Able Net Design Diaries: Great Employees Are Like Fine Restaurants

You're out on the town with some good friends hoping to have a great dinner and a memorable evening. There's a diner on the corner and a great Italian restaurant down the street. Which one are you going to choose?

The Diner - You May Want to Stick to the Basics Want a Steak? They've got it. Want Crab Cakes? They've got it. Want Veal Parmesan? They've got it.

They've got it but I'm not sure you'd actually want to eat it. The focus of a diner is to satisfy everyone by providing every type of food imaginable. However, quantity and quality are two very different things. Go ahead, ask the waiter what he recommends and you'll get a blank stare.

You may be asking yourself, what does this have to do with employees? The goal of most managers is to create well-rounded employees. They try to achieve this by identifying the employee's weaknesses and trying to fix them. What about their strengths? They languish and dull due to lack of attention. The result of this focus, at best, is an employee who can do most things but is not remarkable at anything. Sound familiar?

When you order from a diner, you should probably stick to the basics. I'd do the same with your well-rounded employee.

The Fine Restaurant - Go Ahead, Try the Escargot The fine restaurant has a much more limited menu but what they have is incredibly good. They make the conscious decision to forego many types of foods to focus their efforts on what they do best.

Great managers treat their employees in much the same way. They help employees to focus on what they do best, rather than trying to improve their weaknesses. Employees will rarely become strong in an area of weakness. The best one can hope for is that they will rise to become mediocre. However, where an employee has talent, they can become world-class. In addition, focusing on those areas where we have true talent is incredibly motivating.

Imagine a team of people who are all the best at what they do. Imagine your competition running scared.

Would you rather have well-rounded employees or remarkable employees?

How to Allow Employees to Become Great

Traditional management methods will not create great employees because they don't focus on what each employee does best. Here are four steps to make it happen:

1. Identify your employees' strengths - This task is not easy. It requires a much more individualistic approach to management. Here are the best ways to make it happen: * Observe - The best way to identify your employees' strengths is to observe their actions. What types of work are they attracted to? How do they act in group discussions? What do they like to do when they're not working? * Use Personality Profiles - There are several profiling tools available on the market which can help you to identify people's tendencies, talents and styles. * Conduct 360 Degree Surveys - This can be a great way to get feedback from supervisors, peers and subordinates as to an employee's strengths and tendencies. * Ask The Employee - Ask your employees what they feel their strengths are. The danger here is that most people are not self-aware enough to accurately answer the question.

2. Determine how to take advantage of those strengths - Once their strengths are known, you should: * Encourage Improvement - Additional training and experience can turn strengths into incredible talents. Michael Jordan wasn't born great; he practiced. * Refine Roles - Find ways to allow your employees to spend a greater portion of their time on tasks that lend themselves to their strengths.

3. Figure out how to manage around the weaknesses - Focusing on what employees do best doesn't mean forgetting about their weaknesses. Here are three strategies to deal with weaknesses: * Shift roles - If possible, change the employee's responsibilities to shift focus away from their weaknesses. * Partner - Find an employee whose strengths offset another employee's weaknesses and team them together. * Training - Training will probably not turn a weakness into a strength; but it can get their performance up to more acceptable levels.

4. Build a team of people who compliment each others strengths - Traditional teams are made up of many interchangeable parts. This new, remarkable team is more like a jigsaw puzzle of talents. Place the right people in the right roles and change any job descriptions and performance measures that no longer fit.

Back to the original question...Would you choose the diner or the fine restaurant? It's nice to have a few diners around for when you want something cheap or don't know what you want to eat. But, if you want something truly remarkable and memorable, hit Zagats and find a great restaurant.

About the Author: Mike Goldman is the owner of Pridestaff of Paramus, providing workforce solutions to companies in Northern New Jersey. Mike also spent 17 years consulting to Fortune 500 companies and is a writer and speaker in the areas of career management and workforce strategies.

Tags: employees, Business, Marketing, Management, Leadership