“Without a compelling cause, our employees are just putting in time. Their minds might be engaged, but their hearts are not. Meaning precedes motivation.” ~ Lee J Colan
This quote really resonated with me. I am a huge believer in not only setting a vision for business, creating goals and values but also living them. And by living them I mean injecting life into them and I strongly believe the most effective way for a leader to do this is by involving their team in the process.
There are 3 reasons for this:
- You create a sense of ownership and engagement for the team. People love being asked for their opinion and love it even more when their ideas are taken on board. You probably have an Olympic sized pool of untapped intelligence that could be of enormous benefit to your business.
- Without the presence of a common goal or the clarity in how each team member plays a part in realizing that goal, your team will just create their own goals and work towards their own agenda. And presto – you have a fractured team and business.
- You will soon find out if you have the right people in your business. This exercise will bring out the best and worst in people and you will be able to measure through observation who is really invested in your business.
So why don’t most business leaders do this? Why do businesses leaders continue to try and forge ahead in a frantic, confused world without trying to set some sort of purpose and meaning for their business and employees? There are so many reasons for this and each business and business leader is different. Corporate can be better at it, smaller business may not be familiar with such a process or understand how to do it effectively. One of the biggest issues is time and perhaps being afraid of challenging the status quo – how business is right now and how they’ve always done it.
Shame. Imagine the possibility – if we disrupt the status quo?
For the first time in business, we are managing 3 generations – the baby boomer, generation’s X & Y. Wow the complexity of this given each generation has such different motivators and expectations. Wouldn’t it be fantastic to get some sort of alignment and understand what each other expect? I can assure you they have VERY different expectations of a leader! That story is for another day, or week perhaps!
They key to making this really work for you is to ensure that the ideas you glean from your team are in fact incorporated into your strategy – vision, values and goals – and most importantly, this is communicated to our team. This then needs to form the basis of every conversation, every decision, every team meeting and any other function of your business.
If you can get this right, harness the strengths, energy and minds of your people, your business will take off exponentially. You will be moving in the right direction and doing this, as a consistent practice will help you empower and future proof your business or career. This is what business needs right now – so desperately. Engage your team, put your ego aside and be open to the enormous possibility this can provide you.