At green garden gates, there are many qualities we look for in choosing our managers. We observe the candidate in his or her present workplace, we, both anonymously and at the interviews placing the candidate in situations and evaluate their responses. We closely examine their backgrounds. Here are some of the qualities that have been gathered from consultants and garden store owners, as well as the thoughts of Bill Gates of Microsoft that help form a template for choosing these managers.
Will the candidate like our industry?
It is hard to imagine that a chemist who spent a career in a quiet lab will be happy in the retail garden store business. We need some clue, some background in their work history that they enjoyed retailing as a whole, an outdoor working environment, the interaction of people and fellow employees and the sale of gardening plants and products. It is difficult for a manager to be productive without enthusiasm.
Can the candidate hire employees effectively and terminate employees skillfully?
Green garden gates is a strong team of employees, sharing, communicating and committed. If an employee cannot measure up, will the candidate spot the problem and deal with the issue quickly and decisively? Many employees just do not have this attribute when they are chosen to move up to a management role. They are miserable and often afraid to pull the trigger with an employee.
In almost every case, the manager must recognize unhappy employees and plot a strategy to either rescue them or terminate them quickly and efficiently.
“One of my employees was a checker for several years. She was wonderful at her work, but she grew unhappy in her job. She came to me at the end of the spring season and wanted more challenge and opportunity. We talked about what she would like to do in my garden store and we settled on a new job as a florist in that department. She took to the job like a duck to water and stayed with me sixteen years, happy and content. I would have lost her if we did not move her to meet her skills.
Garden store owner
Nevada
Garden store owner
Nevada
Will the candidate see the attributes of an employee, focus on the positive and use their skills at green garden gates or will the candidate just write off a perfectly good but badly directed person?
Can the candidate create a positive and productive environment?
Our goal at green garden gates is to provide an atmosphere for our employees to want to come to work each morning and enjoy the satisfaction of an important contribution to our stores each day.
Can our candidate make it interesting for the employees? Does our candidate have the skills to fashion a combination of approaches to achieve this? We are looking for the light in our employees eyes. We are a failure if all we see is a robotic movement of “children of the corn”. It may mean a flexible work area, job assignment or hours of work. It may mean a program of financial incentives for particular products purchased or tasks completed. It may be as simple as providing a more equipped lunch area or recreational options on their lunch hour.
Can the candidate define “success” to the garden store staff and motivate them to work toward that success?
Success to green garden gates is not the first sale of a new customer to our stores. It is the second, third and continuous visits that make us win. To get our customers back to our doors requires a comprehensive plan with a “bottom up” contribution of the garden store staff, defining achievable goals and setting realistic standards. Why did this customer walk away and bought petunias at another store? Did our customer get enough information to feel comfortable in choosing our products? The garden store staff, in the trenches, day in and day out, will know the answers to these questions and in most cases will know how to solve them. Can our candidate listen, understand and act by correcting and adjusting?
Does the candidate like people and communicate with people well?
This is very hard to fake. If you do not enjoy interaction with people, it will be hard to manage them well. Good managers need relationships with a fair number and wide range of people, including the employees of the manager. A manager must encourage these people to tell him or her what is going on in the store and how he or she is doing.
Can the candidate build morale?
Make it clear there is plenty of goodwill to go around and that it is not just you, the hotshot manager who is going to look good if things go well. Can this person give his or her employees a sense of importance of what they are working on-its importance to the company and its importance to our customers of green garden gates? The retail garden industry is full of very high highs and very low lows during the season and beyond. Is the candidate able to keep morale as the highest possible level through good times and bad?
Will the candidate sometimes take on the nasty projects?
A manager must do more than communicate. The last thing employees want is a boss who just doles out stuff. The manager needs to get in there and take some of those crappy little jobs.
The following are the five P’s of leadership by a consultant, Wally Bock. We use this model also in deciding on our first manager of green garden gates
1. Pay attention to what is important
The job of a leader and a manager is to concentrate on what is important so that it gets take care of. Then let the rest of the stuff take care of itself. If the manager is a perfectionist, that is going to be very hard to do. We realize at green garden gates that there are limited resources of time, energy, people and money. Go for the big stuff, the most important stuff first. The trick is finding that 20% that gives the most bang for the buck. Once is it found, pay attention to it.
2. Praise what you want to continue
Praise is a reward for something done right. Use praise to continue in this path. Praise is most effective when it is used inconsistently. If praise is routine and canned, it loses its force. Most people have come up in the world where they did not hear praise enough. Seek out the opportunities to praise.
3. Punish what you want to stop
This is the tool used to get people to stop stuff. If something is harmful to the business, there needs to be a consequence. Be careful with punishment. Remember the hot stove guideline; “A cat who sits on a hot stove will never sit on the hot stove again. But, he won’t sit on a cold stove either!”
If you zap people too much with negative consequences, the just don’t quit doing the bad stuff, they quit doing pretty much everything. That is why “rule by fear” companies have a devil of a time getting people to take initiative. Employees been zapped so often they are not willing to risk it.
4. Pay for the results you want
Pay and praise are the things that get the engine of progress going. Don’t limit your thinking about pay to just money. Pay people with time off, recognition, choice assignments, small gifts, and special bonuses to encourage positive behavior. One client carried a pocketful of gift certificates as he wandered around his trucking company. When he found an employee doing something that he wanted to encourage, he would whip out a gift certificate and hand it to the employee on the spot. That action created even and drama that makes for good communication and a positive workplace.
“The owner of the garden store where I work is pretty cool. Every year around Mother’s Day when we are working are butts off, he slips a hundred dollar bill in our hand and says thank you for all the hard work.”
Garden store employee
Maryland
5. Promote people who deliver the results for the store
Many companies forget about the people who really turn the wheel. They stick to the old behavior of promoting people who “go along to get along” or knows somebody. Go into any company, Listen to the stories the employees tell about who gets promoted. That will tell you about everything you need to know about what the real organizational priorities are. We want those stories at green garden gates to be positive about the great things bosses and managers do. If most of the stories are negative, buddy, we have a problem.
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