Then they have to put up with someone droning on and on about “how we used to do it,” or someone shares their detailed explanation that tries to show how smart they are or someone never is comfortable sharing their ideas.

That’s why I always draw this up on a board to focus everyone:

9 Ground Rules for Effective Meetings

#1 Own Your Opinion

My preacher dad once told me when people say, “Everyone feels this way” it usually means they feel that way. Encourage “I” statements throughout.

#2 No “Devil’s Advocates”

Time suck and de-motivator to the group. If someone really feels that way, rephrase so it doesn’t kill the spirit of brainstorming.

#3 Everyone Talks

It is up to the moderator to make sure and call out participants who haven’t raised their hands.  Ask them if they agree with a certain point and why or why not so they can relax and share.

#4 Stay On Point

It is perfectly OK to lead or redirect an off-topic point with, “How does this relate to the point we are talking about?” If they can’t answer, suggest they write it on a slip of paper and “park it” until you deal with everyone’s parking lot issues at the end.

#5 Be Brief

#6 Is This Your Issue or Everyone’s?

Most meetings get stuck with individual concerns the rest of the group either wouldn’t benefit from or do not share.

#7 Check Your Ego At The Door

You might be challenged on a position or have to admit you don’t know it all. That’s perfectly OK, don’t try.

#8 Share A Vision Of What Is Possible

Brainstorming in particular is fragile. It’s like the first draft of a story or song, you don’t get a chance to go back to that “What if?” moment.  There will be plenty of time to look at logistics and “reality” but only one time to be inspired – keep it alive as long as possible.

#9 If We Get Too Focused We’ll Ask For A Majority Vote To Go 5 More Minutes On The Topic

A subject is being hotly contested but going too long to fit your agenda. Unless the majority votes to add five more minutes on the topic, move on. Works every time. You’ll be much more productive and have more to show for at the end.

Bonus tips:

• Make sure everyone knows to arrive on time.
• If there are reports to be read, they must read them prior to the meeting – no one wants to have someone read page after page to them.  Use the time to effectively harness feedback, not parrot what they can already read. This is especially important if you sit on a non-profit board.

These are by no means all the ways to make an effective meeting, but ones I’ve found could most keep a group focused and deliver actionable ideas everyone in the group could support.

Which do you like most or what additional rule do you find is effective in your meetings? Please add in comments below:

As long as they are given real responsibilities with a mentor, teenagers are able to mitigate the effects of the onset of puberty at a younger age and go on to become successful adults.

I interviewed Scott Reed, who has owned his successful Chick-Fil-A franchise for 23 years in Marietta, GA for this post. His restaurant is known across town for its immaculate interior and manicured exterior.  Scott’s outlook about who he hires and where he focuses his training time provides clues for any retailer working with teenagers.

Scott Reed

Here are seven things you must do to develop and train teenage employees gleaned from that interview with Scott:

Filter

Scott: You’ve got to have a mission that is a filter for your decisions. I had a terrible one before, so I’m guilty of this. My vision used to be something like: ‘My business plan is to serve the community and please the customers and keep it clean and serve the food and blah, blah, blah.”

But who wouldn’t want that, right? It’s a restaurant. That’s not really a filter. Now I look at a potential teenage employee and ask, “Would I want them to work with my daughter?” That’s a filter.

More Than One Customer

Scott: I have two sets of customers. I have the customers who come in, who buy our chicken and help me pay my bills, and I love them.  My second customers are my employees; they’re my customers too! I need to make them love working here so that they will make the first customers really happy.

That’s why I spend 80% of my time with my leadership team of about ten people. The ripple effect of my time with them is that they have that same kind of impact on the people  they coach too.

Competition Is Good

Scott: We are competitive when it comes to the hours, and that means we’re just like a sports team. The person who comes to practice, and who is the best player will play the most. Coming to practice is just their availability.

And it’s not availability of quantity; it’s availability of quality. If you help me on a busy night when we have a football game across the street, and then you want other hours that are helpful to you, you’re going to get them.

Expectations From Day One

They hear it directly from me, “This is the way it works, we’re not trying to be fair.” One young lady looked at me like, I can’t believe you all aren’t trying to be fair. I said, “You are in the band, right? She said, “Yeah.”

