Common sense wins the world: the common secret of successful people

Chapter 17 Common Sense of Management--The Secret of Having a Good Team (2)
You have to clearly discover the psychological needs of each employee, not just the material needs, to understand their development aspirations, create conditions, try to satisfy them, and then guide them to work hard on this basis.All excellent managers are experienced masters in discovering the needs of employees. They can see through the inner thoughts of employees at a glance and give timely feedback.

American psychologist Shi En once proposed a concept of "psychological contract".Its essence is the spiritual agreement between managers and employees - to meet each other's needs to achieve the goal of common progress.Among them, employees have to express their own needs, and the company also sets up incentives based on this; employees must have a proper self-positioning, and make corresponding efforts to help the company achieve its work goals.Observance of the contract by both parties is mutual and promoted jointly.

Finally, when the needs of both parties are met, the team's work is successfully completed.In team management, we must put the guidance of this psychological need at the core of management. We must not only pay attention to it psychologically, but also take practical actions to make employees feel comfortable and satisfied in their hearts.

Offer incentives or offer opportunities?

Kelly is the director of one of my branches in East LA.One day when she was about to get off work at noon, she walked up to Quick, who was working hard, smiled at him, and said, "Goodboy!" In the afternoon, she walked up to a female employee, Fei Sha, who also smiled approvingly, and said : "Nicegirl!"
Both Quick and Fisher were happy.They were delighted, and then they worked more seriously.Similar stories are also happening in other companies. The subordinates are very happy when they are rewarded and praised by their superiors, and they are more motivated to work.Bosses also like to use this method to motivate their subordinates, letting them know that they appreciate their work; subordinates also want to be praised by their bosses, because it makes them feel that their hard work has paid off.

Our question is: "Which is more important, material rewards or development opportunities?"
Through the above two stories, you may feel that it seems that money is not the only useful incentive for employees, and non-material incentives can sometimes play a role beyond imagination.But in fact, we have perfectly implemented a two-track rule in management, which is why I told you the above story: "The material rewards employees receive every month are proportional to the spiritual motivation they receive." Exactly In other words, if an employee receives Kelly's verbal praise and motivation, several figures will definitely increase on his salary table that month.We will not be aimless in spiritual motivation, nor will we boast casually, and there will always be corresponding material rewards to match.Moreover, material rewards and career development opportunities also go hand in hand, and a person will not be harsh on the financial level just because he has obtained long-term development opportunities.

A Chinese entrepreneur who has been doing business in Southern California for many years said to me: "Non-material incentives can also meet the needs of employees to be respected, so my company often organizes various activities to make everyone feel that working here is like working on their own." Like home." This entrepreneur may have his own difficulties, because his company's financial situation is not very good, and he can't offer much material rewards. He can only try his best to create a loose and free working environment, and promises that serious workers will have great achievements. prospect.

"I'm following what most companies do," he said.
It's a method that's often mentioned, but are people doing it?That may not necessarily be the case.Regarding the issue of incentives, our investigators interviewed 3000 companies (including small companies and large enterprises) across the United States and East Asia, and finally calculated a set of figures:
Companies that use salary increases, bonuses, performance commissions, etc. to motivate companies accounted for 96.43%;

67.86% of the companies provide key employees with year-end dividends;

25% for companies offering stock or options;

28.57% of companies issued material rewards such as physical objects or shopping cards;

42.86% of companies provide paid annual leave or paid travel opportunities;

39.29% of companies provide additional training opportunities;

53.57% of companies generally use internal promotion to motivate employees;

32.14% of companies provide years of service awards;

17.86% of the companies provided performance bonuses;

Companies that use future development opportunities to motivate employees (blueprint incentives) account for only 17.86%.

According to this detailed survey, our conclusion is that most companies don't like to "paint apples" for their employees, because this is the experience summed up from actual operations, or the point of view that has been learned after too many lessons. And try to avoid empty promises to employees, but combine material rewards to provide multiple incentives.

why?Because the vision incentives can not meet the expectations of managers in the actual implementation of most companies.

Therefore, the correct approach is to distinguish material rewards from development opportunities and set them as parallel incentives rather than opposing each other.Even for the vast majority of companies, material rewards should always come first, because not everyone cares about the prospects of their careers, they may pay more attention to how much benefits they can get right now.You have to put the material first in the incentives, let them feel your respect for him at the salary level, and then the spiritual incentives (future development opportunities) will surprise him, otherwise he will The evaluation of may just be "a blank check".

1. The company does not forget its employees when it is rich, and the employees will work hard when the company is in trouble;
2. It is necessary to guide the material competition of employees, combined with the promise of development opportunities, to promote a benign internal atmosphere.

Some bosses are afraid of internal competition in the company. They feel that this may lead to vicious competition, a kind of internal strife, and even cause the team to split. "Could it be that everyone is so busy intriguing that no one is doing business?" This kind of worry is not unfounded, but it is not impossible to prevent.As long as you formulate basic rules, manage strictly, and play games under the sun, the benefits our managers will gain far outweigh the disadvantages.

Long-term motivation is not a panacea

There are always some people who are content with the status quo in this world - please believe that they are the majority.Therefore, incentives are not absolute. The high performance of management cannot rely solely on the model of long-term incentives.Some employees don't care about what position they will be promoted to in the future, and they may not have much thought about realizing their self-worth.When you promised him a vision for the next three years, although he was happy at the time, it didn't mean he walked out of your office, and he was still in the state of "work hard and work hard".

