Competition and success in the 21st century will be won by those companies that best engage and motivate their employees. Now, most employers will sort of give a head bob for this, but there are a lot of myths and learned behaviors that stand in the way of empowered employees.
This is incredibly important. Employees are likely your largest expense. Productivity in the modern office is hard to measure. But by the best objective measurements, engaged employees are many times more productive than average.
Employees in low spirit can seem to move in slow motion. Top people who are not appreciated jump ship and go elsewhere.
It is not like the good old days. Few people make widgets any more. It was always easy just to measure the pile of widgets to measure results.
Today, that little overlooked person who files stuff can be disengaged and misfile something and have a whole company going in circles until the file is found. How might a dispirited and overwhelmed team member respond to a customer who needs help? Maybe we need to review the value of a life-time customer. Move the concept to the digital world, and the problem gets bigger.
- Empowered employees make you more money.
- Empowered employees are easier to manage.
- Empowered employees think like business owners.
- Empowered employees watch out for your interests.
People desire to feel significant. They long to be appreciated. They yearn to feel they play a significant role in the success of the company. In fact, everyone should play a significant role, or you are not getting a proper return on investment.
Enlightened Leaders engage and inspire everyone in their strategic role. Uninspired leadership is too busy reacting to events- too busy wondering what is happening.
Enlightened leadership can find a role fitting the strengths of everyone in the company in business development. They are not all sales people- we don’t want to scare everybody- but even the introvert nerds have expertise that inspires confidence. All we have to do is find a role that they enjoy. And everyone one on the team enjoys being significant to success. Here is a great quote for you.
Freedom is actually a bigger game than power. Power is about what you can control, but freedom is about what you can unleash -Harriet Rubin
We have all kinds of strengths within our organizations. Technical nerds are good. Steady people to watch the details. People who like learning new things. People who are nurturers and relieve stress. People who are communicators and rainmakers. There is all kinds of strengths available through freelance talent. We can create mentoring systems within our team structures. Leadership is relaxed, understands that reducing stress and empowering people- is productive.
People need to be informed and involved in decisions that touch them, that touch how they work.
It is essential that enlightened leadership engage all employees in the success of the business- in a basic understanding of the financials- profit and loss, cash flow etc. People need to know what is required to create a profit. When they have an appreciation of the difficulty to build a successful business, and when they are able to grasp they have a significant role in business development, people will jump in with enthusiasm.
Too many employers, love to see employees busy, busy, busy. Unfortunately busy just might translate poorly to results achieved.
We must know what we want done.
We must have critical measures to account results.
It is also critical that you, yes you, do less and spend more time indulging in strategic thought. What could employees be doing that is more productive than what they are doing now?
Any questions? Something left out? Something misguided here? Let me know. Let everybody know. Leave a comment below. Feel free to email or call
