I was clearing out my folders the other day and came across this – a note I sent to two of Moorgate’s seniors as they began to develop their own teams. I reproduce it here in full, because it is worth seeing as an “authentic” and genuine piece of advice, although it is possible to already see the influence of What’s Stopping You? (TBP February 2011). Obviously, it's also heavily geared towards the PR industry, but I hope there is some resonance elsewhere (and, yes, I realise it is a bit “Martin Lukes” but I was trying to fire-up enthusiasm for team-nurturing among managers that had not previously seen it as their role).
Ten tips for motivating (new) hires
1) Paint a broad picture. It is important that they immediately see the entire scope of their world – whether this is project wide, client wide, Moorgate wide or even – as I like to do – market wide. I take out new recruits and tell them about how what we do fits in to the business world – this is our part in it. I also tell them about every client, the structure of the company, our future prospects and recent history. This makes them see where they fit into the company – both now and in the future - and how the company fits into the world. It also prevents them working in a vacuum. They can see how their endeavours fit in with the broader picture. Adam Smith broke the pin manufacturing process into 20 constituent parts and declared that specialisation of each element was the key to improved productivity. Yet we are not machines. Humans need to see the whole and to understand their part in the production of the end product (and the global usefulness of that end product) to feel motivated.
2) Delegate meaningfully. Don’t just hand them the dross. We have employed bright people with good academics, so we should throw something important at them from the start. We can employ any idiot to do the crap. My guess is that they’ll respond more to a meaningful challenge than to a meaningless one. But be sensible – the lead article in Risk for a Friday deadline may be a bit much. Something tangential but meaty, on the other hand, may do the trick.
3) Practice “one minute management”. Kenneth Blanchard’s book The One Minute Manager recommends that you spend just a minute outlining to team members a vision of the end result sought for the project. You then DO NOT micro-manage them (either at the start or during the project) in terms of how to achieve it. Especially with the Internet at their fingertips, they should be able to develop their own route to the result. By micro-managing the route to the solution, you risk making the meaningful task you have set them meaningless. No intelligent person wants to just carry out orders. They want to be given projects they can make their own. My wife has never learnt this with respect to my cooking – turning my offer to “do dinner” into a stand-over me session involving when and by how much to salt the vegetables. This, no matter how many times I tell her to critique the final dish rather than the step-by-step process. Demotivated, I usually now watch The News instead.
4) Be on hand but not domineering. Of course, they may get stuck and need some guidance. But this is not the point to say “that’s fine – leave it to me”. Again, offer “one minute guidance”. Just state, to the minimum, what direction to head in. The Internet may help here, or we can just say "why not call this guy on this", "we have a book on that", "try this article" etc. Also, best to guide using terms like “what has worked for me was...” rather than “come on, it’s bloody obvious how you find this out you thick idiot”.
5) Insist on a complete project – even first time. State the end result required and expect a version of that result – not a half version. You can then critique it on a holistic basis – stating what has worked and what has not. Even if they need to start again completely (which is rare) it is still better for them to learn the entire process on their own than be carried across the line by you. If they insist on telling you each step, fine, but this should only be verbal. Most half-done handovers are attempts at avoiding the tricky bits in order to go to lunch or surf the web. They learn less (except that you are a pushover) and leave you with the tricky bits. This is why I even throw back articles that don’t have a headline.
6) Go through the whole project with them. Once they have handed over a complete first draft it is important to spend some time going through it with them. Explain the good and bad bits. Take your time here – this is the feedback bit and it should be given some respect. Don’t dismiss it out of hand even if they are 90 percent wrong. State the 10 percent positive as well. And say why and where you think the 90 percent went wrong. The chances are they took a wrong turn somewhere along the project – try and find this point and state it. From here they can start again.
7) If crap, make them start again. If it is 90 percent crap and you think “it’ll take me 30 minutes to do it myself, why go through another round of pain”, you’ll remain stressed, they’ll become increasingly convinced they are crap and the whole spiral goes in the wrong direction until a potentially strong colleague is lost. In the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People Stephen Covey talks about “sharpening the saw” – meaning that many prefer struggling away with a blunt saw because they feel they haven’t the time to sharpen it. This is self defeating. Unless your hire really is an idiot (in which case we shouldn’t have employed them) the onus is on us to make them productive. The length of time he or she remains unproductive is 90 percent down to us. So don’t give up and take over a project – however tempting.
8) Make them do the corrections. Again, the temptation is to take on the project ourselves at an early stage in order to get the job done. This is a mistake. Every correction you make on their work is a correction you’ll also have to make next time as they will not have learnt the need for such a correction. Sure explain it to them (verbally or by annotating the paper) but make sure it is explained. Your aim for them is perfection – nothing else. This can only be achieved by making them correct their own work, whether they think you are being petty and officious or not.
9) Tutor them in the ways of the office. Whether you agree with the office etiquette or not it is not arbitrary, it has been developed for a reason (usually to improve professionalism, to foster team equality or to prevent poor behaviour by individuals). It is important for new team members to feel part of the team as soon as possible, and offering help and guidance regarding the culture of the company is vital in this respect. Also remember that what you say at this point is important. If you undermine the culture of the company then you are undermining it on their behalf as well. This puts them on a collision course without their ascent, which is unfair. So be supportive or, at the very worst, neutral. This is particularly the case with respect to our hardly-draconian dress and time-keeping policies, but also on the niceties such as making the odd cup of tea or being tidy around the office. Being liked by colleagues is important to their well being (and if they don’t care about being liked – well, that is also revealing).
10) Get them in front of the client. While this can be risky it shouldn’t be too risky (or we screwed up in the interview process). It is therefore important to make them feel involved in the A-Z of the process as soon as possible. And, as we are a company aimed at offering communications services to clients, this means getting them communicating with clients – and editors – asap. In fact, the early meaty projects given to them should remain with them even if that means them communicating with the client or an editor. Again, one minute management should suffice in instructing them (though it does no harm reminding them that they need to be polite to the people that put food and drink on our table). Emailing clients with you CCed, may offer a lower-risk start to the process.
11) OK, one more than 10 – finally, show them some respect. Chances are they will turn up with a mix of correct and incorrect assumptions about work. Who cares? It is not our job to take on these assumptions, at least not head on. We are simply a company trying to win some clients and to please the clients we do win so that they’ll carry on using us and pay their bills. If they have ideas about this, fine. Let’s listen to them (even if we decide not to act upon those ideas). As far as I’m concerned the more people coming up with big-picture ideas the better. So big-picture thinking is to be encouraged.
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