In tough economic times such as now, leaders and employees are constantly being tested. Staff often succumb to worry and anxiety that can erode morale and productivity across an organization. Frederic stresses the importance of an “egoless” culture, in which staff feel comfortable engaging with senior management to discuss their concerns, as well as regular and open communication to ensure staff understand the Big Picture and appreciate the reasons behind the tough decisions. He touches on the calibre of leadership that is required to maintain morale and ensure a company “stays the course” in challenging times.

Of course, basic human nature makes it impossible to create a workforce comprised solely of happy and loyal model employees. But there are clear strategies one can employ to bring out the best in the individual, to ensure accountability and a clear understanding of duties and responsibilities, and fit the right person to the right job.

These best practices can be broken down into three broad themes:

1) Establish clear goals and communicate them, not only to your team, but to yourself

What are the objectives your organization is trying to achieve? What does success look like? How do you define it? What will it take to get there? And most importantly, what role does each individual have to play in helping the organization achieve these objectives? Your staff need to both understand their roles and feel that what they do is a valued and necessary contribution.

Even as a sole proprietor, taking yourself through this process of objective self-examination is vital. Defining your vision and your objectives for other people you trust will clarify them in your own mind and keep you accountable to accomplish what you said you would. This audience can range from suppliers and clients, to peers in your professional network and those individuals whom you look to as mentors. Soliciting this outside input can keep you on track or put you back on track.

2) Be a sharp instrument, not a blunt one.

Few companies have ever failed for every trying to do too little. Don’t spread yourself too thin. If you focus your resources and the energies of your team on a few key goals, you are much more likely to achieve them. Having staff running in too many directions at once can create undue stress and anxiety that will erode productivity and morale.

A recession can offer the ideal opportunity to hone your business. It demands that you cut the fat and focus on what’s really important. In good times, it’s easy to let things slide and still get by –but recessions are less forgiving.

3) Decide how work is going to be delegated, measured.

Identify who will be responsible for specific aspects or tasks of a project. Provide a challenge you know is within the individual’s capabilities that will help them stretch and grow. Communicate to the individual that a task is being assigned to them because of the trust you have in them to deliver. The idea is to get them to commit and buy in to the process, take ownership and be accountable.

Consistent measurement

To ensure the project is on track, measure in progress by breaking the project down into milestone objectives. Engage in an active dialogue with regular meetings and other forms of communication in which your team is encouraged to share their thoughts, concerns and successes.

Measure the output once the project is complete. Did everyone hit target … or not? What lessons were learned that can be applied next time to achieve better results?

Evaluation and correction

Regardless of how diligently you apply these principles, staff will fail to fulfill their commitments. This may be a function of poor work ethic, but often it is an avoidable consequence of poor planning and communication at the outset. In other circumstances, a person may simply be the wrong fit for the job, but may bloom and excel in another position if given the opportunity.

No prescription needed

Often, managers start things off on the wrong foot when they assign work by prescribing what is to be done without taking the time to discuss with staff HOW it will be done. Again, it comes back to instilling the confidence and understanding that will lead staff to step up and take ownership. Let them volunteer ideas about how a project can be completed or an objective achieved. If you just hand work AND the process to do it to people, they can feel like drones and lose engagement. They must feel motivated by a Big Picture understanding of the positive contribution they are making to the organization as a whole, rather than by fear of being sacked if they fail to deliver.

Develop an action plan and have it centrally available to ensure everyone is on the same page and provide a benchmark against which progress can be measured. This can identify any problems early on that members of your team may very well work together to resolve themselves without involving senior management.

Make a clean break

On the other hand, we’ve often heard managers and executives say “The biggest mistake I made was not letting that person go sooner.”

Sometimes, organizations will take too long to let go of someone who is clearly a poor fit. The negative impact of a poor employee becomes that much more acute in tough times when the best is needed from everyone. But it is much better for the organization to cut the cord and fill the position with a stronger candidate sooner rather than later. It may also be better for the individual since it will free them to pursue an opportunity for which they are better suited.

A great reference for business owners and managers on the importance of building the right team and “getting the right people on the bus” is Good to Great by Jim Collins. Though Collins focuses on larger organizations, his core principles apply just as well to smaller enterprises.

Effective internal communications are key

So what can an employer do? Communicate, communicate, communicate. Don’t hesitate to sit down with staff, as a group or individually, to provide a frank and honest assessment of the situation and what actions are being taken to maintain a viable business and weather the storm.

