I just finished reading a brand new book by Lance Gibbs, founder and executive chairman of BP3. BP3 is an Austin, Texas-based company that works with clients to provide simplified and improved business process solutions. The book’s title, Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys, perfectly captures the challenges large companies face in driving productivity.

I often talk about the need to balance the needs of shareholders, customers and employees. Gibbs explores this theme around granting employees the systems, authority, and considerations they need to best perform their work. Too many companies end up neglecting employees and customers in an attempt to chase short-term shareholder value. This strategy inevitability fails over the long term.

In this passage, Gibbs describes how to frame the most important relationship in a company, that between an employee and their manager:

“Bosses need to straight up tell their employees that they are allowed to take action, and that it is okay if they get ‘it’ wrong. Managers and supervisors have to show vulnerability about decisions made in their own careers to ensure that their employees really feel empowered to be authentic. There must be an element of support between bosses and employees—not hand-holding, but real, unyielding support. The support structure must be based on trust. Employees need to be able to trust that their bosses have their backs and, in turn, bosses need to trust that their employees can get the job done. Like they were hired to do! Bosses need to tell their employees that they can and should do their job, and that the only time they need to ask for advice from their superiors is when they feel truly cornered. When there is an honest support structure in place, employees will want to take the reins.” 

Learn more about the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Circus-Monkeys-Transformational-Experience/dp/1619617099/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8