working with people
By people we mean staff, managers, partners, family members, board members, customers, vendors and even your community at large. People may seem like the biggest challenge we deal with in business. Misunderstanding, slow decision making, drama, victimhood, bullying, rescuing, lack of transparency, depending on common sense when there is none, reasons, stories, excuses, and more all show up in one way or the other.
Here’s a short list of issues with “people:”
PEOPLE ISSUES AT THE CORE? LET’S START A CONVERSATION.
Take your business to new heights. Send us a message.
Let’s Start A Conversation
Take your business to new heights. Send us a message to schedule a complementary consultation with our culture and growth experts.Miick Brings you an engaged Team! The vision is real!
Miick knows the “how to” to shift each of these sorts of issues into a place of “no energy”. Miick guides you and your team to shift from negative behavior to positive, and doing away with drama altogether.
Issue: Partner Conflict
With definitive sense of Purpose and Values, with clearly defined Culture driving data- based business decisions, partnering issues begin to get more clearly defined. Choice is more than just opinion and number of shares owned. Loud voices calm, clarity and direction becomes radically and purposefully clear.
In times like pandemic, or deep recession, any big decision, clarity shows up, alignment shows up and decision making gets exponentially investigated AND efficient, with far less drama and positioning needing be made. Growth and performance shows up.
ISSUE: opinion driven
decision making
Clearly defined Culture/Brand, clearly defined Purpose and Values allows open dialogue AND decision making that is far more effective and efficient than simply sharing what is more often than not, seemingly random opinions without forethought. Fear or anxiety gets replaced by candor and care, clarity of environmental scans and other performance data about cost, profit, cash flow, or opportunity cost of capital.
Instead of the loudest voice winning, instead of name calling… what ends up is Values align with issues and viably, time after time, line level team members can be part of decision making with an ownership attitude. With this outcome as real, imagine how your board and partner group could drive decisions.
With consistent feedback and more so, coaching to the Staff turnover costs companies’ tens of thousands of dollars and more, each year. This issue can be solved by defining performance, defining what one’s culture is and is not about. This issue is solved when the people on your team doing the interviewing actually have definitions of excellence on which to compare one applicant to another. This issue is solved once a hiring system in put in place and functions in a way that supports the culture and the brand to prosper as an alternative to simply hiring the first person who walks in, has a pulse and tells us, with no proof that they have experience.
High retention and low turnover is an OUTCOME of clarity of culture and brand, clarity of job performance and effective coaching. Miick takes all these steps and time after time, regardless of industry, drops turnover to 22% or less regardless of industry. You read this right, 22% or better. And we usually do this within one quarter or less.
Issue: engagement/inspiration
With what is exhaustive research Gallup polls names US staff engagement at an all-time high at 34%. 34%. At the same time, in Gallup’s data and Miick client data, when staff engagement rises, so does guest/customer engagement. From experience at Miick, there’s no reason 34% has to be the number to which you aspire. We get much farther with engagement than that. How? All the issues we’ve named thus far integrate and support engagement or lack thereof. When Culture is ill defined, when drama or gossip overruns the workplace, when us vs. them is the norm, engagement goes down.
Equally when feedback and coaching shows up that inspires, when excellence is defined rather than alluded to as common sense, engagement goes up and goes up exponentially. Let’s touch base and explore the “how to” of an inspired, engaged workplace!
ISSUE: INCONSISTENT SERVICE
We see this time and again, there’s little to no training budget. There’s little dialogue about culture, behavior or what excellence means in this work environment. Owners, managers depend on common sense or prior work experience to drive performance with production or guest experience. Outcome? Inconsistent results, little or no engagement, little or no energy to do anything except the minimum standard. No reason for this outcome. Miick supports you and your team to define and deliver service and production excellence.
We come from the world of 5 star service, and know how to implement excellence in service delivery regardless of check average, market segment, nation or state.
What percentage of your day is spent dealing with drama? What percentage of time is your executive team, your managers, etc. spending with drama? This question can be asked even of line workers vs active productive time management getting projects completed. Take your time % and multiply it as a percentage of your salary, draw, or wage. Now do the same for your whole team engaged in drama management instead of actual production. Add this total up. Surprised? What’s the price of performance change worth? Sadly, at Miick we’re rarely surprised by the cost of drama, sadly we see it more often than not in most companies, regardless of industry.
Miick provides tools and process, a systems approach to stop drama and add vitality, engagement and inspiration. Let’s talk!
ISSUE: elephants and gorillas
What’s it take to name the elephant in the room or the 800 lb. gorilla in your company? Is it safe to let the emperor, excuse me, the manager or CEO, in your company know they “have no clothes?” The gorilla or elephant or any other so named animal is tied at the hip to drama, we know how to get the elephant named fast, and the faster named the more performance and profitability show up.
ISSUE: HARRASSMENT AND HOSTILITY
This is one of three habits that typically bring lawsuits that’ll bring your company to its knees. You know this, so do we. Imagine, actually providing tools, defining values, communication and specific behaviors in action that support the eradication of Harassment or hostile work environments, period.
