Results are what most leaders focus on as top priority. What they don’t always consider is that unless their people get along and get inspired, the results will be mediocre at best.
“Before one can hit a grand-slam home run, it first requires singles, doubles or triples.”
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Every business owner sets up their organization with high hopes and a dream of making a difference, yet all the great ideas and intentions to provide quality products and services do not guarantee favorable results. Three things that impact your ability to succeed is how well your people are…
Getting Along
Healthy relationships do not happen accidentally. To support your people in having them, everyone benefits when they receive training in relationship and communications skills, are given opportunities to practice them regularly, discuss them at group meetings, witness them integrated into the practices of your business, and participate in weekly check-ins about them in individual mentoring sessions with their managers. In other words, to help your people get along, creating the human systems for them to do so empowers them to succeed. Most people have not been taught nor given opportunities to master skills they can draw on to build healthy relationships or address and resolve problems when they arise. Making human systems top priority is key because your people are your greatest asset.
Getting (and Staying) Inspired
The word “inspiration” comes from the Latin word, Inspirare, a compound term from the Latin prefix in (inside, into) and the verb spirare (to breathe). Inspirare meant originally “to breathe into; to instill something in the heart and mind of someone”. What would you like to instill in the hearts and minds of your employees? You want your staff to think thoughts and feel feelings that make them excited about coming to work everyday and doing an excellent job whatever their role. And, like healthy relationships, inspiration doesn’t occur accidentally.
Your people are inspired in a positive and joyful way when you have a worthy cause you choose to facilitate through your business; a legacy you consciously commit to for your community, clients and employees. A worthy purpose makes people happy and energized to show up at work with enthusiasm and determination. A worthy purpose, along with a set of values (behaviors to achieve it) and visions (how to express it), when over-communicated at every opportunity, builds positive momentum.
Getting Results
Improved productivity is an easier next step when your people get along and get and stay inspired by meaningful purpose. To be more productive, help each of your staff get clear about their specific role in doing their part. Provide weekly mentoring sessions for every person so each develops their own personal plan for involvement, including their SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Responsible, and Time-Bound) goals. Your leaders become proficient in transferring responsibility effectively and supporting focused results so every that every employee moves from compliance to self-directed commitment.
So… in order to help your people get along, get inspired and get more done, make your human systems priority. Then…
- Get Benchmarking: to measure your levels of trust, alignment, and engagement
- Get Training: so your people have adequate human systems skills
- Get Mentoring: so everyone is supported in being personally responsible and internally motivated
- Get Processes: that lead to consistent and sustained improvement
- Get Connected: so communications are clear and your people like and enjoy each other
- Get Successful: so you all feel proud
And… - Get on the phone and call me. I’m here to help and I have an extensive training series for you!
As published in the column The Extraordinary Workplace in St. Louis Small Business Monthly, October 2013
