How do I help my new recruits become passionate?

Dear Aunty B,

Last year, in anticipation of the end of the GFC, I introduced a new layer of management. Up until then everyone had been reporting to me but now I have about five direct reports and those people in turn manage the people under them.

While this has made my life easier as I was managing across states and it has also given me time to work on the business, not in it, it has caused new problems.

A few of the people in my senior management are not all that charismatic and the people they hire are very functionary. I met a few of them at a party for a launch and I asked them how they were enjoying their roles. One of them shrugged and said it was a good job as far as jobs go. When I asked the manager about this he said it was hard for a person in an accounts receivable team to be really excited about a job. I told him that was part of his job – to get people really excited about working for us. Is that unreasonable? How do I keep the passion as we get bigger? Do I have to change my expectations as we get bigger and have a more professional culture?

Disappointed,
Victoria

Dear Disappointed,

Are you nuts? I tell my managers this. Your job is to have staff so inspired they will happily lay themselves on a railway track for you. And that applies to everyone!

As a company grows it is even more important to maintain the passion. How do you do that? First you do it in the recruitment phase. Why is your company special? How is it revolutionising the industry? How does it leave all competitors for dead? How are you changing people’s lives for the better? Why are your standards the highest in the industry? And so on. Every great company I know can translate their core function into a higher cause that can get people excited. So keep communicating your higher cause to all staff.

Make sure you always meet with new recruits even for five minutes. Nothing is as exciting as a founder’s passion.

Lastly, every manager must know that every staff member makes a massive contribution to a business. Every role is critical and every person should be made to understand how critical their contribution is. So that employee is not just in accounts receivable; they have a crucial part to play in getting cash in the door to keep the whole place running! They should be told they have a crucial role to play and that their suggestions about how to get cash in the door faster and quicker are desperately sought.

So your first job is to communicate your expectations to your managers and get them passionate. And then make sure they understand that often the people they hire from large organisations are not familiar with an entrepreneurial culture. When this is the case, they must work with them to get them passionate, understand the culture and have a real sense of purpose. So don’t change your expectations. Supercharge them!

Be smart,
Your Aunty B

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