Honesty Is the Best Policy
Posted by estiator at 10 October, at 07 : 03 AM Print
MANAGING FOR SUCCESS By CONSTANTINE N. KOLITSAS Business Coach
Abraham Lincoln once said, “No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.”
By instinct I’m not a liar. But I’m human, and there are instances when I wonder if telling a mistruth wouldn’t be easier or more convenient than the truth, particularly when that truth is painful or can create issues. On those rare occasions when I’m tempted to take a shortcut and tell a white lie, good old Abe pops into my head and I find myself taking the high road, even if the incline gets the best of me.
I write this here in my management column because it talks to integrity. And integrity is one of the most important traits that a successful manager must possess. Your staff won’t like or trust you if you lack it. And they won’t perform for you. True, they might perform out of a sense of their own personal gain, but you’ll lose that edge; that special something that makes a staff perform and deliver, even when it goes against their immediate self-interests. In other words, unless you want your staff to be a collection of mercenaries, you’ll want to earn their respect by demonstrating integrity. And nothing kills integrity and trust quicker than being branded a liar.
Think of how you perceive your staff and then flip the script on yourself. If you’re like me, you’ll give everyone the benefit of the doubt until they prove otherwise. I start off every relationship with each individual member of my staff by placing my trust in their honesty. But the moment I catch someone in a lie, then I will not believe another word that comes from their mouth. And this isn’t something I hide—in fact, I tell it to them during the onboarding process and I continually reinforce it in conversations and even in shift meetings. A liar is a liar is a liar. If you lie to me once, then you’re a liar, plain and simple. And there’s nothing you can do afterward to change my perception. People can change, but their true nature seldom does.
It’s only natural, then, that you are held to this same standard by your team, and rightly so.
Now that we’ve established that it’s never good to lie, and that being trusted to tell the truth is a sign of integrity (a trait that should stand out if you want to be an effective manager), we need to look at truth and honesty as an actual management tool. If you even partially subscribe to the notion that omitting the truth is akin to outright lying, then you’ll understand where I’m going here: You can’t sweep away an uncomfortable truth by dancing around or ignoring it. Face it head-on, and let the chips fall where they may.
You can’t sweep away an uncomfortable truth by dancing around or ignoring it. Face it head-on, and let the chips fall where they may.
But what does it mean to use truth and honesty as a tool? It’s hard to define, but you’ll know it when you see it. In my recent experience I’ve applied it when discussing our weaknesses and strengths with my team. I’m not good at looking at the nitty-gritty details, I confessed, when discussing why certain end of shift tasks weren’t being done to satisfaction. As a manager, I should be more on top of who is doing what as well as what needs to be done better. I own the fact that I’m to blame when some staff members get frustrated over the lack of effort in this regard by other staff members. To rectify the issue, I ask for help from a closer that is meticulous, pledging to do a walk-through together with her at the end of every shift until I have a routine established.
Of course, truth and honesty are most effective during the periodic evaluation or review process. Here, you can’t dance around the areas where your subject needs to improve. Avoiding the truth or going soft will not only do a disservice to the business but impede the employee’s ability to improve. As long as you don’t let your frustration with the subject taint your delivery, these moments of honesty are usually taken in the spirit for which they are meant: to help the employee become better at what they do, and reap the rewards of that improvement.
“You need to work on your appearance and on your hygiene.”
“It’s taking a long time for your tables to turn; perhaps you are taking too many tables. Let’s cut your section and see if you can reduce the amount of time that people are taking to complete their visit when you wait on them.”
“You are calling out too often, and I am beginning to believe that you are simply calling out when you want to go out with friends, which is not acceptable.”
Sometimes these conversations will trigger emotional reactions, and sometimes they will be the beginning of the end for an employee (although in those cases the employees who leave are typically ones who should have gone long before the conversation). In the case of good employees, however, those conversations will motivate them to become higher-functioning members of your team.
Constantine Kolitsas is the president of CNK Consulting, a restaurant consultant and coaching business. He can be reached at 203-947-6234 or at ckolitsas@gmail.com.
