What Causes Employees to Metamorphose Into Different, Better Performers?
After 15 years of running my agency, it was time to go. It had been fun, but that was long enough.
Providentially, a client made me CEO of his startup in Silicon Valley. I was to have a shot at being a philanthropist.
I wanted the clients who'd worked with us to still have a resource. I wouldn’t have been happy just bailing on them. I needed to put my best, most-likely-to-succeed team in charge.
In the agency business, there are three kinds of people: getters, growers and keepers.
Getters. They get the work. They're exciting, interesting and fearless. They persuade people to entrust that first project to your shop. You can’t leave them too long on projects they bring in. They can do day-to-day project work but boredom kicks in if they're not hunting.
Growers. When you put a Grower on a project clients find new things for them to do. The relationship grows and grows. Growers are, long term, more valuable than Getters.
Keepers. A Keeper is loyal first to the project. They’re more willing to tell a client to up their game. The client will appreciate it in the long run. But in the moment, it can get tense.
Best bet: a two-person team, a Grower – loyal to the client – and a Keeper – loyal to the project and the deadline.
I picked the perfect pair to take over the agency. An Account Manager, Jay Bower and a production manager, Mary Plamieniak. Grower and Keeper. They’d worked together as a team for me. Give them a client and they'd double business with them in a year, no problem. But they both scored zero as Getters.
I got them together and told them I was putting them into business as partners. I told them they'd resist, but that no sane person would pass this deal up.
They got almost all the company, no money down. They paid for the furniture over time and that was it.
Jay and Mary weren’t Getters. But there would be a flow of returning clients for at least a couple of years. I guessed they could hire a Getter later.
No need. Out of the blue, Jay Bower became Mr. Networker. He was totally involved in the lives of his current and future clients, prospects and everyone else, it seemed, on the planet.
For years after Jay the butterfly popped out of his chrysalis, I congratulated myself on the luck of it all. I'd bet on a Getter, and he transformed himself through necessity into a Getter. How fortunate, I thought.
One day, I was casually reevaluating Everything That Ever Happened to Me. And Shazam! I realized how wrong I’d been. Jay came out of his shell because I WAS the SHELL!
It was ME holding him back. If I hadn’t been so overwhelming with every client who called and so dominant in meetings, Jay would have blossomed at new business while he was working for me. And the outcome might have been even better that it was, especially for me.
The Big Question is, "Am I holding people who work for me or with me back? Am I limiting them, not letting them be themselves? Am I turning them into zoo animals, unable to interact normally with their natural habitats?"
Until you're certain you're not doing this, try assuming you are. For example, when you're not satisfied with an employee’s performance, before you coach them out, fire them or just ignore them, ask yourself, "How much of my perception is real and how much is it just what's easiest for me to believe? How much of my evaluation is actually of me, not them?
