What Do You Do If Employees Don’t Do What They’re Asked To Do?
Posted on Monday, August 6, 2007 by Frank RocheI just cracked up when I read “Do Chores Like a 13-Year-Old Girl” on White Trash Mom. It’s about a 7-Step drama that unfolds when the mom asks the daughter to pick up some dirty dishes and put them in the dishwasher. The last step goes like this:
Step 7-The dramatic performance of this task increases the time spent on this chore to 30 minutes. After finishing this chore, SLOWLY go and report to your parent that this task is done. Tell them this information as if they had asked you to kill an entire family and bury them under the front porch—-the chore is that distasteful.
It is at this point that the parent will either be completely disgusted and allow the teen to go back to more “important” tasks or if the members of the household will be forced to watch additional drama.
Sure, it’s funny when it’s about kids and parenting. I’ve experienced a little of this drama in my own house. But what do you do when your employees don’t do what they’re asked to do? I’ve been known to ask and ask in my own business, only to be surprised that things didn’t get done.
Dealing with Broken Dishes
My business partner, Sarah, calls this kind of behavior “Broken Dishes.” That is, if employees are asked to do something, and then they do it poorly or “break the dishes,” then they don’t get asked to do that work again. And guess who does? The high performers. (Sarah also has a phrase for that: Performance is punishing.)
So, what do you do when employees don’t do what they’re asked to do? Do you come down hard? Do you let it go? Is there something that keeps your organization running without drama? I wish I had an answer for that. But I was the guy who was laughing when I read the story, so I’m interested in what you do. (And I could always use some advice on raising teenagers!)
What do you do with broken dishes? Or 13-year-olds?
Tom Gimbel
Aug 6th, 2007
The solution is really a question: If you have employees who don’t do what they are asked, why do you keep them? No matter how well they do one aspect of their job, eventually they will be a culture buster because the high performers will resent them. This isn’t a volunteer high school football team where you make the team if you try out. If you let the inmates run the asylum, you deserve to be committed.
Brad Cork
Aug 6th, 2007
People do what works for them and they usually do have a reason. I suggest if an employee is not doing what you ask them to do then they are not engaged.
In my soon to be released book , “Self-Managed Teams: How to do more with less.” I propose that self-managed teams are the most effective way to deal with this issue. The premise of self-managed teams is that the team works out the what and how to do the work and since they are more involved in the decision making they are more likely to do what they decided to do.
This then frees the manager up to spend time doing what he should be doing – understanding the people side of the team and focusing on strategy and future direction. The better you understand your staff and relate to your staff the more likely they are to do what you ask.
Also, as mentioned in the article, ensure you are aware of what behaviour you are rewarding and focussing on. If you reward bad behaviour (eg by giving into it, or even just doing nothing about it) or if you focus on what your staff do wrong (bad behaviour) then you will get more of it. Try and catch your staff doing right and ensure you reward only great behaviour.
If you have a question about improving your team performance why not send me an e-mail at brad@improvingpeople.com.au or visit http://www.improvingpeople.com.au.
Your team can win!
Have a great day,
Brad.
Frank Roche
Aug 6th, 2007
Tom, I’m a bit of a hardass, so my first inkling is boot them to the curb. I really do believe that performance is punishing otherwise. Great advice, indeed.
Brad, really interesting perspective. I’m looking forward to reading more of your stuff. So true about peer pressure and self-directed teams…I think that’s a real answer.
michelle lamar
Aug 6th, 2007
Thanks for giving “wt” a shout out. There are many parallels between managing people and managing kids (in my opinion). Thanks again for mentioning WTM and as always, we are big fans of knowhr.
michelle lamar
Aug 6th, 2007
PS to Frank-I’m a hard ass too. I’ve been less of a hard-ass about managing employees and it usually resulted with me, the boss, working later than the entry level employees. I don’t manage anyone right now but I turned into a total hard ass after I had people that worked for me work FAR LESS harder than they should have for the money I paid them.
Frank Roche
Aug 6th, 2007
Hi Michelle, I thought your post (and many others) was great. I mean, really great. You NAILED it. And I have had a parallel experience, I find myself working harder than anyone who works in the firm I own. Crazy, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t mind working, but when I was young I did the same thing. Now, as a full-fledged grownup, I’m still the guy doing it.
I one time said to my teenage boys, who were inside while their mom, my wife, was outside planting trees. I mean, when I was a kid, I couldn’t imagine doing the same. Then again, my dad would have had me bleeding out of my ear. Same situations at work. Crazy, I think.
Thanks so much for such great work. I am dazzled.
Wally Bock
Aug 7th, 2007
Please to remember that all behavior, including employee behavior, happens in context. A single incident of a behavior by a single employee means nothing unless it’s illegal or threatens to hurt someone or something. Good supervisors will tell you that most of their people, most of the time, do what they’re supposed to do.
If you’ve got someone who’s not doing what he or she is supposed to do your first task is to determine if you have a supervision problem or a training or resources problem. If you have a supervision problem your next task is to determine if you have a discipline problem or a coaching issue.
If you have a discipline problem, it’s time for the Notice of Intent to Play Hardball. This will work most of the time. If it doesn’t then we do the documentation dance until behavior changes or the official “kicking to the curb” process is invoked.
Frank Roche
Aug 7th, 2007
Notice of Intent to Play Hardball. Fabulous! Wally, you make a good distinction between a one time event and bad behavior. I believe that most people want to do the right thing. But when they go bad, they get bad, and that ends up not working out.