• Leadership. Demonstrating strong leadership instils confidence in your team and builds morale, which of course drives the productivity and performance your business needs to survive and thrive. Good leaders have, and can communicate, a clear and compelling vision of the future that inspires people. They maintain their focus on the Big Picture regardless of the immediate challenges the organization may be facing.
•  The power of symbols. Good leaders make use of symbols to illustrate the future direction in a powerful way. Create a picture of the future and talk about how people should make an effort to create that future. Associating this picture or roadmap with a project name, slogan or a logo can help individuals identify with the vision and understand how they can actively participate or support it. For example, think of the Wear Red Fridays campaign to support our troops, or the pink ribbon campaign for Breast Cancer.
• Have a plan. Work with your management team to develop key messages that you want to share with staff and develop the communication plan to get the word out. Honesty is crucial, but so too is providing an optimistic message about the future of your business. Visions and plans help align individuals and coordinates actions without having to constantly check with managers, peers, or the boss. They can work together with a level of independence without duplicating efforts or running into each other.
• Use multiple channels to communicate. Disseminate information to employees in many different formats – staff meetings, town halls meetings, email, newsletters, intranet or other internal communication vehicles. Employ the Rule of 7:7 – communicate seven different ways, seven times – this is best practice for large organizations.
• Provide options. Discuss with employees how their skill sets may be utilized differently in the event that your business may be slowing down in some areas but you may be looking for opportunities to grow in other market segments. How can you leverage the skill sets of your employees to take advantage of new opportunities?
• Have regular meetings. Weekly, twice a month, or monthly, and keep the agenda to items that affect staff in that period, with a short section on long-term goals/plans/projects.
• Employ emotional intelligence. In meetings, stick to the facts, don’t let anyone make it personal, and avoid rhetorical or pointless discussions. Know when it is time to call it quits. Sometimes it is better to adjourn a meeting and come back to it at another time than to keep going around in unproductive circles that can cause friction or frustration.
• Target information appropriately. Make sure everyone always gets the same information, but also limit distribution to the people/departments that need to know. Have a shared drive or folder where memos can be left, along with FAQs and answers.
• Nip it in the bud. Deal with rumours as the come up – don’t wait.
• Confirm availability. Make sure everyone knows when you or other members of the management team are available – keep calendars up to date, mark down vacation times, and times out of the office. Let staff know how to contact you when you are not in the office.

Email Tips

When communicating with staff by email, there are clear guidelines to follow to ensure consistency, appropriate messaging and important information is in fact making it through to staff through whatever other distractions may be cluttering their inboxes:

• Keep emails short. Whatever fits on a standard computer screen. If someone has to scroll down for information, they are less likely to read it all the way through.
• Write subject lines with meaning. Don’t forward, forward, forward. Make subject lines actionable.
• Keep copies of sent items. Sometimes the information you sent will be needed again.
• Don’t ever reply in anger. If you have a situation that is bothering you, write what you feel and save it as a draft. If you still feel the same way 24 hours later, send it.
• Spelling and grammar. Perception is everything. Any communication, not just email, whether internal or external, must demonstrate professional polish. 
• Use a personalized format. This extends to font, color, arrangement of text, and signature. Whatever format you adopt, stick with it and be consistent. This extends to deciding on the use of Meta-language, such as LOL, ROTFL, BTW, IMHO, J, , <g>, *emphasis*, SHOUTING.
• Internal communications can quickly become public. How many times have you read newspaper stories that feature internal memos and emails that were never intended to be read outside of the organization in question? Avoid this potential embarrassment by only putting into the email what you can bear to see repeated in the newspaper.

Teleconference Tips

• Have a realistic agenda. The amount of ground you want to cover may more appropriately be broken into more than one call.
• Be ready. Prepare the agenda in advance and distribute it to participants prior to the call.
• Start-of-call review. Begin a call with a review of where things were left at the end of the last call, what action items came out of the previous call and how they have been addressed. This ensures everyone is on the same page and the call can proceed more efficiently.
• Roll call on key points. Follow this review with a quick overview of the agenda for this call and address any immediate questions participants may have.
• End-of-call protocol. Have a consistent way of wrapping up the call, reviewing new action items and confirming who is responsible for them.
• Workable number of participants. It can be difficult to have a constructive conversation and keep track of a chorus of faceless voices if there are too many participants on the call.
• Seating template. There are a number of conference call services with online sessions that require a log-in. This allows participants to see who else is on the call, put faces to names and keep track of who has the floor.
• Know when to quit. Again, your agenda may require an additional session. Also, provide reasonable breaks that give participants time to stretch their legs and refresh themselves.
• A picture’s worth a 1,000 words. Sometimes it’s easier to explain with a picture. An online collaboration and facilitation tool can allow you to share information and documents with others.
• Share your calendar. Or make it available to the project team to enable efficient scheduling.
• Document Repository. Create a single location for materials with online access to review, edit, and store information without having to send large files over the Internet.

Remember, uncertain times foster fear and anxiety which can erode morale, weaken productivity and drive good employees to consider other offers. Your employees need clear and consistent communication from the top that is frank, honest, and provides an optimistic outlook for the future without ignoring the challenges of the present. If you don’t keep the channels of communication open, rumours and innuendo could cause significant damage to your organization, regardless of how unfounded they may be.