Are You Avoiding Your People Issues?

You may have missed this article when it was published in March 2014. I’m resharing it now because I often talk with companies that could benefit from the timeless content in this post. Hope you enjoy it!

-Mike Kotsis. 

For many entrepreneurs, addressing people issues can be an uncomfortable task. Even though they know in their gut that something isn’t quite right, it can be difficult to pinpoint the real issue. Getting input from the rest of the leadership team can help, but it’s typically time-consuming without the proper tools.

It’s usually easier to ignore the issue and hope it will resolve itself. And even if it doesn’t, the business is still functioning relatively well—maybe it’s not so bad to just keep living with the issue for a while.

But the fact is, if a people issue isn’t being resolved, it’s growing deeper. The long-term effects can hinder an organization’s success.

How to Face Your People Issues

In a quarterly session with a client, I asked the leadership team if there were any people-related issues. One leadership team member gave me four names, and another gave me five names, for a total of nine! The team became visibly tense and overwhelmed as they stared at the list of names on the whiteboard.

Their initial reaction was to put the list to the side and move on to something else, anything else. They didn’t want to think about it, even though these issues have been festering for quite some time.

Instead of letting them sweep it under the rug, I diagrammed the EOS® People Analyzer™ on the whiteboard. To help us determine if each person on the issues list was the Right Person for the job, the leadership team individually rated each of the names against each of the company’s core values with one of three ratings: plus, plus/minus, or minus.

To determine if they were in the Right Seats, the team then answered Yes or No to whether they felt each person Gets It, Wants It, and has the Capacity to do it (GWC).

You Can Solve Your Difficult People Problems!

In just an hour, the leadership team became clear on the real issues and decided on the actions to be taken for all nine names on the list. Even though they knew there was still work to be done, they felt a huge sense of relief, because they were all on the same page with each issue, and they knew what they were going to do about each one.

This is just one example of how the People Analyzer can be used to gain clarity on people issues. Use it with your leadership team—stop avoiding the issue and schedule a time in your calendars right now. The sooner your leadership team can agree on your people-related issues, the faster you’ll be able to solve them and finally put them behind you!

Download a free chapter of the book that shows you how to get the most out of EOS.