What makes a good employee bury their face in their hands and under-perform? Ray Zinn says it’s not a mystery. Not to them. But to the leadership? Crickets.
Rob Artigo: Ray, got this message from you the other day, I love this story you told, about recently going to get some medical tests. And you met some medical techs who left you thinking about job satisfaction. So, tell us about this experience, and then we’ll break out from that and talk a little bit about some of the likely causes. Every business person really needs to understand this stuff. This is a competitive job market.
Ray Zinn: Well, this was an interesting one. In fact, I didn’t know we were going to do this podcast, and so it surprised me. But I was in getting some tests run, some blood work, some CT scans, some x-rays and stuff, and just the typical… Not typical, but things you do when you’re having a medical problem and you want to understand what’s going on. So, I just thought I’d ask when I was getting my CT scan, I’d ask, these are very young, but very professional techs that were running the CT scan lab. And I thought I would just ask him how… Typical, the way Ray Zinn [inaudible 00:01:21], I’m very passionate about people, employees, and work, and how companies manage their people.
And so I just said, “Hey, how do you like your job?” And I thought they would come back, “Oh, I love my job. It’s wonderful. I just can’t wait to come to work.” But that’s not what happened. They wouldn’t even engage in the discussion. They were actually frankly ignoring me and didn’t even respond. Just telling me to put my clothes back on and get ready to depart to the next procedure. And so, that caught me off guard. I wasn’t expecting that, actually.
So then, I went into a chest x-ray. So I said, “Well, I’m going to ask this young lady.” Again, she’s a young woman. I thought I’d ask her how she likes her job. And at first she was very reluctant to even discuss it. She just says, “Ah.” Like that. And I was taken back by that comment, “Ah.” So then she went on to say, “Well, it’s a job.” And I said, “Well, you don’t sound very happy.” She says, “Well, I have to work. I need to provide for my family and it’s a job.” And so she says, “I guess I should be happy about that, but I’m not necessarily happy about my boss.” I said, “Oh.” Okay.
So, I’ve known for years when I were running Micrel that 75% of the reasons that employees resign or leave the company is because of their boss or their boss’s boss. So, it’s their first or second level management is why they resign. So, that shows you how important it is to have good managers or supervisors running your organization, because they’re the ones that are going to be at most, to have an influence on whether a person stays or not.
That caused me to reflect. I actually wrote… Amusing, in fact, I might write another chapter on my book about what the primary role of a manager or a supervisor is, and that is to overcome the frustrations of their employees. Because every employee, I don’t care who you are, whether you’re CEO or a person mopping the floor, you’re going to be frustrated. There are frustrations. And good managers are there not to drive the employee. Drive. Not to drive them to success or to do their job, but to lead them, to help them, to support them.
I remember the purpose of a shepherd as a sheep herder. He leads a sheep, he doesn’t drive them. But most of all, the purpose of a shepherd is to protect his flock. Protect his flock. And that’s what a good leader does, is they protect those individuals that work for them, protect them. Protect them from being frustrated, protect them from being harmed, to protect them from just the frustrations of their job. And so the purpose, like again the shepherd, is not to drive his flock, is to lead his flock. The shepherd is not necessarily back there behind him, pounding away on their behinds with a staff. He’s out there leading. They want to. So, a herd of sheep that loves their shepherd, they will follow. You don’t have to drive them. They will follow. They become the mother, the leader of the herd. The leader of the band, as you would.
And so, if you have to drive your employees, you’re not a good leader. Trust me. When you do this walking around management that I’ve talked about in other forms, you’re really finding out what you can do to help them, not to drive them. So, a good shepherd leads his flock, he doesn’t drive his flock.
Rob Artigo: And this is a company culture thing. It’s something that you need to build into the company culture, that you need to have happy employees. I know that you’ve said before, that certain people might assume that the job satisfaction problems they have in their company is because of wages.
Ray Zinn: It’s not, no. The job satisfaction is loving your boss, loving what you do. I’ve asked thousands of leaders over the years, what do they think of their boss? In fact, when I’ve interviewed people, one of the first questions I ask is, “How do you like your last job?” If they said they hated their job, that’s a no-no, that’s a black mark against the interview. And so I ask them, “How do you like your job,” that they respond, “Oh, I loved it.” “How’d you like your boss?” “Oh, I loved my boss.” That’s a plus. And so, then the interview proceeds.
So, when you’re interviewing someone, ask them how they liked their previous job, their company, the boss, and so forth. What culture did they have? Because you want to make sure you’re hiring the people that match the culture of your company. If you like to be beaten and driven and harassed, then maybe you got to look for a company that beats and harasses their employees.
Rob Artigo: Or join the Army Rangers.
Ray Zinn: Yeah, there you go. If you love your job, you love your boss. If you love what they did, then you go on to say, “Then, why are you leaving?” Because that’s the follow-up question, why are you leaving? If they say they hate their boss, they hate the company. Well, you don’t have to ask them why they’re leaving, that’s obvious. But if they are leaving, say why. If you love the company, love your boss, why are you leaving? That’s a good question. The reason people stay at their job is because they love their job or they love their boss. And so, it is a concern to me when we do recruit people because they had to leave somewhere, they had to leave from something. And so, the fact that they’re leaving because they hate their job, they hate their company, they’re going to find the same thing there at your company.
And the story is told about this elderly man who lived on the edge of town and he was the town spokesman as you would, that if anybody wanted the history of the town, they would come and visit with that man. And so, there was a couple that came through considering moving into the town, and they were at the store and they said, “Well, who really knows this town?” And they talked about this elderly man that lived on the edge of town. So, they went out to visit with him and they found him rocking in his chair on the front porch. And they said, “Sir, can we talk to you about this town?” And he said, “Sure. What would you like to know?” And he said, “Well, what town did you come from?” And they told him the town. [inaudible 00:09:02] said, “Well, how’d you like your town?” And they said, “Oh, we hated our town. It was terrible. The people were backbiting. They were not friendly,” and so forth. And he says, “Yep, you’ll find the same thing in this town.”
So then, of course, they went off quite disgruntled. And so then, another couple of would come into town. Again, looking for somebody that knows about the town. And they talked to this elderly gentleman and they said, “Sir, how do you like this town? Can you give us a history of this town?” And he said, “Well, let me ask you a question, how did you like the town you came from?” “Oh, we loved it. We thought the people were wonderful. They were just the happiest and most helpful people you’d ever want to meet.” And he says, “You’re going to find the same thing with our town. It’s a wonderful town. And they love people, they love you. You’re going to fit in really well here.” That summarizes what I’m talking about.
Rob Artigo: Yeah. Well, I think the bottom line with the discussion is that job satisfaction, the happiness among your employees, that’s what drives success and results, not the get out the whip or make people get the oars going faster. So, let’s join the conversation at toughthingsfirst.com. Our listeners are welcome there. Questions and comments are always welcome. Follow Ray Zinn on Twitter. Access, also known as X, Facebook and LinkedIn. And of course Ray’s books, Tough Things First, and the Zen of Zinn series, one, two, and three. And on sale now, The Essential Leader: 10 Skills, Attributes, and Fundamentals That Make Up the Essential Leader. Thank you, Ray.
Ray Zinn: Thanks, Rob.
