Getting them out of bed
If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it a hundred times- “I’d just like to be able to get my whole crew to show up every day.” This, or some variation of this statement seems to come across my Twitter feed at least a couple times a week. “How can we compete with McDonald’s!?” is another. How can McDonald’s compete with us!?
In 11 years as a superintendent, I can say with a great deal of truth that getting our people to show up in the morning has never been a consistent problem. Yes, we’ve had the occasional person who finds this basic function to be more difficult than others. However, these types generally find themselves on the outside looking in, and typically find other work. As time went by, I begin to think about why this phenomenon (staff members not showing up), seemingly so prevalent in our industry was of little concern for us.
In doing so, I thought about what it was that got me out of bed in the morning. Why was it that during my time working on a golf course, I never had much of a problem getting out of bed? Additionally, if I did have trouble getting out of bed, why was this the case?
We all know the feeling of being so excited for the coming day that we can’t even make it to our morning alarm. The excitement being so great that it’s all we need to wake up. And even the most positive of people will know the feeling of dread that accompanies a day you know is going to be hellish. Its a feeling that only makes you want to shut off the alarm and go back to sleep. What can we learn from this?
The answer seems simple enough; create something offering such a level of excitement and inspiration that people can’t wait to get up and come to work. In the exploration of my own feelings, I came up with four simple things that got me excited about waking up and going to work;
Spending time in a place I loved-with people I considered friends-doing work we enjoyed-while being able to stand back at the end of a day and admire our work.
The theme in these four simple things-enjoyment. Could it be this simple? Allow people to enjoy the place they work, the people they work with, the work they do, all while creating a great product. I believe it is, and over the following series of posts, I’ll explain how we do it.
