Why Your Employees Can Never Get It Right-And What You Can Do About It

The owners and managers of businesses, large, small and everything in between, can experience frustration with the performance of individual employees, departments or the entire company. They have an idea for a project or new product, tell their team lenders what they want done and expect to see results.

However, at the completion of the project, what the owner sees is not what he asked for.

Or, at least, it’s not what he thinks he asked for.

Matt’s company makes furniture. All kinds of furniture. Furniture for homes, offices and businesses. High-end furniture and more affordable furniture.

Tim works in the sanding room. Tim’s job is to sand tabletops. Jeff, his production member, pointed out a group of 15 unfinished tabletops leaning against the wall. Tim gave an invoice and told him the tabletops needed to be done in three days.

Jeff and Tim worked together before; Jeff knew Tim had a good reputation and had been at the company twice as long as Jeff.

Two days later, Matt and Jeff came back to check on the project. Only six tabletops had been sanded. And they didn’t look too good.

It turns out, there are different levels of sanding for furniture at the company. Jeff had not told which level Tim was to use. Tim just guessed, and when the tabletops didn’t come out great, froze.

Hearing this story, Matt later sat down with all the production managers. He put together a formal handoff process for projects, including written instructions to be acknowledged by the employees and managers. ?

It’s amazing what can happen when clear communication steps in. It can help alleviate many of the typical stresses that come with being “the boss”. The trick is to assume your employees can’t read your mind, and to empower your employees to think for themselves while also giving them clear instructions.?

Is there a job you can practice with this week? Challenge yourself to be a “next level” communicator and see if it leads to groundbreaking discoveries. It might be frustrating at first, but “donuts to dollars” I bet it will help make sure you don’t pull your hair out (what’s left of it) before you are ready to retire.?

David Goodall is a business and life coach in Raleigh, NC. He is the founder of TapMental. He works with clients (many of them blue-collar business owners) to reduce stress, anxiety and other negative emotions.

If you are having issues in your blue-collar business, David can help you help your employees to get it right. Call him at 984-884-1280 or email him at [email protected].

You can also schedule a call with him here.