By Dave Crenshaw

Have you ever seen a business caught in the crossfire between management and employees?

It’s not pretty. It’s distracting, and most of all, it’s damaging to customers. Employees are more powerful than you may think. First, there’s more of them than the boss. Second, their interaction dictates a company’s culture.

I once was asked a great question that I think many people have: Why does it seem that so often employee and manager relationships deteriorate? How can I keep that from happening?

Perhaps you have seen this: you work in a position where you have a great relationship with either someone you manage or your manager, but over time – because you’re busy and there’s stress – it starts to fall apart and a little hostility starts to creep into the relationship. And, when one relationship goes sour, it’s easy for more to follow.

I have seen many companies with successful employee/manager relationships, and the key to their success is that they focus on culture management instead of employee management.

I want to share with you three insights that I have gained from these companies.

#1. A strong company culture.

Create a strong company culture by hiring people whose beliefs and values are in tune with your company. Companies that have great employee/manager relationships usually have a very strong company culture. This means there is an established set of values and an established set of norms that people use to operate and interact with each other. And, when new people are hired into this company, they’re hired based on their compatibility with the culture. This goes a long way in avoiding a lot of the friction that can often happen in the workplace.

#2. Strong communication.

Managers that maintain great relationships with their employees have consistent meetings. I can’t stress enough the importance of having one-to-one “huddles” with employees. If you’re too busy as a manager to have these meetings, you’re just plain too busy. These one-to-one huddles create an oasis that offers the opportunity for a manager to ask employees questions and for them to ask you questions – away from the hustle and bustle of the business. Regular one-to-one meetings are key to reducing workplace chaos.

#3. Avoid the “Peter Principle”.

The Peter Principle is a term coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter in his 1969 book, The Peter Principle (more info on the Peter Principle here) in which the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate’s performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role. As a result, employees only stop being promoted once they can no longer perform effectively, and “managers rise to the level of their incompetence.”

So often we see that in business. Someone is successful in one entry-level position, so they’re promoted. And they’re successful in that position, so they’re promoted. And then they fail, because they’re promoted to a position that really isn’t a fit for their personality or their skill set. How can we avoid that?

• If you’re the person making the promotion, make sure that you’re promoting people and hiring people based upon personality traits and learned skills. Ensure that they have the personal characteristics that are necessary to succeed in that position, not just past performance in an unrelated position.
• If you’re the person receiving the promotion, that should be a sign for you that it’s time to go back to school. I’m not necessarily saying that you need to go get a higher degree.

But, it’s your responsibility to update your skills—and even your point of view—to ensure success in your new role. Become a life-long learner; don’t just rest on what you’ve done in the past.

AUTHOR BIO:

Dave Crenshaw works 30 hours per week or less, plays video games, and has plenty of time to spend with his wife and three children. He is also the master of helping business owners triumph over chaos. He has appeared in Time magazine, Fast Company, USA Today, and the BBC News. His first book, The Myth of Multitasking: How ‘Doing It All’ Gets Nothing Done, has been published in six languages and is a time management bestseller. As an author, speaker, and business coach, Dave has transformed thousands of businesses worldwide. To get free access to Dave’s online Time Management Fundamentals course on Lynda.com, please visit: http://davecrenshaw.com/freetime. You can connect with Dave on Google+.

We have a hard time meshing sometimes, don’t we? Us people, I mean. It can be hard to get along with others, let alone connect with them.

This is because we see others through our own filters that have been made from our individual experiences, education and thoughts. So it’s really hard to connect with others because they have a totally different set of experiences, education and thoughts that create totally different individual filters for them.

Diversity can be really hard. We know it can be hard from seeing conflicts in our personal relationships, in business or even on the international level. The greatest conflicts occur when we are unwilling or unable to see that others have a different life filters. But when we acknowledge that others have different filters and ask them how they’ve arrived at their views, we get to know them better. And through that we learn a most valuable lesson: Diversity is straight-up awesome.

