I would like to reflect upon a recent situation a client of mine who owns a construction company had with an employee.

The owner and contractor were at the suppliers picking up materials for the job when the owner had made a wise crack about another contractor who had worked with him in the past. Now it was done in fun and humor by the owner but the contractor took it personally. He attacked the owner in defense of the other contractor telling the owner that he was the idiot, not the other contractor

At this point the owner lashed back with the fact that he had no right to say anything when his work was less that average and he had made mistakes to which the owner had let slide but felt, now that an inventory was being taken, he should know.

There are 2 attacks here, one made of character and the other of job performance.

Now you can take this experience any way you like, defend either party, try to see who was right and who was wrong and you can even decide what should be done. But, as a salon consultant, I work with people to show them opportunities to change the way we see situations and give them tools to deal with them to get better results. So here is what I see. After all, anything that “happens” to us in business is really showing us to ourselves.

When we judge others, the people who witness it, either consciously or subconsciously believe that at some point they too will be judged. This is how trust and respect is lost.

When we look at the scenario above we see that the real issue the owner had with this employee was their performance, which was brought out in the wrong context as an emotional response to being attacked. Had this issue been addressed at the time, there may have been a very different response.

What also comes into context from this situation is the boundary of employee and employer. Employees should know what is appropriate behavior, what happens when a line is crossed and what happens if corrective measures are not taken.

The last thing that can be taken from this experience is the fact that this employee had been hired for a position in which he felt over qualified and under paid, hence the animosity and the attack on the employer.

So how I see this wonderful little drama being useful to this business is in creating an action plan that involves 3 simple steps:

1.     Hire the right personality, a follower if need be or a leader if need be

2.     Provide job descriptions that outline job expectations

3.     Give each employee a handbook of policies, procedures and processes so there is no misunderstanding of where the boundaries are and what happens when they are crossed

To build a positive salon culture these criteria are the tools used to foster respect and growth with and amongst your team. By nature people want to do their best, get along with peers and excel, showing them how is the job of every business owner.