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PARTICIPANTS IN retreats that I conduct ask me on a regular basis what attributes do I look for when I'm hiring a person.
My answer is quite simple. Eighty per cent of the basis on which I hired people when I led management teams as the chief executive officer was for their very positive attitude.
By the time a candidate who is seeking a senior executive post in any organisation which I led would reach my office, many others would have vetted the person for his technical skills, managerial experience, and broad ability to handle the job.
I would double check those attributes briefly but the focus of my attention would be whether the persons have that great positive attitude to let them work in the service industry and remain positive no matter what the most irate customers, suppliers, or the marketplace would throw at them.
As a younger manager I obviously was at the level where I would have had to check quite carefully the technical skills of applicants and then look at their attitude before moving their application upwards for approval.
The higher I went in the managerial hierarchy, the more important it became for me to focus my attention on getting the people with the right attitudes in the right spots in our business.
A bad attitude is such an offensive and detracting characteristic. It is such a pleasure to deal with someone with a positive attitude.
A SMALL THING THAT MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE
Many of us have seen that poster with a rock climber clothed only in his shorts, boots, and water bottle climbing a rock that seems treacherous just to look at - and the caption that reads 'Attitude...a small thing that makes a big difference'.
Some of us have taken the time to discuss it and use it as a teaching tool with our kids. A person with the right positive attitude uses that positive approach and optimism to convert rudeness and thoughtlessness (the result of really bad attitudes) into opportunities to increase patience, self-control (I am responsible for my behaviour, not yours, and you are responsible for yours), and even charm.
As I travel around Jamaica I see many people who display this very fine positive attitude and they stand out as really bright shining beacons.
Still, there are too many of the other types. Jamaica as a tourist country with the realities of our geography and the size of our market will really have to concentrate on becoming largely a service providing economy.
People with great attitudes, charm and graciousness are very necessary for attaining success as a really specially good service economy.
It is psychologically and empirically demonstrable that most employees take their behavioural cue from their bosses.
The clearest example is when the boss of a company thinks that an individual is incompetent or incapable and doesn't want to deal with him or her anymore.
MANAGERIAL EXAMPLE NEEDED
The boss' secretary - no matter how hard she tries - develops an attitude change to the negative towards the person for whom her boss had developed a dislike.
Similarly, managers must lead from the front if they expect their employees to possess and display towards their customers the kind of positive attitude that customers love and will return to enjoy.
Managers and leaders must better be aware that their employees look to them for this kind of positive leadership and just as quickly recognise hypocrisy in attitude and behaviour when they (the employees) are told to behave with a positive attitude and manner, but the boss is inherently rude or disdainful of both customers and staff.
Because it takes more time and repetition to implant a positive attitude in an organisation and its people, managers must be careful to keep constantly that positive attitude towards their customers and their staff in order for it to become part of the ethos of the organisation.
Cultivating and living a positive attitude is a difficult personal assignment.
BIG PERSONAL COMMITMENT
In today's business environment - where competition is extremely sharp and where internal competition can be quite ruthless (it should not be so, in well-run organisations the competitive focus is on external competitors) - it takes a strong personal commitment to maintain a positive attitude.
Many people in Jamaica still equate service with being servile or with servitude.
We need to get over this belief because that kind of thinking invariably produces the negative attitudes that we see with too much regularity in people in business or government who serve the general public.
The great challenge of Jamaican business, and that means business leaders, is to train employees in our companies to have a positive attitude and explain the benefits to them.
I always maintain that if a client comes into my organisation and the person who is supposed to make the coffee is out of the office at the time, then I will make the coffee because when I am finished I will still be the CEO or managing director. But I will also have served my client as a gracious head of the company or manager of a division.
To be rude to internal or external customers is the antithesis of a really great positive attitude.
Managers, let us help our employees through training and example to get a grip of their negative attitudes which can destroy the customer base of our businesses and help them to adopt, cultivate, and practise a positive and charming attitude. This is reflected most often and powerfully in a pleasant smile.
Source: Jamaica
Gleaner
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