I said, “What chair are you?” She said, “First chair.” I said, “Would it be fair that you would be rotating first chair each week or each month. That would be fair, right?” She said, “No, I worked hard to get first chair.”  I followed up with, “That’s exactly the way it goes here, too, I don’t hire people who I think are going to fail. If I hire you, I believe you will not be on the bench. I don’t need bench warmers; I need people who can play.”

I have to have very high expectations along with a high relationship or it’s not a win-win for both us – it’s just a Kumbaya place, right?

Good Attracts Good

Scott: If you can ever get a group of people, that’s a good group of people, you’ll attract good people. The problem is sometimes you have a spot available, and three people available to hire. So, you pick the best of the three, even you know they’re not great.

That way, you’ll continuously attract mediocre people.

You have to be able to stick through the tough times and make the right hires and then just piece by piece improve your team. The worst person’s got to go, and you’re going to replace them. That person won’t just be a little better, hopefully they will be at the top of the crop.

I look at an applicant and say, “Will they help me be the top 20% of restaurants?” Not, “Will they fill a spot because I need somebody?’ It’s hard to move out of it when you’re not doing that well because you’re really going to have to be intentional and when those good people come, you’re going to have to really spend a lot of time with them because they’re going to look around and go, ‘This is not great. This is not awesome.’”

It may not be an awesome place, but you’ve got to keep pouring it into them while you get more people and say, “Hey, you’re doing great. You’re the one I was looking for. I’m going to get more people like you. Don’t worry. Hang in there with me. I know things aren’t like they should be, but we’re going to make this right, and you’re part of my plan to help make it right.

You have to give them a great vision and say, “This is what we’re about. We’ll help you grow. We’ll help you develop yourself. Whether you stay here forever or not, this is going to be a big experience for you, and you’re going to be really glad you’re here.”

You can get people to work for you if you have that.

People love to be a part of something excellent because they’re frustrated when it’s not.

The Pause Button

Scott: It all falls on leadership, not only are you developing yourself, but are you developing the people who work with you.

A lot of times when you have a business, the meetings all tend to be tactical. It’s all: this issue came up and we need to do it this way. That’s important, don’t get me wrong, but if you don’t have any percentage of time where you’re going, “Hey, I believe in you all and I think you all are capable. We’re going to watch a tape together. We’re going to go do this together and help develop ourselves to be better leaders. If you don’t have that going on in your business, then how are you going to get better?

You have to push the pause button.

Money Is Third

I don’t really concentrate on the money. Certainly, I’m tracking performance where it has to do with costs and those kinds of things. I want to know how we perform, but really that’s not my main focus. I’m more focused on the experience for the customer and the experience for the employee because if those two things are working well, then you can tweak the money a little bit.

You can charge a little bit more if you need to because people are willing to pay for a better experience. They’re willing to pay and work a little harder for things that are important to them, and they are willing to work hard when they know you care

That’s when you have it, when it’s all clicking.

If you get to lead people who care about what they do, young people who can make a difference in others’ lives, that’s fun. It’s a lot more fun than selling chicken. I feel like if I’m going to do that well, the chicken sort of sells itself.

Wrap-up

When you hear how good employees are so hard to find, how customers are more demanding and how fast-food jobs aren’t worth anything, I hope you’ll balance that with this picture of Scott.  Small business owners like him are the ones making a difference in the world because they are focused on people over product. Especially when they realize they have two customers and make it a place they’d want their daughter to work.

What say you?

She has found puberty is kicking in earlier and earlier, and that teenagers are taking on adult roles later and later.

She says in part, “In the past, to become a good gatherer or hunter, cook or caregiver, you would actually practice gathering, hunting, cooking and taking care of children all through middle childhood and early adolescence.

But you’d do all that under expert adult supervision and in the protected world of childhood, where you would have experienced the impact of your inevitable failures and learned from them.”

When the motivational juice of puberty arrived, you’d be ready to go after the real rewards, in the world outside, with new intensity and exuberance, but you’d also have learned the skill and control to do it effectively and reasonably safely.

She goes on to say that even the basic skills kids would have learned while supervised by an adult regarding cooking, care-giving, and the accompanying jobs like baby-sitting and having a paper route have disappeared.

Consider her statement that for “most of our history, children have started their internships when they were seven, not 27.”

