If You Want Your Employees To Improve, You Need To Keep Improving

It should be clear by now that if you think you are as good as you need to be, you need to think again. Let’s start with three quick questions:

1. Are you spending time consistently improving your management and people skills?

2. What have you invested so far this year in your own personal and career development?

3. What is your working philosophy of routinely investing time and resources in your personal and career development?

I am often amazed at how many managers are quick to send their employees to seminars and skill-development programs while they sit in their offices trying to figure out why sales are down, performance is marginal, profits are lagging, and organizational effectiveness is chaotic to some degree. If you have never attended my two-day management boot camp, let me share one of the critical premises from this program: Everything in your organization is a “top-down” issue.

1. If top-down communication is ineffective, bottom-up communication will be poor.
2. If top-down direction is unclear or confusing, bottom-up performance will be deficient.
3. If top-down trust is absent, bottom-up trust will be negligible.
4. If top-down ownership of projects or initiatives is inconsistent, bottom up actions will be timid.
5. If top-down leadership is lacking, bottom-up effectiveness will be missing.
6. If top-down messages are mixed, bottom-up morale will be inconsistent.
7. If top-down decision making is tentative, bottom-up performance will be faltering.

Is this enough incentive to keep improving yourself? As I’ve said before: If you have a problem in your organization, look up the ladder for the cause and down the ladder for the solution. Unfortunately, many organizations today act in the reverse. They look down for the cause and up for the solution.

The solution is to develop a game plan for your own on-going self development. There are many options at your disposal:

1. Hire a career or business coach.
2. Attend management classes on a routine basis.
3. Attend at least one personal development seminar or program per month.
4. Join a business Book of the Month Club.
5. Listen to audio programs on business areas that interest you and are of benefit to you.
6. Get a business mentor.
7. Attend a management forum.
8. Bring a professional trainer into your organization to conduct a custom management/leadership program.
9. Get active in your industry’s association.
10. Attend networking events in your industry or at your professional level.
11. Join a professional organization such as the CEO Clubs, Young Presidents’ Organization, or Executive

Committee.

If you are investing in your employees’ development so they can be better equipped to more effectively perform their job functions as the world changes, don’t you think it would make sense for you to do the same for yourself? Why not try a simple rule of thumb. For every dollar and hour you invest in your employees’ development as a group, invest ten percent of both in your own development.