Dear Liz,

I’ve grown my business to 17 employees and I need to hire more, but I’m having major attitude issues with the existing crew. They’re giving me huge resistance to trying anything new, and doing a lot of grumbling. I pay these people for a day’s work and lately I’m not getting what I pay for. I don’t know whether to let the worst of the complainers go, or what. Ideas?

Joseph

Dear Joseph,

It’s a bit off-topic, but I think the greatest TV show ever was the “The Sopranos.” At one point in the show’s run, Tony Soprano has behavior issues with his teenage son, and says to his wife Carmela something like “What if (our son) finds out we got nothing?”

All parents of teenagers “got nothing.” We can ground them and yell at them, but at the end of the day we don’t have squat. It turns out that parenting teenagers is a more subtle equation than “If X, then Y.” The transaction that we love to reference (“As long as you’re living under my roof, you’ll toe the line!”) loses all its heft as we realize we have no juice at all.

The same goes when we’re leading adults. On a battlefield, a soldier isn’t thinking about the transaction that got him into his uniform. Military leaders have to appeal to something apart from that transaction, or even the fundamental deal (“If you desert, you’ll be shot”) to motivate their squads.

The soldiers believe in the officer, or one another. They believe in the cause. As parents we try to get a teenager to believe that Mom and Dad have his back. In business, if we can’t get 10,000 feet above the transaction (“I pay for a day’s work, and I demand it”) we are sunk. Leaders who focus on getting what they paid for tend to get nothing and lose the employees worth keeping.

Your focus on “I pay for a day’s work” will get you a surly, resentful day’s work that, as you are finding, is hardly worth having. The good stuff is stuff that people bring voluntarily — energy, good ideas, passion, creativity and tenacity. You get it all for free as long as you notice it and value it.

If I were you, I’d have coffee with two or three of your longest-term employees and ask them “What do we need to do differently?” Then, I’d do the same with the rest of the folks, in small groups or one-on-one. You’ve got way too small a crew to let an ‘us vs. Joseph’ mentality take hold.

When you’re CEO, there’s no escape: either you hired complainers, or you hired good people and turned them into complainers. Your problem is fixable, and the fix begins when you involve your folks in the solution. That means listening, listening and listening some more.

Your crew members were all great employees at one time. Getting the energy back where it belongs starts with asking the question, “How are you doing — and how am I doing?” and then thoughtfully and openly accepting whatever answer you get.

Best, Liz