High Performance and the Human Touch

The pragmatic Concept of Leadership for healthy Top Performance

Frank Breckwoldt

• Publisher: GABAL Verlag
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9783956231506
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

There are still companies that believe that they can achieve the best results through high performance in business alone, instead of applying the human factor. These companies operate under stress and anxiety. In the end, the best employees leave the company first. But the human factor without high performance does not work either. Despite the importance of a good atmosphere in a company, it is not a sufficient guarantee for lasting quality performances. In the long run, a company at the highest performance level will only work when high performance AND the human factor characterize the leadership in equal shares. In the end, companies never profit at the expense of their employees, nor do the employees profit at the expense of the company.

1GROUNDWORK

Key question for leadership

We are on our way! The question of all questions as mentioned is the golden thread regarding leadership: Under which conditions are people in the business venture as a rule prepared to incorporate their potential on a high level long term? The answer to this and its consequential implementation leads businesses to the top.

Definition of the league

Everything begins with an entrepreneurial decision: In which performance league do I want to play in with my business?

My aspiration as an entrepreneur and the aspiration of this book are geared towards Champions League. All businesses like to play here but only a few in each branch manage to get the necessary pre-requisites. It is hard to get there and then hard to keep up to that level. And that is when the fun stops in many businesses.

It must be clear and made clear time and time again to all participants, managerial staff and employees what a top performance aspiration means. What can managerial staff and employees expect from their business in such a case? What must the business expect from them as well? He who wants to reach something extraordinary must perform extraordinarily too.

Who goes before what

The right people in the right place

The principle “Who goes before what” is my focal point when it concerns long lasting top performance. Make sure therefore that you have the right hand-picked team playing for you. Make sure you have the right people in the right places. For it is possible to have the right people in the wrong place. In such a case, it is our job as managerial staff to make sure they get to the right place – and there is always a right place for right people.

Practical example: The manager of an electronics retailer store told me of an employee working in the department for “white goods” (appliances for household work, for example, washing machines) that it had been noticed that for nearly a year he had shown poor performance and was unreliable. The manager then had the “sacking” discussion with him and asked the employee irritably “You have annoyed me for a year now and you obviously don’t want to work here anymore. But what do you want?” The employee then answered “Seeing as you are asking me, I’d like to work in EDP and new media.”

The manager then reported that he would never have dreamt of putting that employee in the EDP department. He gave the man the option and saw how, within a few weeks, he had become an important top performer.

I can only recommend you not to give up on employees too quickly, especially under the current circumstances on the labour market. If you are not satisfied with an employee’s performance, have a clarifying talk to see whether the person concerned may be the ‘right person’ in another job position.

However take care: there are wrong people too, and they are wrong in every job in a business. It is indeed the unpleasant and uncomfortable job of managerial staff to recognise the wrong people who are fundamentally not prepared to really become committed and to join in at a high level. And then to ensure that such employees either change their performance - that doesn’t happen very often – or leave the business very soon, as they are extremely dangerous for the performance of the whole team.

To raise the who-question when such problems occur

“Who goes before what” also means however: If things are not working out at some place in the business, if there is always something going wrong, if business aims are not being met, then as a rule there are the who-questions to be met, and not what-questions. This is also part of the unpleasant and uncomfortable managerial tasks leading to controversy.

The reality is often different: There are some managerial staff who try very hard to bypass the who-question and proceed to the what-level. A working group or a project group is then formed, a seminar is offered, all people concerned turn round in circles and are then surprised that they land where they began: the problem not solved.

I maintain: Problems in business are in the finish always who-problems. If you face up to the problem consequentially, then you are on the way to top performance.

With the right salon-management we will then have the right salon team sooner or later which will delight customers with their input and good atmosphere and thereby achieve first class results for the branch. If the salon is not doing well, this always has something to do with the salon’s management – which is often difficult to see in detail from the outside. But we have often experienced “spontaneous improvements” when there has been a switchover in salon management, and this too with the same team.

The leadership rank

For me is clear: If the basic business idea is fair enough and is pursued in an economically realistic manner, then the leadership quality in the business is the most decisive factor for long-term business success. And yet it is not only the quality of leadership at the executive level; just as important is the quality of the following managerial levels, especially on the basic managerial level.

Focal point for the daily routine: the lowest managerial level

Why? Because on this level in all businesses about ninety percent of all employees are managed. Employees on the spot see their direct manager daily – not the executive – and register daily: We are well dealt with, we are led well……or not.

It’s easy to imagine what an impact these daily experiences have on the employees’ dedication, work enthusiasm and on the team’s morale. It is at the point that the employee (if he is the right one) contributes his real potential. This is the reason why the basic managerial level is for me the most important in my company.

The leadership skills of my salon management have a decisive influence on the dedication and morale on the staff basis. A much stronger influence than I myself could give! I can ensure the framework circumstances in the business are fair enough, that on the senior managerial level there are suitable people and I can further the quality of salon management through training – if they are the right people. However the daily leadership work and everything which reaches the employees, is the achievement of the salon manager himself. And has to be.

Professional qualification is not the same as leadership qualification

This aspect, the question of leadership quality especially on the basic managerial level is often seriously neglected. The best sales assistant is promoted to areal sales manager, the best hairdresser is promoted to salon manager, the best worker to group leader. Often in cases like this, the technical qualification and performance are only seen, and the question of leadership quality which is of significant importance in the new position, is hardly taken into consideration or only looked on from a distance. And then the drama begins, the end of which is not only having to look for a new manager but also having lost a good salesman. And the team’s performance has become less.

I recommend when looking for managerial personnel to be very careful and apart from the essential technical competence to put leadership quality on a high level.

Look at this aspect with newly appointed managerial personnel if you are a superior manager. Use a trial period and may be time limits to get a picture of the leadership work – talk to employees too!

In my enterprise new salon managers from outside only get temporary contracts – at the most for one year. During this time there is comprehensive coaching: Next to leadership training there are regular – at the minimum every three months – managerial talks with the senior management.

Up-and-coming salon managers from the business get a temporary contract to begin with for their new function as in spite of their training beforehand the leadership quality can only be seen in the position itself. This temporary contract makes a return to the employee position easier, maybe in another salon, if the salon management function does not work out successfully. This at least keeps a good hairdresser for us.

The concept HIGH PERFORMANCE AND THE HUMAN TOUCH

How can it be a success to utilise the enormous performance potential which is there with all employees of all businesses in a really extensive way? The answer is: HIGH PERFORMANCE AND THE HUMAN TOUCH.

Some of the participants of my training courses explain at the beginning that they are very curious as to how this ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Titel
• Content
• Preliminary
• 1 GROUNDWORK
• II THE 35 POINTS OF FIRST CLASS LEADERSHIP
• III REALISATION
• ANNEX
• The author
• Impressum