Brian Harding’s Success in the Service Industry: Develop Your Team, Empower Your People, Achieve Your Freedom is a must-read for all business owners, especially those who run smaller businesses and find themselves so busy working in-house They never have time to take a step back. and see the big picture, let alone take a vacation. Harding, who has years of experience as a business owner and business consultant, knows that this problem occurs because business owners try to control their businesses too much and don’t relinquish control to their employees, or feel like they can’t trust employees. to take care of business without constantly supervising it.
Harding explains that the real problem here is employees not following processes, and that problem often exists because employees haven’t received proper training or proper processes and procedures aren’t in place. If business owners want the freedom to walk away from their business for more than a day or two, they need to help their teams learn to work autonomously. As a consultant, Harding often has business owners complain that employees don’t “get it.” When that happens, he asks them to list the top three things employees do that cause problems. He then asks them to write down how many hours a month or a year they spend training employees on these things. The response he usually gets is, “Oh yeah. I guess that would explain our poor performance, huh?”
Insightful as that practice is, Harding also reveals that simply teaching people how to follow procedures isn’t the whole problem. Most people can follow the procedures, but people don’t always want to.
Harding gives business owners a reality check when he states, “All people, including their employees, make decisions based primarily, if not entirely, on what they want (or want to avoid), with little regard for what they want.” you as a business owner want.” He also reminds us that most people don’t quit their jobs; they quit their boss, who may be the owner of the business. Therefore, owners must learn to treat employees in a way that makes them happy with their jobs and their work environment in order for them to want to succeed. If business owners aren’t completely honest with themselves in this area, “it will significantly hamper our ability to develop the trust that we need to have in our team to hand over control and free ourselves from the feeling that our business belongs to us.”
Harding then offers ways that we can resolve these situations. One of the most important is realizing that not everyone is the same, so not everyone wants the same thing. We have to get to know our employees. He states, “To lead, manage, and sell effectively, we must be able to communicate effectively with a wide range of personality types. And we can’t grow our companies if we can’t communicate in a way that resonates with our team and our customers.” .”
As an owner, Harding knows that this process can be difficult. We may feel like we’re the boss and therefore it’s our way or the highway, but the truth is you can’t force people to do something they don’t want to do.
Also, you have to have some humility and realize that you are not always right. Harding talks about the difference between task-oriented people and people-oriented people. Task-oriented managers often just want to get the job done and aren’t as interested in cultivating relationships. Her advice to such people is to ask themselves, “Do I want to be right or to be successful?” To be successful, you need your team to want to get the job done. People-oriented managers may be more concerned with their relationships with their employees than with the job itself. At such times, they may need to ask themselves, “Right now, am I trying to be liked or am I trying to succeed?” In both cases, success is the ultimate goal, but it can only be achieved by developing healthy and balanced relationships with employees or co-workers. The value of relationship building cannot be overstated. As Harding points out, most of us will spend more time with our team at work than with our spouses, children, or friends, and if those work relationships aren’t good, people will leave.
Harding knows that many business owners will find his philosophy too touchy. His response: “When I work with people who think these are crazy ideas, I ask them, ‘If you don’t like the ideas I’m pitching, that’s fine. But tell me, what does an employee gain from working at your company?’ When business owners respond that employees get a paycheck, Harding responds, “Every business offers a paycheck. Besides offering the legally required paycheck that all other employers offer, what does the employee earn working here?”
Harding offers a lot of great advice throughout Service Industry Success and practical methods to improve the workplace for everyone. Exercises are included to help business owners become more aware of the changes they need to make and how to make them. I could say a lot more about the value Harding offers in these pages, but I’ll end by saying that I loved his idea that we should think of every interaction with an employee as a deposit or withdrawal that makes or breaks the employee’s relationship with the boss and company. . Because people remember the bad more than the good, they need at least five positive work experiences for every negative experience for them to break even.
Taken together, Service Industry Success is a powerful and practical look at improving employee relations, encouraging employees to accept their work, and ultimately giving the owner some freedom to reap the rewards of a job well done.