Failure to Launch

Researchers now know that experience shapes the brain, and they are finding teenagers’ brains haven’t been properly instructed and exercised.

Kids today are plenty smart but because they have been raised by a generation of parents providing instant gratification for their every want and need, their connection to life experience in the outside world isn’t there. For example….

• They might have a lot of sexual education but still get pregnant.
• They might know all the driving rules but still get in accidents.
• They might know all about the chemical properties of food, but that doesn’t help them make a souffle.

Kids today don’t know mediocre from excellent, because this generation has been raised to believe that as long as they do the work – they should get an A. Or got a trophy if they joined a team.

The more we’ve taken vocational education out of schools, the more crippled teenagers have become as adults.

Mentorship, so common in human evolution, simply isn’t being used to show these young minds the ropes.

When we take today’s youth and put them to work in retail we need to realize we need to instill the training they missed as children to make them successful employees.

What it will take

We need to show them the difference between mediocre and excellent and what it takes to stay there.

What we need to hire are kids who are trainable and then reward their ability with supervision that goes beyond simple task management.

If we are call on them to multi-task, we need to train them to be excellent multi-taskers. Your training is only successful if you remember you have to train them in the basic skills they missed before we can train them on more advanced skills and – just as importantly – before they are left on their own.

Again, we have many smart young adults, but research is showing they haven’t had the right experiences to shape their brains for success as adults. That’s up to us, now more than ever.

As long as retailers can give challenging real-life experiences with a degree of protection that comes from engaged supervisors, we can give these young people a path to success, not just a part-time job.

You’ll meet one such business owner in tomorrow’s blog.

Does this change your perception of teenagers on your staff or in your house? What do you think retailers must change in order to make younger employees successful?

I’ve always said, “The body should go when the mind goes.”

Unfortunately, that’s usually six weeks or more later.

Zappos has a program that pays new employees $4000 to quit the company during initial training sessions. The policy is designed to make sure new employees are committed to working at the online retailer beyond just a paycheck.

Is this something you should do?  

Known to Zappos’ veterans as “the offer,” the quitting bonus offer typically comes a week or two into Zappos four-week indoctrination period that immerses new employees in the company’s strategy, culture, and obsession with customers. Typically, at some point in the training session, the training class leader leaves the room and designated employees enter to have a frank discussion with the new hire.

“They say: ‘Off the record, really, how is everything going? Does it seem like the right fit for you? Is this really where you think you want to be?,’” Rachel Brown, training manager at Zappos, told Internet Retailer. “Then we say if this isn’t the place for you we want to let you know about an early resignation offer that you can take advantage of.”

The quit-now incentive, which started with offers of $100, was instituted by Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh as an experiment about four years ago. The quitting bounty was raised to $1,000 in January 2008, and recently hiked to $4000 because Mr. Hsieh didn’t feel enough people were taking the company up on its offer at $2,000.

Only about 3% have so far taken the money since the program was initiated, Ms. Brown told Internet Retailer. Read full article here.

In an online interview with CEOshowonline.com, Mr. Hsieh explained how Zappos’ success is directly connected with its unique “two-step” hiring process that in its second-step concentrates on Zappos’ corporate culture and core values. Mr. Hsieh said, “We make sure the people we hire have similar values. We won’t hire them if they are not a “culture-fit even if they are technically strong.”

Less dead wood. Less paperwork. Less write-ups. Brilliant.

Yes, it would be great if you could pay people to quit but let’s start with the basics…

Here are there four elements of the Zappos approach any retailer could implement:

• Screen employees at a very high level
• Train at a very high level – two to four weeks making it a combination on the floor and training room.
• Monitor their progress with frequent quizzes and role-play
• Have a senior managment person who understands your philosophy and what you are trying to accomplish (for example “Create an exceptional experience for everyone you come in contact with from customers to the CEO to the delivery guy”) take the new hire out for coffee or lunch and asking how it really is going.  They need to be sure there is no judgement but looking for clues how they feel the fit is from their perspective.

We often find someone just “up and quits on us” when the clues were there for awhile.

And let’s be honest, it’s not like them quitting on you unannounced had no financial impact with overtime, additional training and lost business so whatever you paid them is a cost you already are absorbing.

From the time I was in seventh grade until I graduated Glendale High, every summer I toured with my church’s youth choir.

