Page 180 - Retaining Top Employees

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168 Retaining Top Employees

Politics
The first (and, sadly, most prevalent) area in which you must
take action is in providing a buffer from the extremes of internal
politics. Although it’s never possible (or desirable) to complete-
ly isolate employees from the effects of company politics, the
“radar screen” effect discussed earlier will mean that your top
performers, left unprotected, will get sucked into political wran-
gles more frequently than most employees.
You must act as a lightning rod where possible, taking
responsibility for internal political issues rather than allowing
them to affect your employees and their performance.
At a monthly VP sales meeting, one of Juanita’s colleagues
asks for a detailed report on all of Joe’s meetings with phar-
maceutical companies. He explains that his detailed knowl-
edge of the pharmaceutical industry can help Juanita review
Joe’s activity. Juanita strongly suspects that her colleague is
grandstanding for the benefit of the COO, who’s sitting in on
the meeting that day. She thinks that her colleague is unlike-
ly to read the report and that compiling it would not only
waste Joe’s time, but also confuse and demotivate him. With
the help of her technically proficient assistant, she cuts and
pastes from Joe’s weekly reports and sends the result off to
her colleague. As suspected, she hears no more about it.
Resources
The second major “buffer” role you must play on behalf of all of
your employees, and particularly your top employees, is to pro-
vide resources, ensuring that your employees have what they
need to do their jobs.
Managing top performers is like being in charge of the pit
crew in Formula One racing: when the car comes into the pit,
your job is to find out what’s needed, take care of it, and get the
car back into the race as quickly as possible. When employees
have to ask for a necessary resource and then “idle” while wait-
ing for it, that disrupts their work, hurts their productivity, and
undermines their motivation. That’s bad for any employee—but
even more so for your top performers.