Do your employees have clarity?
I played high school lacrosse growing up. Loved it! And I was new to the game when I first started playing...barely knew any of the rules, but I was a decent athlete, so I got on the field early on.
I remember our coach yelled almost non-stop at the games. He would be hoarse at the end of every game because he screamed the whole time!
I’ll never forget, during the first half of one of my first games, he started screaming at me after I picked up a ground ball.
“GET IT IN THE BOX! GET IT IN THE BOX! GET A TOUCH IN THE BOX!”
I had a guy guarding me, and by this point I was tuning out my coach and the non-stop noise being yelled from the sidelines. Next thing I knew, the referee is blowing his whistle and it was a turnover going the other way.
I immediately get pulled out of the game and the coach is just ripping into me. Veins on the side of his neck popping out...and I learned a few new 4 letter word combinations I’d never thought of before.
“Joyner, why didn’t you get it in the box? What’s wrong with you?”
I’ll never forget what I said as I yelled back at him, “Coach what does get it in the box even mean!”
I’m laughing right now, because my coach had never explained this rule to me before. Whenever there’s a turnover, you have 15-20 seconds to carry the ball through “the box” on the field and establish a possession.
His anger immediately subsided and he laughed as he realized I couldn’t be responsible for something he had never taught me. He just looked at me and said, “That’s on me Joyner, we’ll get you back in there in a minute.”
I laugh at this, because this situation is no different from the business world. I sit in Coaching meetings with business owner’s that are ready to fire an employee because their work is trash and they won’t do this or that.
My question is always, “Well have you trained them on that?” It’s always so funny to see there reaction. 9 times out of 10 they realize, I’m trying to hold them accountable for something that they don’t even know is on their job role.
So why does this happen so frequently?
Well, typically we assume things are common knowledge...typically we assume that they SHOULD know that.
Listen to this please, they SHOULDN’T know! What is common to you is not common to me! And, ultimately, your employees cannot be responsible for things you have not communicated just like it wasn’t my fault when I didn’t know the rules on the lacrosse field.
That’s why job roles are so important. We have every client build crystal clear job roles for every position in their business. It’s that important. They go over it with them, ask for any questions and record every process that they’re responsible for.
Why?
So that when you go back to critique their work you can know if 1) They’re being lazy and not doing it correctly, 2) The process needs to be tweaked, as it doesn’t work, or 3) There is lack of clarity on the totality of the process.
It’s so important to give your employees the gift of training so they can adequately accomplish the job you’ve hired them to do. It keeps them from being frustrated and you from being frustrated with them!
So, the next time you are upset with an employee, ask yourself where the blame lies. Is it actually your fault, as the owner, for failing to give them a 100% clear job role and training? If so, you’ve got work to do on your end.
Don’t let your employees underperformance be a result of your unwillingness to help them succeed. It matters and will be a GAME CHANGER for your business!
Have a great day!