How can managers relieve associates' holiday stress?
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of a current article from Retail Contrarian, the blog of the Dynamic Experiences Group.
As leaders, it is essential that store managers and owners help their associates be better throughout the holidays. The busier it gets, the more important your coaching becomes if you're going to capture a bigger share of the pie.
Quick story: When I was a kid, I had a neighborhood friend who loved to find four-leaf clovers. No matter what we were doing or where we were, she invariably found one. She was so lucky.
Not me. I could walk into a clover field and hours later emerge empty-handed. And, of course, my children always found Waldo long before I did.
One day, my neighbor told me how to find a four-leaf clover. She told me to stop looking at the whole field and start focusing on one clover at a time. I distinctly remember thinking that was impossible since there had to be a million clovers in the field. But I took her advice.
Yes, you know what's coming next. Within a few minutes I found a four-leaf clover. And like Waldo in his red and white striped shirt, once I saw it, I couldn't believe how much the four-leaf clover stood out from those around it.
The same holds true for helping your employees be more productive this holiday. You can't look at the entire "field" to find the opportunity. You have to narrow your focus. Find that one thing this week that will help them be even more productive than they were the week before.
The worst thing we can do over the holidays is to stop helping our employees be better. The second worst thing we can do is to focus on too many things at once.
Pick one area of opportunity for each person every day. Bring that down to one very specific action she/he will take to elevate her/his performance and results for the day. Your employees won't need a four-leaf clover to be successful. They'll be making their own luck.