How to Make Sure You're Taking Care of Your Top Performers.
It's way too easy to
neglect the people you rely on, because they usually don't need your help to
get important things done. But they do need recognition and reward.
Expert Opinion By Howard
Tullman, General managing partner, G2T3V and Chicago High Tech
Investors @howardtullman1
Aug 27, 2024
There remains a pressing
need at this critical and uncertain period in our country's future for every
concerned business leader to take the time to take care of team members. Whether they tell
you outright, keep these concerns to themselves, or discuss them with peers and
family, there's no one who isn't more than a little anxious about their
continued employment, their company's prospects, and their continuing role in
the business.
Now's not the time
to start losing key players because you haven't been paying attention to
them and anticipating their needs. Important contributors are often the first
to bail without notice because they've got plenty of alternatives and
unfortunately, they rarely leave alone. As often as not, they leave because
they've reached a point where they're no longer willing to do it just for the
money. They're looking for a lot more in the way of challenges, job
satisfaction, appreciation, and ultimate rewards. When they're part of a small
and tight working team, especially if they're engineers or computer scientists,
their departure can trigger a flood of folks following them out the door.
The reasons that
management must get involved in these ongoing conversations are obvious -- and
selfish in some ways as well. If you don't care about reassuring, recognizing
and rewarding your people, you won't have to worry about retaining them. We all
understand that it's the people who are the irreplaceable foundation of every
successful business. Your back-seat-driving board members and impatient
investors may tell you that no one is irreplaceable, which is easy for them to
say from the comfort of their box seats. But you're the one who has the
day-to-day task of keeping the team happy, focused and together. And words
alone won't get the job done, actions speak much louder and show everyone that
you're willing to put your money where your mouth is -- even if money isn't the
only concern.
I've come to believe
that - while everyone agrees with the basic idea - there are a lot of valid
questions about both the means and the methodology of keeping your team intact
and innovative.
As to the means, even if
you're fortunate enough to have the spare change to make the right financial
gestures, which most companies don't have right now, dollars alone aren't going
to be enough. Money may be the way that people without talent keep score, but
the best people are looking for a lot more than just a few incremental bucks.
And in the current environment, far out of the money options aren't much of an
incentive either.
The best people in your
business came aboard as believers - they bought into the vision, they
wanted to do meaningful and challenging work, they wanted the work to
matter, make a difference. And maybe most of all, they wanted to be
in a place where they had a chance to learn and keep learning the things that
money just can't buy. The smartest entrepreneurs chase the vision, not the
money. They know that if you deliver on the dream, the money will follow.
But, after enough time
passes, it's critical to try to refresh and renew the program; revise and
restate the objectives; and reiterate the ultimate goals for the key members of
the team because even the most exciting projects can grow stale. There's
always more to do than time allows, people's patience wears thin, and the story
they were sold seems to shrink and keep receding into the distant future. It's
a truism in technology that software development is a few moments of creation
and a lifetime of maintenance. Finding the final few bugs in the latest release
is less exciting when you've been doing it for a decade and the accolades are
fewer and far between.
The challenge becomes a
chore, and the job looks like an endless journey.
As to the methodology,
it turns out that I needed to be more precise and targeted in my proposals and
- in particular - to avoid the idea that treating everyone a little bit better,
but all basically the same, made sense. Trying to spread relatively scarce
funds across a large group of team members - being a mile wide and an inch deep
- becomes more of a disappointment to everyone than anything effective. More
importantly, trying to please everybody - however you try to do it - never
works. Even if it's milk and honey rather than tar and feathers, you can't
paint everybody with the same brush. The best plans focus on equity rather than
equality and they're based on strengths, skills, and a demonstrated and
continued commitment.
The crucial
consideration today is identifying the critical keepers and specifically
addressing their needs and desires which, as I noted above, are usually about a
lot more than money. These are the ones on whom the business depends for their
expertise, accumulated knowledge and experience, customer connections and
relationships, and leadership. Focus on the top 10% of the people in each area
and concentrate your efforts on them if you're looking for real results. The
top performers work harder and longer and contribute exponentially more to the
effort than the typical employees and need to be rewarded accordingly.
Although there's no
one-size-fits-all solution, we know for sure that the two things people want
more than sex or money are recognition and praise. Silent gratitude is of no
use to anyone and it's easy for a hard-working team doing complicated tasks to
feel misunderstood and unappreciated. In addition, the top talents want direct
responsibility, independence, new challenges, and the time and necessary
resources to finish what they've started without concessions or compromises.
There's a lot of pride
in the creation process and an important sense of purpose as well. The players
need to believe that they're trusted by the management and owners and that
those folks - however distant and clueless they may be about the development work
itself - still care greatly about the people who are actually making things
happen and appreciate that the business would be nowhere without them.
The bottom line is that
there's no end to the talent retention process and there's no one today whose
loyalty and commitment should be automatically assumed and, worse yet, taken
for granted. If you want to keep your best people, you've got to keep at it and
double down on the ones you can't afford to lose.