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Are You Lazy Enough to be a Great Manager?

When you first see them together, the words “lazy” and “great manager” may not look like a logical fit, but believe me, they are!

Think about this:

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When your employees are so well trained that they can do whatever needs to be done when it needs to be done without your intervention, you can be lazy.

When your store runs so smoothly that problems don’t arise or are easily and immediately handled, you can be lazy.

And when crises don’t happen, you can spend the time you used to spend handling them being lazy! (Of course, in this context lazy doesn’t really mean lazy. It means having more time to do the things you want to do and excel at doing.)

Reaching the point at which you are lazy enough to be a great manager is simple. Just teach everyone who works for you how to do every job there is to do. You’ll expand your employees’ skills, boost their confidence levels and reduce the amount of time and effort you need to spend managing them.

Why should you make a practice of training every employee to do every job? Because studies repeatedly show that most people, when offered the choice between making more money and doing more interesting work, unhesitatingly choose more interesting work. And the simplest way to make work more interesting is to make it more varied, which also frees you from over managing!

Managers sometimes tell me they’re concerned that training their employees this extensively will cause them to leave for better-paying jobs. Though once in a while this may happen, the fact is that well trained employees tend to stay, not leave. And if they do part company with you, it’s likely to be because you’ve trained them so thoroughly that they are leaving to become managers at other stores—or that you’re moving up the corporate ladder yourself. Help people to get what they want and they’ll help you to get what you want is more than a nice sounding saying, it’s a very practical truth!

Training doesn’t cause employees to leave, but having to perform the same limited tasks day in and day out can cause them to look for greener pastures in a heartbeat. It’s the under-trained employees who are most at risk to leave because they want more interesting work.

Besides, if you don’t invest the necessary time and effort in training, what will you have? A bunch of poorly trained employees, that’s what! So which would you rather do, keep them ignorant and working for you or teach them what they need to know to make your business more profitable—and your job a lot less stressful?

Getting to the point at which you can be a great “lazy manager” does require some extra effort on your part initially. And even when everyone who works for you is trained to do every task there is, you must still remain alert to what your employees need from you. But these things are a small price to pay for the rewards of a store that runs smoothly and well–and for the ultimate reward of being lazy!

Mel Kleiman, CSP, is an internationally recognized consultant, author, and speaker on strategies for hiring and retaining the best employees. He is the President of Humetrics, a leading developer of systems, training, processes, and tools for recruiting, selection, and retention of the best hourly workforce. He is also the author of four books, including the best selling “Hire Tough Manage Easy”. Copyright© 2004, Mel Kleiman. All rights reserved. For addition information, contact the Frog Pond at 800.704.FROG(3764) or email susie@frogpond.com; http://www.frogpond.com.

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