At Miick we work with you to evolve your culture and brand, your people with tools so this issue simply is not who “you” are, even by accident.
ISSUE: theft/values variance
It’s oxymoronic to think of repair and maintenance in the This issue goes away simply as off culture, supported by brand messaging, interview and clarity of performance prior to arrival. Imagine the ability to step into a diverse workplace that simultaneously holds aligned values, aligned since of purpose, consistent communication and feedback that builds confidence as an alternative to frustration, anger, drama or worse.
In addition imagine fiscal systems in place that track performance, cash and profitability on a daily basis. There is little to no wiggle room to “miss” or “waste” or “lose” product, revenue, or tools. This is what Miick delivers.
Issue: cops not coaches
Managers have it rough. Typically, owners, boards, investors want an engaged team and high performance! The staff more often than not, wants to be engaged and it’s far more fun to be inspired instead of being coerced. At the same time, more often than not Managers are not taught to be leaders, and most managers get their role modeling from reality TV, command and control environments and the mast head that signals this: “You’re the manager, you are in control and need to police the staff. Keep us under control.” What if managers could serve as coach instead of cop? What if excellence is so defined, work shows up with Olympic team expectations, accountable for their attitude and actions.
This outcome is very real. We provide the tools to make this outcome very tangible and real. Watch performance, engagement ramp up, staff retention rise, and ownership attitude become the new norm. This is not theory, we do it time and time again. Imagine.
ISSUE: ERGONOMICS
Got wasted time and motion? The alternative is this: efficiency and flow on purpose, saved time, positive energy instead of less, all show up. Bottom line, and top line, rises.
ISSUE: no common sense
Time and again, we hear owners, founders, managers talking about common sense. There is none. Perhaps we can make an excuse or hold a story that the world is too complex now, perhaps next generations are not being taught what or in the way that earlier generations were. More so, here’s the deal with common sense. What’s right or effective, or just obvious to you is not obvious for a bunch of reasons to many if not most of the population, regardless of nation in which we work. What’s the alternative?
Our alternative at Miick is to actually define what great work means in every role in your company! Outcome? Successful performance, increased sales and higher bottom line!
Issue: nice not kind
If there’s little “common” sense, what is very common is that people are nice to each other face to face, then call names behind each other’s back, or worse, tend to tear each other apart in sarcasm, naming or worse. Being kind is the ability to share feedback or dialogue in real time in ways that is data based, behavior based and focused on the positive instead of the negative. The ultimate politeness is to be kind and clear with respect of and to each other, more so, than nice to one’s face, and deadly behind one’s back.
The irony is it is perceived as “easier” to be kind at the outset, very difficult to be “kind” later at some “day of reckoning.” Time and again its more efficient and effective, albeit more challenging at the outset, and far easier at the day of reckoning.
Got people issues? Likely there are communication issues. Communication is the hub of the performance wheel. All departments, any action, any decision, moves through communication. You’re in the right place at Miick.com. Read on.
At the core of “people” issues are “communication” issues. Miick has a unique, trademarked communication toolbox that provides data-based communication and a feedback “system” for any interaction, any behavior. Typically called “soft skills” communication back and forth can be a veritable mine field. Miick delivers the ability for clarity, efficient behavior performance and kindness with intention, all at once. Outcome? Performance without drama, efficiency and growth, day by day, shift by shift, regardless of position, department, education, virtual or in person.
The proven tools Miick delivers to the people in your company bring consciousness and choice to their attention and engaged dialogue to everyone around them. This means team members, managers, leaders, and executives. In real time, you’ll experience your staff ask and answer questions, step into conflict. You’ll experience the willingness to name the elephant in the room and offer innovative ideas at any given moment with a shared set of communication tools that become “our people skills.” Imagine your staff conscious of connecting instead of not, guided by language choice, verbal and non-verbal communication and the trust that builds from shared tools and training.
WHY PEOPLE CAN BE SUCH A PROBLEM:
Nature and Nurture made me do it! People actually aren’t the problem, our behaviors, largely, unconscious choices, habits, are. That said, inviting people to change is close to impossible.
What brain physiology tells us is that a large part of this challenge is when a person does shift one habit, some new behavior needs to fill its space. Without replacing one behavior for another that is proven to shift performance the likely hood of maintaining the new behavior is close to impossible. This is where the term “Culture sucks” comes from. A new habit is like building new muscle. If one habit has 20 years or more or consistent use, and I replace that habit with something for 2 days, the pull is the difference of 20 years vs 2 days. Who’s likely to win that match? This pull to the old is where community comes to play, a team, or organization as a whole. The more inspired the team or company, the stronger the likely hood of performance shift.
We also know this: Telling someone to change or that they need to change is likely to be unsuccessful unless we provide something to change “to” or with. Telling someone they have a bad habit is likely going to create a fight, not change a behavior. Have a better attitude is complete fantasy unless we define what good or positive attitude means in terms of behavior.
