My Employees Don’t Take My Business Serious…Why?

Summary

• Don't communicate expectations to ensure employees won't do what you want; absence of communication means tasks often go uncompleted.
• Avoid repeating important tasks; infrequent mentions convey a message of unimportance.
• Do not provide clear instructions or training, which sets employees up to fail in completing tasks.
• Refrain from ensuring employees understand how to prioritize their workload in relation to the tasks you've given them.
• Ensure employees lack motivation by not compensating them for task completion and making tasks feel pointless and unacknowledged.
• Avoid showing employees the significance of their work and how it benefits others in the company, diminishing their sense of purpose.
• Disregard appealing to employees' values and self-interests, which can lead to a lack of alignment with company goals.
• Reversing these methods is the key to success: clearly set expectations, provide regular communication, training, and motivation that connects with employees’ values and self-interest.
• Recognize and reward employees to align their actions with the company's objectives and foster a culture of success and accountability.
• Utilize the approach of gently questioning employees about their actions while safeguarding their ego to facilitate a more productive conversation about expectations and performance.
• Incorporate training and motivation techniques to improve efficiency, as suggested by Intel's founder Andy Grove in "High Output Management," albeit tailored with my perspective.
• Apply the "acquisition triangle" to reverse engineer ways to influence employees positively by setting clear expectations, providing adequate training, and motivating them personally and financially.

Video

How To Take Action

I would suggest setting expectations clearly. Write down what needs to be done so everyone can see. Check in regularly to remind folks it’s important. Make sure no one's guessing about what's expected.

Next, provide training. Show employees how to do their tasks the right way. It's not just about telling them what to do but also showing them. Train them about priorities too. If they know how to sort their work, they'll do better.

Don't forget to motivate people. Point out how their work helps others in the company. Make it clear that their efforts are not just useful but valued. And yes, a little extra cash for job well done makes a big difference.

Lastly, think about what drives them personally. Talk about their values and show them how their work lines up with the things they care about. When their personal goals and the task match up, they're more likely to do it.

Here's a smart move: ask gentle questions. Like, if someone's not doing the task well, just say, "Hey, I noticed you're having some trouble with this, do you know how to do it or is there something else going on?"

Remember, everyone likes to know that what they do is important. Recognition is key. When people feel appreciated, they’ll want to keep doing good work.

Quotes by Alex Hormozi

"The easiest way to make sure that they do not do what you want them to do is don't tell them."

– Alex Hormozi

"Make sure they don't know how to do it."

– Alex Hormozi

"Don't pay them or directly compensate them for doing it."

– Alex Hormozi

"You want the work to feel as pointless as possible."

– Alex Hormozi

"You wouldn't promise something that's not real, right?"

– Alex Hormozi

Full Transcript

three ways to guarantee that people do not do what you want them to do especially employees in a business every one of us every day has tried to influence people internally in the business to do things that we want them to do we try to influence them with money we try to influence them with praise and accolades with a big vision so that they get internally motivated to do the stuff but some people don't do it and so in this video what i want to do is break down the three best ways to guarantee that no one does what you want them to do you can take this process and you can reverse it if you want them to do what you want them to do but if we think about the things that we can do to get them to not want to do what we want them to do then it's much funnier from the top the easiest way to make sure that they do not do what you want them to do is don't tell them don't communicate the expectation don't even let them know that you want them to do it if you even do let them know that you want to do it make sure you don't record it because if you just say it in passing or say it on a conversation or a zoom call and it's not written anywhere you can still virtually guarantee that they're not going to do it especially if you don't repeat it don't ask about it frequently one line item on a quarterly report that happens versus you checking in twice a day about a statistic like if you do that they're definitely gonna think it's important so don't do that just trying to ask for it as infrequently as possible even so not even give them the metric to track so that's number one number two is make sure they don't know how to do it so if you want them to do something give them the task that's clearly communicated you repeated it you did it in a recorded fashion you do it frequently in terms of how frequently asked them but then just make sure they don't know how to do it it's the best way to set them up to fail don't train them around what you want them to do in general don't train them on how to prioritize their time so that they can get it done given their workload and then also make sure that you don't tell them how you specifically like it done because everybody has preferences right just make sure you don't train them on any of those things first two items in the triangle alex is how to make sure people don't do what you want them to do triangle the third piece of this triangle all right this is this is a killer motivation we want to make sure that they are as unmotivated as humanly possible and maybe even ideally motivated or incentivized to not do it a couple ways you can do that is one don't pay them or directly compensate them for doing it number two you want the work to feel as pointless as possible you want them to feel like they're digging a hole only to push the dirt back in at the end of the day and then have no one there to even see that they did it you want to definitely not praise them for digging a good hole and then not actually show them that that hole is how you lay pipe how you lay electrical lines to turn a building on geez i'm just i'm just killing it right now you don't want to show how it benefits other people that they care about within the company so for example if i said hey john i need you to put the call notes in from your sales call because susie in finance it makes her life five times harder to have to go through all this stuff and she can't be with her kid because she's working overtime taking all these calls trying to glean all this data going through customer support logs to fill in the blanks that you could do in five minutes and i know that you're the type of person so we went from purpose other people they care about so now we're gonna talk about their own self-interest which is like i know you're the type of person who is honest right of course well you wouldn't promise something that's not real right okay well what you're doing right now you might not know it is that you're not giving us the notes to actually fulfill the promises you're making so i peel the values and then you can also appeal to self-interest in the most tangible way you make more money by doing this when you do this thing it actually helps us sort through the applications so you can close a higher percentage of people at higher prices so you make more money per hour if you take these five minutes does that make sense cool and on top of that there's a little nugget on your bonuses according to making sure that you fill out call notes for over 95 of sales calls if we did that we'd have a high likelihood that they would do it so you want to reverse that whole equation when you're thinking about having a lens through which to have the conversation with somebody who's not doing the things that you want them to do this is how i would approach it this is the scripting i got this from layla all kudos go to her she has a great youtube channel you should check it out is say hey johnny it's not like you to not attend to the details is it that you didn't know you don't know how or is it that you don't want to one we protected the person's ego because we said it's not like you so i'm not attacking you i'm attacking the activity it's this tiny little shift that makes this conversation so much easier then you give them a context through which that they can reply is it that you didn't know i didn't tell you i didn't record it i didn't talk about it frequently and i didn't give you the metrics is that what it is or is it that training-wise i didn't train you on how to do it how i want you to do it and how to do it within the context of your larger workload or is it the things that i just covered with motivation motivation and training i stole from andy grove ruthlessly the founder of intel and he wrote a book called high output management recommended a little bit advanced and in that book he says the job of the boss is two things to motivate and train in his mind he said either someone doesn't want to do it or they don't know how to do it i add in the third piece which is that they didn't know that you wanted to to begin with which i think happens a lot and so that has given birth to the acquisition triangle of how to get people to not do the things that you want them to do on the flip side you can reverse those things and make sure that you set expectations you record it you talk about it frequently you give them the metrics to talk about it about train them on how to do it you train them how you prefer they do it and then you train them on how to do it within the context of the larger workload they have and then you motivate them from a global level of how this feeds the business the other people that care about employees on how it impacts their life in a railway how it's going to help the customer and their experience from a values perspective you are this way and by doing this you are aligning with these values that are true to you and then finally you will align to their pocketbook hey and if you do these things you can get a 500 bonus right or a thousand orders whatever it is keeping awesome mozy nation i love you all don't deserve you keep being great see in the next one bye