When we only keep to ourselves, we limit our learning and growth to our own life. But when we have relationships with others, we learn from them and expand our growth. And we all want to learn and grow along with each other, right?

But there’s more to diversity than that. We can’t just see each other as objects to use for our growth. Because we’re not objects, we’re people – rich, full-bodied humans. And so, here’s the greatest reward of diversity – we get to know more people. The more diverse our lives are, the more people we get to know and care for. How awesome is that?

But the question remains, how can we engage with other people well, even with all of our differences? The keys are love and humility. When we know that people have different filters than us, we are naturally more humble. When we humbly ask what has led them to a view, we naturally care and love them more. This is where healthy diversity in a business starts – in us, in our perspectives and our relationships. We set the tone.

Diversity can be hard, but if we sow love and humility in our relationships, then diversity is amazingly rewarding.

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Pixabay.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino comes alongside artisans, craftsman and people monetizing their passions to help them create healthy businesses. She shares tips and thoughts at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.

We’re disheartened and discouraged when there is a lack of life. My husband and I have been searching for a house lately and the ones that are run down and neglected are inherently less attractive than the shiny, polished, inhabited homes. This is because life, and signs of life, are attractive.

We see how life is attractive on social media too. When it looks like people are alive and well, it’s attractive. When they show how their life is creating more life or how they’re breathing life into things, it’s attractive. We want to be near life, we want to be a part of life, we want to bring life.

What does this mean for your business?

If you want your business to be attractive, it needs life. It needs to be evident that your business is both living and giving life. But some businesses look dead, right? They haven’t changed their marquee in years. They haven’t posted on social media in months. Their office lacks life, not just from lack of activity, but also the culture among the staff. They don’t look alive.

When my husband and I look at abandoned homes, we can’t help but wonder if something is inherently wrong with the property. Why else would it have been left to rot? Isn’t it the same in business as well? When businesses seem dead, we worry about their quality.

And so, we want to make sure our businesses are evidently alive. What are some ways we can do that?

1. We can make sure our businesses show signs of life. We shouldn’t over-automate social media. We need to make sure we are interacting in real, personal ways with people, not just sending auto-replys. We need to change our marquees, update our websites and refresh our storefronts every once and awhile.
2. We can make sure we are breathing life into our resources. When we creatively use resources, we demonstrate a living, creative business.
3. We can make sure we are giving life. It should be evident through our interactions with employees and customers that we’re giving them life, instead of sucking it out of them. This could mean anything from literally giving customers some life back by saving them time during check-out to making sure your employees know you appreciate them.

Life is inherently attractive. Let’s make sure our businesses are irresistibly alive.

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Kaboompics.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino comes alongside artisans, craftsman and people monetizing their passions to help them create healthy businesses. She shares her heart at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.

I forget the important things when I’m stressed. Do you struggle with this too? I focus on the wrong things and minimize the important while spiraling on the insignificant. I often need to be reminded of what’s important. So here are 11 things we forget but should always remember:

1. We can’t ask our employees to do something we aren’t willing to do.
2. Humility is unique and attractive.
3. People only know what we want when we tell them.
4. Customers are like wives – even when they seem locked-down, they still need romanced.
5. To-do lists are important, but people are even more so.
6. Autonomy and cooperation is life-giving for everyone. Micromanagement and dictatorship is exhausting and frustrating for everyone.
7. A genuine thank you can impact the receiver way more than we know.
8. Dedication is rare and precious.
9. Simpler is better. You can always expand.
10. Culture comes from the top but can revolutionize from the bottom.
11. The hard is what makes it great. If it wasn’t hard everyone would do it.

Life, work and business can all be hard. Even the weather seems out to get us at times. Let’s remember to pour ourselves into what’s important and care for those around us.

What are some things you remember to bring you back to what’s important?

Cover image info: Original, royalty-free image from Death To The Stock Photo.

About the author: Lindsey Tolino comes alongside artisans, craftsman and people monetizing their passions to help them create healthy businesses. She shares her heart at ToBusinessOwners.com. Follow her on Twitter @LindseyTolino.