To make it financially feasible, we stayed in host families’ homes for the night before we went off to our next destination.

On my first trip, about to find out whether I’d hit the jackpot like the hosts who had a pool, or going bust and sharing a pullout couch with someone, I stepped off the bus.

Our youth minister pulled me aside, “Did you pick up your host gift yet?” I sheepishly answered, “No.”

He replied, “That’s OK, you’re new.  Here it is – a wrapped set of note cards and here is a card and envelope.  Fill out the card and thank them for hosting you tonight. Add one specific thing about their house, their hospitality or even a good breakfast. You can either give it to them when you leave their house or on the bed but don’t forget to do it.”

I asked, “Do they really care about note cards?” He laughed and said, “No, they don’t. But everyone wants to be noticed and appreciated when they have done something you benefited by.”

That youth minister knew the power of making the effort to say thanks. Even the National Retail Federation has taken to thanking Americans for shopping.

So today, I want you to thank the people who you have benefited from their efforts this year. Yes, it is the holidays and yes you’re slammed.

All the more reason to carve out fifteen minutes tonight and write out a thank you card.  If you don’t have an address, use an email but note it is not as personal. You can even post it on their Facebook fan page, but do it.

Here’s a partial list to get you started:

• Your best supplier. Sure you do it when they go out of their way but what about the job they do for you day in and day out?
• Your UPS, FedEx, or other delivery drivers for their efforts, especially during the holidays.
• Your employees for the job they do with a note to their home, rather than in passing.
• Your Association for the specific educational opportunities their conventions bring you.
• Your partner, family, children for understanding the busy season is upon you.

You get the idea…

Here’s the secret: add a specific service or thing they have done that you genuinely feel stands out. It usually starts, “Thank you for….”

Retailers can make the world a more civil and hospitable place through a lot of efforts, this is just one. What would you add?

The search to understand others has existed since the beginning of time.  Why? Because we have noticed certain types of people are easy to deal with and others just, well,  aren’t.

Have you had that exasperating moment when you were trying to train someone and you finally said, “I just don’t know how to reach them!”

Or maybe you had a boss that just got under your skin nitpicking everything you did?

Years ago I learned the power of knowing my own personality style, and I’ve found it helpful to not only manage employees better, but also advance my retail sales training and consulting programs.

No matter what your business, you should know which of the four personality styles best represent you. Once you know that you will be able to understand:

• What ticks you off is as much your fault as the other person’s and why.
• Which personalities you’ll feel comfortable with-and which ones you probably won’t hire.
• Which personality style you could most use help from.

No, it’s not scientific because ultimately it is a self-test – you’ll be the one saying its right or wrong. But I’ve found couples understanding their relationships better, business owners clarifying their understanding of the opportunities to grow their business and employees able to sell to all four types by becoming a chameleon.

So what do you have to lose?

Take the personality quiz and you’ll be presented with additional information about the Driver, the Analytical, the Expressive and the Amiable.

We’ve all been there. You just got into the office, put your keys down and an employee drops the bomb, “I quit.”

It might have come out of the blue from one of your best employees. Or, maybe it came from an employee that you’ve never gotten along with. Regardless of the reasoning, it’s never a positive experience to have one of your employees unexpectedly quit.

When this happens, you have three options:

1. “I’ll get your last check right now.”

This might come off sounding unfeeling and harsh, but it’s actually the best way to go. When you tell an employee that you’ll get his check, you force yourself to accept the inevitable and avoid contaminating your other employees.

It’s like a marriage. If someone is having an affair, his interests are elsewhere. Even if he tries to maintain appearances, he’d still rather be somewhere else. You need to let this employee go, rather than fight the inevitable.

2. “Let’s talk about it,” 

In this response, you’re reacting to your employe, not the other way around. If he has threatened to quit more than once, this could be a way to assert control. He could feel neglected or need approval.

Likewise, this option puts the employer and employee at an equal level. You are no longer the boss. Though this might lead you to keep an employee out of sympathy, it will cost you later in business.

I once met with an employee after inviting him to “talk about it.” He gave me four pages explaining why our business was terrible. Some of what he said was true, but it wasn’t constructive or an efficient use of our time because he’d already decided to leave. If he had come to me before quitting, it might have been different.

