Give Direction Don't Give Answers

 

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I recently had a former team member approach me at a work function and tell me that they appreciated the time that we worked together. I thanked them and told them the same and asked them what they appreciated. They told me that when we worked together and they got stuck with a problem, I wouldn't give them the answer. I would instead give them direction. They said that this would upset them in the moment, because they had a client in front of them and just needed an answer so they could move on. I stood there thinking back to how I had done that and how it might have impacted their business when he continued. 

He went on to say, now I really appreciate that you did that. You didn't give me the answer, you made me find the answer. You made me learn how to use my resources and I started to see how that allowed me to help myself when you weren't there. If you had just given me the answer I wouldn't be here today. (When he said here today, was an elite team that did business with a high end clientele. The team was small and there were only a handful that served the country in key markets.)

In life when you are presented with an easy way and a hard way to do something you must stop and ask yourself which path is actually better. Sometimes it will make sense to take the easy way out and other times it's important to take the hard way. In the case above I gave the team member the hard way out of their situation. They just wanted a quick answer so they could move on with their sale, but instead I stopped them and used it as a teaching moment. They didn't lose the sale but it did take a few extra minutes, because they had to stop and look up something important before they could proceed.

I have children and for those of you that also have children, you know that when they are little they need a lot of help. When they are newborns of course, they can't do anything for themselves and as their parents you gladly do everything they need to keep them happy and safe. As they begin to grow they learn to walk and then talk and over time acquire more and more skills and confidence. As these skills and confidence begin to grow, you start to pull back on doing things for them. They must now brush their own teeth, they have to learn their own room, they can't sleep in your bed. As they approach adulthood you begin to stop doing most things for them. They still live under your roof and enjoy the benefits of no rent, utilities or food costs, but everything else is up to them. They must make their own snacks, pack their own lunch, find a part time job on their own, manage and complete their school work without your help. 

As they grew a major transformation occurred. They went from being totally helpless to totally capable. As they acquired those new skills you began to pull back how much you would do for them. They'd come to you for help and eventually you stopped helping them by giving them the answer or doing it for them. Instead you began to give them advice on what to do and left it up to them to put it into action. You were preparing them for life on their own. As a parent, nothing is more satisfying than seeing your children grow into successful adults. As a leader, nothing is more satisfying than seeing your employees grow and develop into successful team members that can work autonomously. 

Good leaders don't worry about hogging the glory. They don't want to constantly be putting out fires or be involved in every decision big or little. They want to help people develop into strong and capable individuals that are able to meet and overcome obstacles through their own skills and experience. Good leaders seek to empower their teams. The more empowered and capable their teams become, the higher their performance and the more satisfied their teams are. Leaders that empower their people have better employee retention, better employee relationships and see more employees develop into the next round of leaders.

What can you do to empower your people instead of doing things for them? How can you give direction instead of giving the answer?  It's relatively simple but will depend on the employee.

Identify their skill level

The first thing you must do is identify the skill level of the employee. New employees are typically not highly skilled and will require high support and high direction. They don't know the answers and even if they had them, they might not know how to implement them even if they did. It's your job to shepherd them through the process from start to finish. Tell them what and how to do it until they feel comfortable.

As they begin to improve their skills you will first start to pull back on support and then over time, even pull back on most direction. You will shift from an employee that needs high support and high direction to one that needs almost no support and almost no direction. You will simply give them a goal and won't need to do anything else to help them achieve it. They will have become self-sufficient. That is the end goal for all team members.

Review performance

The second thing you will do on this journey is to stop and assess. You won't know when to begin to pull back support and direction unless you know the current competency of your team members. It's important to regularly connect and understand their current capabilities. This should occur through both a series of formal and informal meetings. You should encourage them to evaluable their own performance and develop their own next steps. Your part should be to provide advice and direction on that performance and next steps and of course, this too will shift from mostly your advice and direction to theirs over time. As you see your team gaining competence you'll begin to pull back.

Clear outcomes

The last thing you'll want to ensure is that you are providing clear outcomes. Not necessarily clear steps, but instead clear goals. The goal of a leader that empowers their people is not to be involved in every detail, but to clearly communicate the desired outcome and then empower their team to achieve that goal. When you avoid micromanaging a project from start to finish you create an environment where your team's innate creativity and ingenuity can be expressed. New ideas or ways to achieve goals will emerge and those can spur innovation that moves an entire team, department or company forward. Get out of your team's way and let them blow you away with their awesome performance.

That's it. There is no step four. This is a simple cycle of performance that over time leads to highly capable, highly performing teams.  Set clear outcomes, empower your people to get their results and regularly account for performance. Wash, rinse and repeat. That is the simple key to helping your teams go from green new hires to highly successful and productive team members. It will require discipline on your part as leader, especially as you begin to wean new employees off a high level of support. The rewards for doing so, however, greatly outway the minor and temporary discomfort that comes from forcing a team member to fend for themselves.

Have you ever been in an environment where you found yourself having to figure things out for yourself? What did you learn? I want to hear about it! Post below or contact me to tell me more!