Moving Towards Great… Changing behaviors that were acceptable in the past

What Does It Take To Build And Develop A Truly Great Team?  Part 7 of a series…

Next time we will talk about how expectations for behavior and performance will be changing, and how to make this process as painless and blameless as possible.

(Cue into music)  So we’re back with part 7 of what seems to be a growing series on how to hire for, and develop a great team.  We’ve talked about hiring for qualities because they can’t be trained; about how and why we welcome (indoctrinate) our new hire; and how to start removing roadblocks that are keeping our current team members from being great.

Next up, we have to change our team member’s expectations for service, performance, and behavior. 

If we have been leading this team for some time, we have allowed the team, as well as the culture, to become whatever it has become.  We have allowed the current standards to develop, and our actions (or lack thereof) have allowed the current culture to be the norm.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter if we are new to the team, or if we have been the team Leader, our goal is the same… we need to change the standards, the expectations, and the culture of our team.

I have found, through trial and more error than I’d like to admit, that the best way to go about this is accepting responsibility for the current state of affairs.  Even if you are new to the team, accepting responsibility for allowing the current reality will go a long way in beginning to develop trust with your team members. 

Blaming the past Leadership, even if you don’t feel as if you are bad mouthing them, will certainly turn off a number of your team members.  It seems that the most simple and productive way through this is to tell ourselves that they did the best they could with the tools they had (because that is exactly what they did), and our job is to move forward from where we are now.

So, to continue changing the expectations for our team, we will need to address the behaviors or standards that were acceptable in the past, and state clearly what will be the standard moving forward.  These conversations will happen with individual team Leaders, team members, department teams, and with our entire team gathered together for a whole team meeting.

I realize that I write very differently than most, in that I try to spell out exactly what to do in order to achieve the results I describe.  This makes for longer posts, as well as fewer bullet points, so I hope you’ll bear with me.

Perhaps a few examples are in order…

We’ll start by talking about why we feel the need to make these changes, with honesty and transparency.  This is the only way to move forward and have any chance of achieving great.

You will own all responsibility for allowing the current conditions and standards of behavior… If you are not willing to do this you will not achieve great!

The more open and honest you are with your team members the better the odds they will trust your intentions and want to move forward with you.

So… I’ll list some examples of behaviors with the one successful way I have found to state how things will be changing.  This is not necessarily the only way to go about this, just the way I’ve found that works.

In the past, it’s been OK to complete and turn in your period end inventory without being audited by store Leadership.  Moving forward, you are responsible for getting a member of store Leadership to audit your inventory before handing it in.  This is not a punishment, nor is it because I do not trust you… it is simply a smart way of double-checking important work.  We all make mistakes, and using another pair of eyes is the best way to run our business.

In the past, I have allowed people’s attention to be on cell phones and laptops during meetings, instead of what was happening at the meeting.  Moving forward, cell phones will be put away, and laptops will be closed during meetings so we can all be present and participate in the running of our business.

In the past, team members have been allowed to have phones in their hands while on the clock, and on the sales floor.  Moving forward, once clocked in (and not on break or lunch) we will focus on our work, and our customers.  Cell phones are distractions, and so should not be in our hands or used at all during work hours.  If a team member has a personal situation that they feel necessitates cell phone use or availability, they need to talk to their team Leader about it before beginning work.

In the past, it has been acceptable to turn in team member reviews past the due date.  Moving forward, reviews will be completed and filed before the due date.  If there is a reason you do not feel this is possible, you must speak to your team Leader about it 2 weeks before the due date.  Our team members deserve their reviews on time.

These are just a few simple examples, and in each, we are accepting that the behavior had been accepted in the past, so there is no consequence for that past behavior.  However, in the future, we spell out the new expectation, and explain why the expectation is changing.  Doing this right will answer most questions, and get everyone on board.

Only a few parts left… We started changing the culture of our team by hiring only great team members, and continued by addressing behaviors that need to change.  In the next few posts we’ll talk about how to create a culture where feedback flows pretty freely, and where our team members ask forgiveness rather than for permission when trying something new.