3. “I’m sorry, what can I do to get you to stay?”  

With this response, you’re putting the employee in charge. Often, this is a way for an employer to acknowledge his failures as a boss, which can make him feel better. However, it won’t solve the problem and it can actually make it worse.

Bargaining with your employee is the weakest option and sometimes results in the employee receiving a raise. If an employee wants to quit, he’s going to quit eventually and giving him a raise in the meantime won’t change that.

Bob Phibbs is the Retail Doctor, helping businesses of all sizes grow and deliver an exceptional experience for their customers since 1994.  Download a free chapter of his latest book, The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business (Wiley) here. This post originally appeared in the American Express OPEN forum.

He had placed them in the trash can.

I can’t imagine doing that to another person these days.  But I did something similar nearly thirty years ago…

I had hired a young woman who I thought was going to be excellent. She worked one day and never came back or called.  But she knew when payday was.  

When she came to pick up her check I unceremoniously tossed it to the ground.  Somehow in 1982 it felt good to watch someone have to lower themselves to me.  I felt I had to make her know I was upset at her leaving me high and dry. I’ve heard managers go on and on detailing how an employee had been terrible for a long time but had “kept them on” in hopes they could change.

When firing someone, unless theft is involved, just admit it isn’t a fit.  Order the check so you have it in your hands at least a day ahead of time.  Call them into your office, have a witness if necessary. Simply say, “Your services are no longer needed,” and be done with it.  

You should already have given them two write-ups that required their signature.  You don’t need to get into a laundry list of everything this person did.  So remain standing and don’t invite them to sit down. You don’t need a pound of flesh, you are taking their means of support from them.  Nothing more is required.

So many people fear firing someone because of what they might have to go through.  If you handle the firing as thoughtful as you handled the hiring, it shouldn’t be a big deal. 

Here’s the secret to avoid humiliating an employee: Don’t hire someone you can’t fire; that includes friends and family.

Don’t stoop to the level of pettiness like Radio Shack did two years ago when they fired people by email.  Or the big box who called their senior managers into a conference room telling them a few people would be let go by receiving a text during the meeting.

It’s petty, it’s humiliating and its unnecessary.  Yet it seems to be on the rise…

In this economy we need to remember our greatest assets are the people we pay to work.  That goes from the moment we hire them to the moment we fire them. 

You believed in them once, give them the dignity they deserve.

Please add your comments below.

“My customers don’t like it,” “I really liked the other one,” etc.  For the struggling, there was always an excuse and it was usually the Marketing department’s fault.

Are you in a position where you are trying to get people to change for their own betterment?  Here’s the secret to making it work…Leave the bottom 20% where they are.

Those 20% are not going to change.  As the old saying goes you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.

Should you spend your time instead on the top performers?  Regrettably no.  They are doing what needs to be done.  Give them space to crow about what they have and are doing but frankly, they probably understand what it takes to be successful more than you.

The sweet spot, the place you can make the most difference is that middle 60%.  You want to keep them from spiraling down to the lower 20%.  That’s because misery loves company.

Those who are struggling often are looking for allies and someone to blame.  Their view of the world is that it is nasty and something that is ruling their lives.  Being responsible for their own happiness is foreign.

This holds true whether you are dealing with a group of franchisees, a group of employees, a church group or a sports team.

You have to intervene and keep that middle 60% progressing forward, not going back.  That means giving them training, personal attention and opportunities.  But too often we spend our precious time on the ones who can least change – the bottom 20%.

There are only a dozen eggs in your basket of energy.  You spend 7 on the lower 20%,  there are only 5 left for the rest – and your sanity.

Give the Bitter Bettys – your lower 20% – a chance certainly, but don’t waste your precious time trying to raise them from the muck. Instead, let them go.

Learn how to increase your business with my book The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business from Wiley & Sons.

Please comment with a time when you spent too much time on your lower 20% below…

Many people will rightly ask you Ms. Entrepreneur, “The economy is so tough, why would you want to open a retail store or start a new business NOW?”

Look, the economy has always been tough…

In 1942 they dropped the bomb but the French came up with the bikini.  There is always an entrepreneur to look at things differently because they are up for the game.

