Most small businesses operate too often by the “seat of their pants” and don’t have enough policies. Last week, we heard all over the news channels, about a nurse at a senior living facility who refused to offer CPR to a resident. I know the story is complicated at best. What I am sure of, is that it set off a firestorm of controversy about the topic
– should an employee always follow protocol, even if they find it objectionable, immoral or deadly? Mind you, we don’t have enough information to form a final opinion in this specific case. Then we heard a new headline about Tim Hortons restaurant refusing to let a teenager use their phone to call for help during an asthma attack – again, quoting company policy. In the marketing game, managers quoting policy does not work as a defense of the policy.

Details of these particular incidents aside, my point is that we create policies for a reason. Occasionally, it is
even for a good reason. Most policies are about sales, service issues, handling exchanges or refunds, etc. When we use policies exclusively to run our business, we risk replacing the ability to think like humans. Policy can be handled by computers, so customers may as well only shop online. However, is it realistic to trust employees to use their best judgment and not give away the store? How do we strike a balance to empower employees to offer the best customer service and the safest environments, while following policies that we create for good reasons?

First, you have to have reasonable policies that balance the interest of the company with the interest of the employees and the interest of the customer. Have an objective mentor or consultant review your policies for you – what you think is fair, may be very one-sided and costing you sales, staff or both. At the very least, involve staff in the creation of policies, so you have input from different points of view.

Second, check with your competitors to make sure you are at least as generous. If you sell clothing and have a no-returns policy for example, this is completely unacceptable to the majority of retail customers. Customers don’t care about your legal loophole or small print; they expect you to take returns. I’m not telling you what to do with your business; I  know, you are the owner or manager; it’s your decision so you can win the argument and lose the customer if you want. This week, one of my employees was unable to buy aspirin at a convenience store without buying more items to meet their minimum purchase requirement to use her debit card. I’m glad she wasn’t
having a heart attack at the time. After spreading the bad word-of-mouth advertising, she swears she will never darken their door again. If the standard in your business is free refills, or easy returns, or to take credit cards, or
free delivery, then you really need to do those things or have a compelling reason not to.

Finally, know the personality types of your staff and train accordingly. Some of our employees tell us that their prior
employers literally told them not to think. It’s your job to teach them to think about work situations, the way you
need them to think. Employees with a certain personality type may take every policy as absolute gospel under any circumstance. Others think rules are just general guidelines. In truth, most policies vary between the two and your staff needs to know which ones are which, and how much leeway they have to make decisions, especially in extreme situations. I don’t have a hard time getting employees to follow policy; they’ve had a lifetime of rules drilled into them by large companies trying to turn them into policy-quoting drones. This is seldom a good thing. I have a harder time getting employees to believe that they have the power to create better solutions on the fly. Give them examples, engage them in discussions and have them help you make decisions. This creates empowered people
to free you to work on more important things.

If, on the other hand, your particular problem is a lack of policies to worry about, well, that’s another matter. Small
businesses often lack policies that guide them through tough situations.  Any situation (outside the normal course of what the owner does), that requires the owner’s personal attention on a repeating basis, probably needs a system or a policy. Let’s cover that another day, or contact me directly if this is an issue causing you great
pain.

Michael Kline is a local retailer, success coach and trainer. He may be reached through his website, www.klineseminars.com, or e-mail, mike@klineseminars.com.

Top Five Strengths for
Business
By Michael Kline

In our last column, you had some homework to do. Thank you for those who emailed it in to me, and while it does earn extra credit, it isn’t really necessary. In case you missed it, you were to identify your top five character strengths, so that today, we could talk about applying them to your success. Don’t panic if you didn’t do your homework. I’m guessing it’s not the first time, and it probably won’t be the last. Simply go to www.authentichappiness.com and take the “VIA Survey of Character Strengths”. Invest 15 minutes and get some answers that could take days of self-reflection to realize and admit on your own. While you’re at the site, feel free to play with some of the happiness surveys as well, but be sure to write down your top five character strengths. 

In a recent local goals workshop, my students overwhelmingly agreed this exercise was very helpful to them. Let’s start with an easy example. If your top strengths include creativity, energy and wisdom, imagine how limited you might feel at work on an assembly line. If you can’t change jobs, you might benefit from finding very expressive and creative activities as hobbies, volunteer work or with your family. If work is a big part of your life, you might feel completely unfulfilled, even depressed and hopeless. On the other hand, if other strengths like self-discipline and humility figure into the equation, you might appreciate the routine work as almost meditational in nature. The point is, to know ourselves is critical before we start working on ourselves or our businesses. 

When writing a job description before hiring someone, you decide what qualities you want in a successful candidate. You might even use adjectives to describe personality traits such as attention to detail, outgoing, etc. Have  you written your own job description? Have you evaluated yourself against the expectations your work should require? Honestly, most of us are not well-rounded enough to be entrepreneurs. Who could live up to the expectations of work that requires every strength to be at the top of the list at all times?! To be creative and optimistic is critical, but so is self-discipline and being industrious. The need for humor helps, but so does high energy, honesty, humility, bravery and caution at the same time! No, most of us rely on a partner, a spouse, a key employee or outsourced professional to do our bookkeeping, our marketing, our organizing, our selling, or whatever area we dislike or consider a weakness or distraction from our primary work. This allows us to focus on the things at which we excel and it compensates for our so-called weaknesses.

Let’s consider the stereotypical entrepreneur –  if your zest for saying yes to everything has you overcommitted, ask yourself how you can use your creativity to learn to manage your time. Can you learn enough self-discipline to focus on one project until it’s successful before you invent new sets of problems? (yes, you can). Are there some things you should learn to avoid altogether? Of course. Get to know yourself, and then consider how to manage yourself. The good news is I want you to focus on your top strengths; you don’t necessarily need to consider your lower-rated strengths as weaknesses. It is valuable to be aware of them however.

If, on the survey of strengths, you read your complete report, you probably feel pretty good about having 24 strengths and no weaknesses. It is a very different way of looking at things. Consider applying the same logic to your employees, partner, spouse or children. They too, have a lot of strengths, on which you would do well to focus. Yes, everyone needs to be able to function in life and work, at a minimum level in all required areas, but they do not need
to excel in every area. What we normally call “areas for improvement”, or “weakness” might be better done by someone else who processes that talent as their strength. This approach to life and management is easier to understand and apply if you understand Steven Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Habits #4,5&6 cover thinking win/win, understanding then being understood and synergy. If you still haven’t read this all-time best-ever life and business  book, that’s this week’s homework. If you have read it, consider that knowing  something is not the same as doing something. Think about ways to apply the lessons to real life and enjoy!