monkeys on my desk every day that aren’t mine.
So how do I to prevent this from happening?? Here’s my checklist.
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1.???? Conduct Long-Term planning for your business.?
Let me be the first to say that Long-Term planning is as much art as it is science.? No one knows the future.? People in the insurance industry know this better than anyone.?
But the point of the Long-Term planning is to identify where you want to go, so you can trace it back to what are the most important things that need to be done today.? Traction calls these activities “Rocks”.? They are the non-negotiable tasks that everyone needs to accomplish in a day of work.?
Many questions from staff arise from confusion about what they should be doing.? Eliminate this confusion by identifying the most important activities for everyone in the organization.
You lift your rocks.? I lift mine.
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2.???? Review the Long-Term Plan with Employees
This might feel a little weird.? But here’s what I’ve learned, the people you share this plan with are the ones that will help you implement it.?
There are multiple components to every business: sales, service, human resources, accounting, IT… They all need to know what they need to accomplish for the business to hit its goals.? Further, they will probably know how to manage their department’s goals better than you.
Even further, if they identify with the goal, then you allow them to determine how to get there, they will take ownership of the goal.
This will keep monkeys off your desk because they agree with the plan and know how to execute the plan.
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3.???? No problems without solutions
There are a couple ways that people bring problems without solutions:
First, they’ll hit a roadblock in their job.? They don’t know what to do.? They spend no time contemplating the problem and ask other people for help.? Once they acquire the answer, they learn the best way to get the answer is to go ask other people.
Second, they will have frustrations about the environment and need to unload.?
I recognize that sometimes people want to talk about what’s on their mind, and they don’t necessarily want solutions.? But in this article, we’re talking about the best and most efficient ways to solve problems.
The most efficient way to handle both situations is that no problems should be brought to the table unless there are thought-out solutions to present.? This will challenge people to creatively solve their own problems.? It will give a framework to end an unproductive conversation.? It will also reduce the number of decisions you need to make, because you won’t be the one challenged to create the solution to every problem.
Keep monkeys off your desk by explaining everyone is responsible for their own monkeys.
4.???? Make sure they know the guardrails for decision-making and clearly define expectations
Just because we want people to make decisions for themselves, it doesn’t mean we want people to make every decision for themselves.? We must clearly establish parameters for decision making.
In the example of the customer service representative having trouble contacting an underwriter, there are a couple parameters in the situation:
First, it’s important to be kind and professional.? No yelling and screaming.
Second, we are transparent with our company partners.? This behavior impacts our ability to do business with you.
Third, it’s not acceptable to deliver a bad work product to the customer.? Bad company work product is not an acceptable excuse for us to deliver bad work product to the customer.
Everything else is on the table.? If they need to go to the supervisor, that’s fine.? If they need to explain we might need to move the business, that’s fine.? If they really can’t identify a way to get the underwriter to respond without involving me, and they have exhausted their options, then I will get involved.
When I do get involved, I will make sure to explain to the underwriter that I am getting involved because they failed to respond appropriately to my team, and that needs to improve.
Company partners need to know the rules of engagement, too.
5.???? Evaluate their decisions based on process, not outcome.
We have all had scenarios where we end up thinking “That didn’t turn out the way I expected.”? This is human.?
Good people are going to make mistakes that cost the company money.? It’s inevitable.? The outcome is less important than the thought process they used.
Did they attempt to solve the problem?
Did they operate within the parameters you have defined as important?
Did they do the job in the way that you wanted it done?
Outcomes are uncertain.? Customers have unreasonable expectations.? Legal climates change.? Economies are volatile.? Suppliers behave erratically.? All these things can put our business in unforeseen circumstances.?
All we can do is make good decisions.? If you have a good decision maker on your team, they give you the best chance to win.? Even if it didn’t work out one time.
Extend grace when things go sideways.
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6.???? Make sure they know that you have their back.
If people are afraid they will get in trouble for making a decision, they will choose to not make a decision.? They will do more research.? They will have more meetings.? They will keep coming back to you for input.
As the leader, you need to look them in the eye and say, “I got your back.”?
Then when stuff hits the fan, go have their back.? Prove it.?
People will not extend their neck if they think their head will get chopped off.? Reward that trust.
If you don’t do that, all their monkeys will end up on your desk.
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Conclusion:
I’ve pulled these thoughts from a variety of sources.? The book Traction by Gino Wickman.? I implemented the strategic planning ideas from his book and use them daily.? Traction also talks about clearly defining organizational structures and responsibilities.?
I pulled the decision-making ideas from Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke.? The future is always unknown, and we can only think about it in terms of probabilities.
Making sure you have someone’s back, that’s me.? I think that’s important.? I think it’s a critical component of earning someone’s trust.
Most important, once everyone knows the decisions they’re allowed and empowered to make, everyone is happier.? And you’ll be happier because the system is operating without you.
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https://darylhenry.substack.com/ -- Insurance for Entrepreneurs
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If you’re looking for more content like this, here are is some other content I’ve created that might interest you:
“What I Learned from Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke”.
“Sincerity is Key”
“Do The Work at Day Learn at Night”