Read Online Winning: The Answers: Confronting 74 of the Toughest Questions in Business Today by Jack Welch, Suzy Welch - Free Book Online
Authors: Jack Welch, Suzy Welch
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such cozy familiarity can backfire, as is happening with you and your moaning, groaning employees.
It’s irrelevant, however, how you got yourself into your predicament. It only matters now that you get out quickly, and the first person you need to get straight with is yourself. You are running a company, not a social club or a counseling service. Your number one priority is to win in the marketplace so that you can continue to grow and provide opportunities for your people. Of course, you want your employees to be happy. But their happiness needs to come from the company’s success, not from their every need being met. When the company does well because of their performance, they will thrive, personally and professionally. Not the other way around.
Consider this way of thinking your new creed.
Next, gather your people together, and let them know about your conversion experience, and your plan to convert them too. Together, you and your staff will need to create a list of behaviors that will result in the company’s winning. These behaviors will become your new company values—guidelines, if you will, to live by. For instance, one value could be: we will respond with a sense of urgency to customer requests. Or, we will only ship products with zero defects. The point of this process is very simple: to help your people understand that work is about…well, it’s about work .
Without doubt, you will hear yelps of pain as you dismantle your entitlement culture. Indeed, some employees that you like and value may leave in protest. Take the hit and wish them well.
They will soon find out the grass is not greener on the other side, and you will discover how much better your company operates when your main concern is not whining—but winning.
NEW JOB—OLD TEAM?
----
I have just been hired in a leadership position at a new company. I am tempted to bring along some people from my old organization; we work together well, and they have the skills. Your thoughts?
— BANGALORE, INDIA
----
A tempting idea but a tricky one. The answer is, in a phrase, it depends.
If you’re running a company that requires a rapid turnaround in a changing environment, and you are saddled with an embedded culture of employees in a state of denial, you’d be smart to bring along capable former colleagues you’d trust in a foxhole. Together, you’ll get the work done faster and more smoothly, and with the camaraderie born of your shared experiences in the past, it will be a lot more fun too.
But if you’ve been hired to lead a relatively good business that mainly needs a dose of reenergizing, hiring several members of your old team can create a lot of mayhem for very little gain. Nothing is more demotivating to a functioning organization than a little imported cabal that regularly invokes, “This is how we did it at our old company.” In the worst-case scenario, this dynamic gives rise to a two-class society: the boss’s favored insiders and the alienated has-beens.
Bottom line: survey the terrain. Bring in your old team only if you need fast change and resisters won’t budge. If you’re not in a crisis situation, search out the best among the team you’ve inherited, and give them a new sense of purpose. You may miss your former colleagues, but you sure won’t miss the havoc they would cause.
THE SMARTER THEY ARE…
----
I am looking for advice about a situation you’ve probably had to deal with: a superior employee. You can’t fire yourself, so what’s the solution? Do you keep a lid on the employee’s performance? Or hope the organization doesn’t figure out your underling is better than you are?
— ORANGE, CALIFORNIA
----
O r how about this: you celebrate.
Look, the best thing that can happen to you as a boss—and you’re right, it has happened to both of us—is hiring a person who is smarter, more creative, or in some way more talented than you are. It’s like winning the lottery.
It’s irrelevant, however, how you got yourself into your predicament. It only matters now that you get out quickly, and the first person you need to get straight with is yourself. You are running a company, not a social club or a counseling service. Your number one priority is to win in the marketplace so that you can continue to grow and provide opportunities for your people. Of course, you want your employees to be happy. But their happiness needs to come from the company’s success, not from their every need being met. When the company does well because of their performance, they will thrive, personally and professionally. Not the other way around.
Consider this way of thinking your new creed.
Next, gather your people together, and let them know about your conversion experience, and your plan to convert them too. Together, you and your staff will need to create a list of behaviors that will result in the company’s winning. These behaviors will become your new company values—guidelines, if you will, to live by. For instance, one value could be: we will respond with a sense of urgency to customer requests. Or, we will only ship products with zero defects. The point of this process is very simple: to help your people understand that work is about…well, it’s about work .
Without doubt, you will hear yelps of pain as you dismantle your entitlement culture. Indeed, some employees that you like and value may leave in protest. Take the hit and wish them well.
They will soon find out the grass is not greener on the other side, and you will discover how much better your company operates when your main concern is not whining—but winning.
NEW JOB—OLD TEAM?
----
I have just been hired in a leadership position at a new company. I am tempted to bring along some people from my old organization; we work together well, and they have the skills. Your thoughts?
— BANGALORE, INDIA
----
A tempting idea but a tricky one. The answer is, in a phrase, it depends.
If you’re running a company that requires a rapid turnaround in a changing environment, and you are saddled with an embedded culture of employees in a state of denial, you’d be smart to bring along capable former colleagues you’d trust in a foxhole. Together, you’ll get the work done faster and more smoothly, and with the camaraderie born of your shared experiences in the past, it will be a lot more fun too.
But if you’ve been hired to lead a relatively good business that mainly needs a dose of reenergizing, hiring several members of your old team can create a lot of mayhem for very little gain. Nothing is more demotivating to a functioning organization than a little imported cabal that regularly invokes, “This is how we did it at our old company.” In the worst-case scenario, this dynamic gives rise to a two-class society: the boss’s favored insiders and the alienated has-beens.
Bottom line: survey the terrain. Bring in your old team only if you need fast change and resisters won’t budge. If you’re not in a crisis situation, search out the best among the team you’ve inherited, and give them a new sense of purpose. You may miss your former colleagues, but you sure won’t miss the havoc they would cause.
THE SMARTER THEY ARE…
----
I am looking for advice about a situation you’ve probably had to deal with: a superior employee. You can’t fire yourself, so what’s the solution? Do you keep a lid on the employee’s performance? Or hope the organization doesn’t figure out your underling is better than you are?
— ORANGE, CALIFORNIA
----
O r how about this: you celebrate.
Look, the best thing that can happen to you as a boss—and you’re right, it has happened to both of us—is hiring a person who is smarter, more creative, or in some way more talented than you are. It’s like winning the lottery.
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