The Challenge

One of the most persistent questions leaders ask me at seminars is “How and where do I find great people?” The most obvious but overlooked answer to this question is to start with those you have. If you haven't done what is necessary to develop the people already on your team, it is irresponsible to dismiss their potential, discard them, hire new people, and then subject them to the same neglect. Your challenge is to ensure you have the mind-set and disciplines in place to bring out the best in those already on your team. Following is a 10-point checklist to help ensure that you do. The good news is that if you have already started implementing strategies from prior chapters, you will have a head start in many of these areas. Use these 10 points as a review to gauge how much action you have taken in these areas.

Ten-Point People Development Checklist

1. Set clear performance standards for them. This point should be abundantly clear by now. Quality employees will strive hard to hit your standards if you're clear about what they are in the first place. One of your first responsibilities as a leader is to make it precisely clear what you expect from each team member. If you have not yet identified his or her master the art of execution (MAX) acts, and presented them on personalized success profiles (PSPs), then you should start there.
2. Make certain they understand your mission and core values. These aspects of organizational culture and clarity serve as a resource to keep them focused on the goals that matter most. Likewise, they act as a filter to help them make decisions, know right from wrong, and take appropriate action in given situations.
3. Learn their motivational triggers. As first suggested in “Get the Leaders Right!,” you must know people to move people. The only way to truly know them is by investing your time in a relationship with them to determine their strengths, weaknesses, aspirations, and motivational triggers. More on how to do this will be presented in an upcoming chapter on improving employee engagement.
4. Give them fast, honest, and specific feedback on performance. As a friendly reminder, feedback eliminates gray areas that cause people to wonder how they are doing or speculate whether anyone even cares. Positive reinforcement will bring closure to the productive things they do and increase the chances they do more of those things. Constructive feedback will confront errant behaviors, give you a chance to redefine what is expected, and make it less likely that they will do the same wrong things again. It is essential that any feedback is given as close after the performance as possible and is specific in both your praise and correction. But remember, until TUFs, MAX acts, core values, and mission are clearly established, you have no basis for intelligent or meaningful feedback.
5. Hold them accountable for results. You must care enough to confront them with honest feedback and appropriate consequences, when necessary, to stop or turn around unacceptable behaviors and production levels and get them back on track. If you are still flinching at the thought of tightening up on accountability, keep this in mind: Accountability is not punishment. Accountability demonstrates that you care and are interested in helping improve a team member's performance.
6. Consistently train them. Your job is to take the human capital on your team and make it more valuable through training. This means you must provide the time, tools, and structure for team members to upgrade their skills, habits, and attitude consistently. If the cost of training gives you pause, consider the cost of having people who remain ignorant and unproductive because you don't train them. If you are not an effective trainer, or you do not know how to train, you can improve. Attend one of my Train the Trainer workshops at our Elite Center in Los Angeles, and I will coach you personally.
7. Schedule and conduct one-on-one coaching sessions, and make sure they're developmental rather than punitive. Although the occasional punitive, one-on-one coaching session may be necessary to address poor performance, one-on-one coaching sessions are intended primarily for drawing out the talent and potential each team member brings to the table. They are an incredible opportunity for you to listen to, coach, reinforce, and challenge each team member to higher performance levels. Prioritize one-on-ones.
8. Lead by example. This includes keeping your commitments, living the company core values, putting people work before paperwork, having a personal growth program, and placing the team's welfare ahead of your personal pride, preferences, or agenda.
9. When they are not performing well, evaluate them with the hope versus wish or three Ts filter. I presented these filters in the “Get the Leaders Right!” part. They're highly effective.
10. If after following these strategies, the team member still does not make measurable progress in reasonable time, remove him or her. Continuing to invest time and resources into a team member who will not, or cannot, grow cheats those on your team who are bringing to the table what it takes to succeed. There comes a time when the removal aspect of pruning is necessary.

Incidentally, if you persistently have high turnover issues in a given department, there is a very good chance that the leader of that department is the primary problem (and this may mean you). If you are that leader's supervisor, make sure you're following the same 10 steps with him or her so that he or she is equipped to perform to your expectations.

Parting Thought

It may help to remember that when Coach Vince Lombardi took over the Green Bay Packers in 1959, he inherited a team that had suffered through 11 straight losing seasons and had finished the 1958 season with a record of 1–10–1. He turned the team into winners the very next year, largely with the same men (there was no free agency in 1959). Under his leadership, seven of the players on the 1958 team went to the Hall of Fame, including Bart Starr, Paul Hornung, and Jim Taylor—all of whom were warming the bench under prior coach Scooter McLean. Eleven of the players on the 1958 team later went on to become All-Pros. Where do you find great people? Start with those you have. See? It's not rocket science!