The fact is very likely that when he leaves your room, he walks back to his seat with a look of disdain, or goes to the bathroom to smoke a cigarette to relieve his nervous mood, and then it goes on as usual and continues to dawdle under your company or department .

Have you ever encountered this situation?
Experienced managers have a clear understanding and objective views on this.Among the companies we surveyed, [-]% of the managers said that the long-term incentives have no direct help in improving the work efficiency of employees, even Chinese private companies and multinational companies with fierce competition are no exception.

One of the employees said to me: "If the salary does not increase for the same job, I won't be too interested in the future. However, a salary cut will definitely affect my work mood, even if it is only 10 yuan. , if the salary does not increase for a long time, within a year, I want to resign and change jobs, at least I will have this impulse, and I will be dissatisfied with the company in private."
Vision incentives only have obvious effects on the middle and high-level groups of the company. Their salaries are already high, and they also have a certain status and a sense of job accomplishment.So they don't care too much about whether they can add a few more numbers, but pay more attention to their future prospects in the company.For example, enter a higher level of management within two years, become a deputy general manager or administrative director, and become a general manager of a branch within three years.These goals are more attractive to them.On the contrary, ordinary employees are not interested in this, because people generally lack ambition.

What is the way to improve work efficiency?
In the survey, I set a key question: "What do you think are some ways that people can be more productive?"
Among the answers, people who agree with vision incentives and those who agree with material incentives each account for half.Someone said to me: "Vision incentives can only deceive novices. They don't understand anything, and they are full of enthusiasm and ideals, so they believe in it. But as time goes on, the effect will be greatly reduced, so if you let me To formulate methods to improve work efficiency, I will not hesitate to use material incentives, and then consider long-term incentives on the basis of material rewards."
First, a good working environment is inseparable.

Today's corporate employees are under a lot of pressure, and their life is [-] to [-], with a boring rhythm, and some people are faced with endless overtime.So people crave plenty of time off—and there are very few companies that do, so you have to make a big fuss about the work environment to make them work in at least a comfortable environment.This may be a rare incentive, after all, there are still too few companies with superior office conditions, such as Google.

Second, no matter what, you have to have a clear reward and punishment system.

Almost all interviewed entrepreneurs believe that a clear reward and punishment system can promote employees to improve work efficiency.Regardless of whether the specific reward and punishment system formulated by the company is fair and reasonable, and whether it is in place in one step, you must try to establish a comprehensive reward and punishment system-of course, meticulousness and fairness are indispensable, and we must not escape the value of fairness.People care about whether their contributions can be recognized and rewarded.If they have done valuable work for the company, you should affirm and reward them in time. This is the most effective way to improve work efficiency.

These two principles are the most important, you must do it.Although there is no perfect standard, any kind of practice is risky, but a common sense that managers should keep in mind is: no matter what you do, you must avoid opaque operations, and treat everyone in the company as fairly, reasonably and transparently as possible. Be responsive, otherwise, the more you do it, the more your employees will turn against you.

How to make effective decisions?
A good manager doesn't need to make too many decisions at all, he just needs to decide on important matters.This is my consistent point of view.I tell the bosses that your mission is to control major decisions, to solve fundamental problems at the highest level, to guide the company's concepts and values, and to focus on the results of decisions.As for those details, what you need is to establish a monitoring process and then hire qualified assistants.

In one sentence: a good boss should focus on the outcome of the decision, not the skill of the decision.

At the same time, you should also notice that sometimes the decision itself is not important, and the implementation of the decision is the most critical.When we make decisions, you need to know when to respect principles and let the system speak, and when to take reality into account and avoid dogmatism.

Letting ourselves have rational decision-making common sense is a decisive premise. We use the simplest method as much as possible to make decisions at the work level, instead of giving orders to our subordinates based on sensibility and idealism.

Decision makers must first understand the nature of the problem
What problem are we solving?Why is this problem happening?Get to the bottom of it first, then make the rules and hold meetings to discuss what action to take.If you make a decision without investigating the nature of the problem, you may make new mistakes that lead to new problems.

For example, seeing that the sales performance of the previous month has dropped sharply, you punish the front-line sales staff or even replace the supervisor of the sales department as a punishment.But the fact may be that the national market is very bleak, and the sales department of other companies did not mix well last month, so the penalty decision you made is inappropriate.

must find out what conditions need to be met to solve the problem
You think carefully about the correct solution to the problem and the conditions that need to be met in order to implement that solution.This step is to keep your feet on the ground, considering the real conflict of interests, whether there is a need to compromise, how to unite forces, and what work should be done in advance.

Investigating all factors related to decision-making and respecting the existence of these conditions is the basic quality of a good manager and the basic common sense that decision-makers should possess.Some bosses often ignore the reality and paranoidly let their subordinates implement their own unreasonable decisions, which eventually leads to the failure of the action.Think about it, have you ever made a mistake like this?
The formulation of the decision-making plan should also take into account how to implement

We want to turn decisions into actions that can be implemented, instead of just empty talk without action value.Execution is the most important, because without high-quality execution, even the best decision-making is a castle in the air.I have seen many companies have this bad problem-they have a lot of meetings and formulate countless plans, but none of them are feasible, they are seriously divorced from reality, and have no value in execution.

For example, a boss gave an order to the sales team: "The next quarter's sales volume will increase by 200%, you just need to..." Everyone looked at each other and dared not say a word.Why?Because this is empty talk, completely impossible.Managers set goals and issue a decision arbitrarily, without regard to the difficulty of execution.

Pay attention to feedback during the implementation process, and revise the decision later
(End of this chapter)