Maybe you’ve always wanted to be your own boss. You’ve always enjoyed shopping and think opening your own store will be fun.  It can be fun but make no mistake, succeeding in retail is about planning, change, and making yourself available.

Scads of stores’ customers know who the owner is because they are seen there practically every day.  Then there are the  unsuccessful absentee storeowners -unmotivated employee inmates running what seems to be a prison within sterile surroundings.

The choice to open your store should be made with your eyes wide open. Just like deciding to have a child or adopt a pet is a major change in lifestyle, so too is owning your own retail store.

Before you pick out a dog from the ASPCA shelter, you need to know who will feed it, clean up after it, take it to obedience school, wash it, walk it twice a day, etc.

As the business owner, you’ll need to know who will run the store, what you are going to sell, how this will affect vacation plans, family responsibilities and your finances.

While you might have inherited or purchased a family business, the choice is still the same – do you want to jump in or tip toe around?  I call tip-toers hobbyists – they are owners when it is convenient for them. They take few risks and would rather not be bothered with the day-to-day challenge of running a successful business.  Hobbyists are great to compete against though – they give you a clear picture of the dangers of slacking off.

How do you know if a retail store is for you? Answer these questions:

What would you feel like if you had to work Christmas Eve until 8 pm?
Realize it could happen, no matter how great your employees.  Like Roseanne Roseannadanna said on Saturday Night Live, “It’s always something.”

What would you do when a friend’s child broke one of your expensive baubles and did not offer to pay for it?
It’s going to happen and it is best if you not take it personally.  You’ll need to be able to separate personal relations from your business.

How would you handle your manager leaving early and going skiing over the weekend without telling you in advance?
Would you be willing to reprimand them, especially a friend working for you?

What would you do if your favorite item that you stocked heavily didn’t sell?
You have to separate your personal favorites from what the marketplace desires.

Have you ever had to fire someone?
It’s part of doing business. If you hire them, eventually they will leave your or you’ll have to fire them.  You need to have the stomach to put someone out of work.

What would you do if you caught a shoplifter?
Shrinkage is not just from customers but also from salespeople.  A forceful response leads to less of it it happening in your store.

Do you hate repeating yourself?
Training is about sharing your vision of service and making your employees as close to a carbon copy of you as possible.  That takes a lot of time and reptition.

Do you genuinely like talking to other people?
Retail is connecting with people from your crew to your landlord to your vendors and to your customers.  If you don’t like to do that, this is probably not for you.

Do you get a thrill from making a sale?
The sense of accomplishment and rush from a particularly large sale is necessary to balance the inevitable slow day or January doldrums.

Have you visited other stores who carry similar products and know where they are weak?
Competition is healthy to see how you would be different.  You should not be afraid of anyone selling anything similar to you.

Could you survive financially for 8 – 18 months without drawing a salary from the business?
The greatest cause of retail businesses closing is due to having an unrealistic idea of breakeven and profitability.  Get enough money from your bank so you don’t cripple the business from the start.

Do you have a great location?
This can be a great asset but test it by asking your friends if they go to that center and why or why not. You don’t want to get “a deal” on a property only to learn later it was due to poor visibility or parking. You never want to be 100 feet from success so visibility is key.

Do you like to create a team atmosphere or do you want to be the “OWNER?”
Retail is teamwork.  Employees rarely go out of their way for the boss or the customer if they are afraid.

Do you have a great idea of how your retail business will standout from the rest?
A plan created early assures success. Who are your customers and why would they be willing to crawl over broken glass naked to come buy from you.

Are you prepared to work long hours?
The average retail store is open 70 hours a week including weekends.

Reasons not to open a retail store or your own business:

• I need to get out of the house.
• I have some money I need to do something with.
• I’m bored with my present job.
• I want to be my own boss.
• I love to buy things.
• I want to do something with my husband/partner/wife.
• I want to get the manufacturer discount and never pay retail again.

Reasons to open a retail store or own your own business:

• You want to create wealth for yourself and your family.
• You want to make a difference in your community by opening a store that meets their needs.
• You want to create opportunities for people in your community to better themselves through working with you.
• You have a passion to serve others by helping them purchase items.

Yes you can have a passion to serve others, but without the rest of the sentence, you could be a welfare worker.

To get a head start on your decision, pick up a copy of The Retail Doctor’s Guide to Growing Your Business.