Managing relationships more effectively
No management degree should be offered without requiring a stint of managing a fast-food restaurant. These workplaces present unique management challenges as they combine low wages, high turnover, part time loyalty and portability. Fast food employees are starting their work career, hoping to move on and up to better work at any moment. They are learning employment skills on the job. Minimum wage is a great leveler, providing equal opportunity at a multitude of venues. With employee turnover rates commonly exceeding 100% per year, employee commitment or loyalty can be measured by Crane fly life spans.
Motivating such an ever shifting flock of employees is a constant challenge. Managers can’t offer more pay, can’t give more hours and can’t provide greater benefits, nor can they dramatically change working conditions. Any mistakes in management usually increase an already astronomical turnover rate, with employees leaving at any time for another equivalent position.
So what tools does a manager have to impact employees in this environment? Only one; they can manage their relationships better. Managers who treat employees like cogs on a gear are constantly replacing the cogs. Managers who are dismissive of employee concerns experience employee mutinies, where an entire shift just doesn’t show up. Managers who won’t listen to employees, relate to their issues or offer affirmation and support end up constantly starting new relationships instead of deepening existing ones.
A good fast food manager quickly learns the negative impact of bad relationship management. Manage your minimum-wage stakeholders without empathy and they’ll leave immediately. Implement policies badly and they’ll leave immediately. Treat them without respect and they’ll leave immediately.
High pay, good benefits and promotion possibilities make it easier to manage people poorly; employees will stay in spite of bad management if they can’t match pay, benefits or promotion potential anywhere else. It’s often said that people will stay at a bad company if they have a good manager, and this is true. It is also true that people often stay at a good company if they have a bad manager, sticking it out until they get to work with someone else. But they’re not experiencing the relationships they deserve.
Fast food chains could do us all a favor by providing a 3-month internship for every management program graduate; you can make every known management mistake in three months at a fast food restaurant, and amply experience the fallout of poor management decisions along the way.
So what does this have to do with stakeholder communication?
Today’s Facebook-speed communication environment has created a Crane fly relationship management world. A momentary event can damage or destroy your reputation, yet be replaced in public consciousness before you can mount a defense. Stakeholders are fractured by interests and location, news source and web access. They don’t have to invest in long term relationships with media sources, they can play the field among a multiplicity of equal media opportunities. Every stakeholder acts like a fast-food employee.
You have little to offer them to maintain your relationships. Manage your relationships with them badly and they will leave, taking your reputation with them. Manage it well and they’ll stay, allowing you the opportunity to shape their knowledge, attitudes and experience.
The same qualities that make a fast-food manager successful make a communicator successful:
- Respect: We are worth more than what we are paid. Managers who understand this will recognize the value of their employees, maximize their strengths and carefully address their concerns. Loyalty’s price tag isn’t measured in pay, it is measured in the value granted to the individual.Communicators, understand the immense value each stakeholder brings, and treat each of them with respect. Thank them for reaching out with their concerns. Acknowledge their special needs. Be considerate of their schedules. Make their job as easy as you can. Earn their loyalty to the response.
- Information: Minimum-wage earners aren’t mushrooms and shouldn’t be treated as such. Bottom-rung employees have the least impact on practice or policy, and are often relegated to barely-need-to-know status when it comes to decisions that can greatly impact them. Managers who care will take the time to provide the background, considerations and decision process that has led to new policies or practices. They can’t change the outcome, but they can impact acceptance.Communicators, provide all the information you can to help stakeholders understand how decisions are made. Acknowledge the negative consequences to response decisions and explain why they are necessary. Highlight why specific actions are taken – the more difficult they are, the more thoroughly they should be explained. Give your stakeholders the information they need to accept response decisions.
- Feedback: Today, employees at every level expect to be heard. Lack of hearing is interpreted as lack of respect, or as dishonesty. Good managers keep an open door and are willing to hear criticism without defensiveness. Good listening skills lead to better understanding, and understanding always increases acceptance.Communicators, be sure you have a strong feedback loop. Be sure you are hearing stakeholder concerns, not just listening past them. Identify shared concerns and acknowledge them. Always welcome feedback or criticism. Allow time for stakeholders to process new information, and encourage their responses. Feedback given and heard leads to ownership.
- Gratitude: A little bit of gratitude goes a long way in any job. A good manager may not be able to offer a shorter shift, better working conditions or more pay, but they can always express appreciation for work well done. With good communication, people implicitly know if they’re getting all that can be given, and a ‘thank you’ always adds value. Employees who feel valued stay longer and work better.Communicators, thank people for being there! In response communication, you are fighting to preserve or enhance your reputation with people who don’t have to be there for you to talk to. Nor do they need to do anything to help you. Yet here they are, in front of you at a news conference or community meeting, on the other end of the phone, or even on the other end of the radio, listening to what you have to say. You can’t make their lot in life easier, and you can’t make up for the mess they’re suffering through. But you can thank them for caring. Stakeholders who feel valued stick around linger.
- Welcome: Good managers are always looking for the next employee, and they’re finding them through the ones they already have. Every person working in any job knows someone who is looking for work. Good managers draw these names out, and make it clear that good employees are always welcome. These managers are the ones who hire without advertising, land better prospects and build better teams.Communicators, always encourage your stakeholders to share your information with other interested people. Doing so is a sign of respect, of welcome and of gratitude. It tells your stakeholders that they are important to you, and so are their friends. This implicit referral increases the likelihood that your story will be shared and that other key influencers will start showing up at your workplace. You will gain the most motivated stakeholders who are seeking you out because someone they trust and respect has told them about you. And they’re coming with the heightened expectations and motivations you want.
Intangibles’ impact
All these actions are intangibles, none in itself has any weight. But when they are applied in addition to the currency of actions, they multiply the weight of each one. Taking the time to offer your stakeholders the intangibles of respect, information, feedback, gratitude and welcome will multiply your message. You can build better stakeholder relationships! Try it.
While you’re at it
Principles that enhance management of employees and stakeholders can be translated to more important relationships too. How many other arenas could be impacted by applying these? As I write this I’m convicted that I owe these courtesies to everyone important in my life, Shouldn’t we offer the most we can, to those who are the most important to us?
Not a bad New Year’s resolution!