Someone said that to me once. Those were his words verbatim. The problem? There were only two people in the room – him and me – "the dumb one." At first, I thought he was joking but NO, it wasn’t a joke. It caught me off guard because he wasn’t wearing an "I’m with stupid t-shirt…"

 

Good for you, I thought to myself. When’s the awards ceremony? Is it black tie? Are wives invited? It’s hard to find a good babysitter on short notice.

 

This column is about the avoidable actions managers commit that ultimately turn their professionals against them. Why so negative – you might ask? I believe that if managers can root out negative behaviors then, just that act alone will leave more time and space for the positive behaviors that build relationships. Better relationships help create an environment where coaching is accepted and that’s the end goal of all performance coaches.

 

To get to this magically productive place, try not to commit the following acts.

From our story above I have to ask a serious question. Is having such incredible intelligence all it’s cracked up to be? Is it that important to think so highly of yourself, that you would have those thoughts, let alone share such sentiments with others? You can’t do everything yourself, can you?

 

Better yet, can that attitude possibly motivate anybody?

 

I’m afraid it’s quite the opposite. When I ran my retail business, I didn’t want to be the smartest person in the room. I wanted to be surrounded by talented people. Sure, I had confidence in my abilities, but with everyone else’s contributions, we were a much stronger team.

If you don’t see professional sports coaches run onto the field of play, then why do you see managers jump hurdles to take over every challenging situation? And you thought a tire deflated quickly after hitting a nail in the road…

 

I’ve seen it too many times. The dynamic of an over-zealous manager talking over a young professional who is trying desperately to solve his own problems. You can literally see the enthusiasm drain away.

 

Instead, share your expectations clearly and offer up your support. Communicate, confirm, check and re-check to make sure your professionals understand your expectations. Make sure everyone knows a key expectation from a run of the mill expectation. Let’s face it – not all expectations, all tasks, all assignments are created equally.

 

Communicate with a heightened sense of clarity and stay off the field.

There are certain words and phrases that don’t help no matter what the situation. For example, if you want some short-term benefit with absolutely no long-term benefit, just say "better shape up!" It might scare someone into submission but it’s not going to help. Similarly, words like catastrophe, crisis and disaster hardly help the cause. Here’s how I see it. When a home in Malibu, California slides down the slide of a cliff into the Pacific Ocean, well, that’s a disaster. Not a missed sales goal. Not an upset customer. Not being late for a meeting.

 

One more note: if you want to suck the life out of your team just say, "This is hopeless" or "This is never going to work." By the way, I hear the pessimists wanted to start a club but they thought nobody would come…

 

Never mind! Instead, please know that with a bit of effort, most negative sentiments can be turned into positive thoughts. "This is hopeless" could be turned into "let’s put out heads together and find a solution." "This is never going to work." could be turned into, "I know we can find a way to make this work." Granted, maybe there isn’t a workable solution but positive spins are much better than the alternative. At least you’re moving in the right direction.

There are some leaders who believe they should do the thinking for everyone. As noted in the fine book, Multipliers, such people believe that intelligence is static. That is, one’s smarts and capabilities don’t change. It’s carved in stone. If their people don’t have it, like they the experts do, then they’ll never have it.

 

Instead, as the authors suggest, look for talent everywhere. Consider what your people do best out of everything they do. Consider what your people do better than the people around them. Consider what they do without effort. Look for tasks they do without being asked. What do they enjoy doing the most?

One of my biggest regrets in business is not responding to my people faster on vacation requests. I know they wanted to book "super-saver" fares and such, and I fear my foot-dragging cost a few dollars, or more, for the very people I claimed to value so much. What a crock! For matters of personal importance, make sure to respond quickly or, at the very least, share when you will respond.

 

Reminds me of a story I read recently in the book Malled – My unintentional Career in Retail by Caitlin Kelly. In this book, the author talks about her years as a retail associate at the North Face Stores. She laments how the company wouldn’t spend $5 for a piece of equipment she and her associates desperately needed to do their jobs more quickly, easily and effectively.

 

$5? Really?

 

What a downer! It’s no wonder she became disillusioned.

 

At any rate, as I mentioned at the beginning of this column, the goal should always be to create an environment where your coaching is accepted and dare I say welcomed. Knock these avoidable acts out of your playbook, and you’ll be a lot closer to scoring a goal…

 

…or something like that!

 

That’s just the way it works.