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Cutting Bonuses |Dodging Landmines

Bonuses often go out the door during downturns. Tanya Goodwin-Maslach, Executive Coach at Elevati Inc., suggests changing the focus from business goals to building deeper relationships with your team; offering support and communicating as much as possible.

Speaker: Tanya Goodwin-Maslach, Executive Coach, Elevati Inc.

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Tags: Dodging Landmines, Team Management, Management, downturn, layoffs, economy, bonuses, perks

 

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Cutting Bonuses |Dodging Landmines

Bonuses often go out the door during downturns. Tanya Goodwin-Maslach, Executive Coach at Elevati Inc., suggests changing the focus from business goals to building deeper relationships with your team; offering support and communicating as much as possible.

>> We're in the middle of trying to ensure no more staff layoffs so I have to deliver the bad news, no bonuses. How do I tell my staff

they're not gonna get this money?

>> Yes, it's really, really tough, this is a hard spot for you to be in especially now; there's 2 things that you can do. The first

thing is in your approach, the second thing is you have to change your focus to a more relationship building focus, you have to be

thinking about how often are you meeting with your teams, focus on changing the focus of those meetings and increasing the frequency

of those meetings, so over-communication is key.

>> Okay, so, you're telling me I need to communicate more but literally what do I say?

>> Okay, so, I have 2 answers for that. First, I don't have the answer because it's situation specific but I do have an example.

First, remember it's about the approach so the approach is more of a story telling approach but the example is from Cisco's CEO

John Chambers. When he was in front of nervous analysts worrying about their jobs, his whole approach was forget the business let

me tell you a story and he concluded it by saying, "No matter what happens we're here to help you, we will be here to help you," that

has to be your approach.

>> But how do I prepare for that type of approach? I pride myself on being very professional and business like and it sounds like I've

got to change my focus here.

>> You do, you really need to change your mindset because once you do that your approach will change. So, for instance, if you're

thinking, "Oh my God I'm just gonna go in there, I'm gonna give them data and they're gonna change their minds and they'll be okay

with no bonuses," no way, that's not gonna happen. Your mindset has to be, I'm the manager that is here to support them through this

so I'm gonna be collaborative with them, I'm gonna give them ideas, I'm gonna share stories. And one way to do that is just to tell

them, what has our company done in the past when we couldn't give bonuses, like flextime maybe, tuition reimbursement, you guys can

work home from one day, doesn't matter but the company's supported in some way in the past.

>> In summary?

>> In summary, over-communicate, second thing is change your focus from I'm a business manager about the numbers to a relationship

builder and it's important to do that right now. Over-communicate, I can't say it enough, keep building the message of I'm here

to support you through this no matter what.