A Tuned Out Team

– Doug Fleener

Yesterday I was talking with a store manager who told me that she feels like her staff is just tuning her out. Her exact words were “sometimes I feel like I’m talking to the door.” I assured her that she’s by no means the only manager who has ever felt that way; it can happen to the best of us. I shared with her the good news and the bad news, which in both cases is that the problem isn’t with the staff but with her. That’s good news because it’s something you can easily fix yourself. It’s bad news because it would make us feel better if it were a staff issue. There are a few reasons the staff tunes us out:

• We talk at the staff instead of with them. As managers we sometimes have a whole lot of stuff going on. Maybe it’s an HR issue or an upcoming inventory or we’re working on a project or something else that is taking up a lot of our time and attention. If we’re not careful this can lead to “walk-by management.” We manage our team by walking by and telling them what to do. We’re so rushed we don’t stop to explain some of the what, the why, and what do you think? We just hit them with info and directives as we pass through to our next urgent task.
• We’re either too negative or overly positive. Both of these will cause a staff to tune you out. At one point when I was running a Sharper Image store I was extremely tired and burned out. I had a less-than-positive attitude and within 60 days I dragged down my entire team. They weren’t just tuning me out, they were tuning everybody and everything out. Even worse, I realized they were just following me. I’ve seen the same thing happen with overly positive managers. If a store is falling short of goal and all the manager does is keep telling the staff to remain positive but doesn’t actually do anything to turn the store around the staff will just tune him out. Positive is good. Positive without a plan or action is bad.
• We’re in a rut. One of the biggest challenges of retail is that it becomes too much of a routine. Sometimes it feels like we’re living the same day over and over again. Think Bill Murray in the movie Groundhog Day. We have to keep the store fun, exciting, and vibrant. We have to be part of the solution and not part of the challenge of routine.

So what does a manager do if the staff has tuned her out? Crank it up and tune them back in to you! Turn a staff meeting into a party. Have a week-long contest. Do some one-on-one meetings. Conduct some product or sales trainings. Do something as a team like going bowling or going out to dinner. Do whatever it takes so that you know the employees are saying to one another, “What has gotten into him/her?” A tuned-out team lacks passion, energy, and, most of all, the desire to succeed. The power lies within you to turn it around. Crank it up!