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Posts Tagged ‘Performance’

As a leader, motivating employees is a critical element to your success. Leadership is about influence. It starts with the initial contact made to recruit new employees, proceeds through the entire welcome process, and continues everyday until the employee departs the organization.

Recruiting: New Employees and Critical First Impressions

New employees arrive full of enthusiasm. Whether this is their first job or a career change, it is a big decision; the employee wants to believe that they made the right career choice.

To be fair, the employer has made a significant investment in recruiting and is optimistic as well. Leaders will do well to continue motivating employees with that same positive approach throughout their welcome process.

Retention: What Motivates Employees?

While recruiting and the welcome process establish critical first impressions, day-to-day leadership determines retention within an organization and the desired loyalty that motivates others. A good leader knows that people respond similarly to how they are treated. When employees feel that they are treated with dignity and respect, they exhibit a much greater sense of loyalty toward their boss.

For example, when a coach makes it a habit to teach first, the players tend to respond positively because they feel like their growth and development is an important part of being on the team.

Conversely, when the coach does not teach the fundamentals and ensure the desired level of understanding, the perception is that results or “winning” is more important than our need as individuals to develop and grow.

Unfortunately, when leaders lose sight of their role as a coach, mentor, or instructor, the loyalty that inspires employees to stay the course and give that extra effort slips away.

Simply put, when we believe our boss has our best interests at heart, we feel appreciated and we are more inclined to put in the extra effort needed to succeed.

How to Motivate Employees

Ideally, each of us wants to be a part of something greater. We want the experience of being on a winning team and the pleasure of sharing our success with our teammates.

Just like youth sports, we want to participate in activities that we enjoy and those where we have the ability to learn and grow. We want to be challenged and to be proud of our accomplishments. We want to know that our victories were well-earned because we worked hard.

Take a look at whether you manage or lead and whether your team has that sense of loyalty necessary to remain committed to your most challenging goals.

Those who lead most effectively are able to consistently inspire loyalty from others.

If you read any books on leadership, you will find one common trait used to describe successful leaders: They have the ability to Influence employees to follow them. And while the literature is replete with suggestions on “how” successful leaders influence employees (i.e. they listen, they share, they role model), the “why” is equally important. Fortunately, the “why’ is easy to explain: Successful leaders must be able to influence employees because they need employees to deliver positive performance.  So successful leaders are also high performance leaders. These are five ways they motivate employees.

1. High performance leaders use a “strategic perspective” to plan and act. They don’t just consider how performance impacts one person or one thing. Instead, they consider how performance impacts people, processes, practices, and procedures throughout the entire organization. They make sure employees are doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reason. Whether they are leading a small project or a large organization, high performance leaders make a strategic link to positive performance whenever and wherever they can.  

2. High performance leaders use the “mission, vision, and values” of their organization as guiding principles for everything they do. They never talk about performance as an isolated activity. Instead, they always explain how individual, team, and organizational performance contributes to the fulfillment of these guiding principles. They let employees know that they are working for a common purpose and a higher purpose. Sometimes this means focusing on the mission of a smaller department within the organization. At other times, this means focusing on the more broad organization mission. Whatever the case, high performance leaders find a way to connect guiding principles to positive performance.

3. High performance leaders emphasize the “mutual benefits” of performance. They do not just focus on the achievement of organizational goals. Rather, they always link the achievement of organizational goals to the achievement of individual goals. They know what is important to their organization and they know what is important to employees. As such, high performance leaders can explain how organizational achievements like increased profits or improved productivity positively impact things employees want. Similarly, high performance leaders can explain how a lack of achievement in these areas negatively impact things employees want.

4.  High performance leaders “involve employees” in setting goals, benchmarks, and objectives. They don’t just issue a set of directives and expect everyone to be committed.  Instead, they find ways to generate input from employees. Sometimes this input might mean determining WHAT goals will be pursued. At other times, it could mean determining HOW goals will be pursued.  Whenever possible, high performance leaders involve employees in some way, no matter how small.

5.  High performance leaders “reinforce performance continuously.”  They create an environment that lets employees know which behaviors lead to which results. When employees deliver positive performance or negative performance, they explain the impact on results. They also fill the organization with reminders about achievements.  These might include placing mission statements on office walls or putting progress charts in hallways. Additionally, they celebrate achievements like first steps, second steps, and final steps. When it comes to reinforcement, high performance leaders know that it’s about what they say and what they do.

The Goal Of High Performance Leaders

The goal of high performance leaders is to be successful.  And they know that in order to be successful, they must influence employees to deliver positive performance. High performance leaders succeed in this area because they do things to inspire higher levels of commitment and cooperation from employees. They don’t just assume that because they are leading, employees will follow. Try these strategies for yourself the next time you are leading a team, a project, or a company. You may be pleasantly surprised by the results.

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The success of your business is directly related to the commitment and productivity of the people who work in your business. And yet it is generally recognized that 60% of employees, or more, are underutilized in their roles at work. 

So what are the factors that contribute to low performance standards and expectations?

Communication, or mis-communciation, is one of the major sources of low productivity.  The messages that move between the owner, employees, managers and even customers are not understood in the same way. One classic example is that business owners tend to assume that employees and managers see things the same way they do.

Managers tend to lower their expectations (unconsciously) so that they will not have to confront employees. Most people dislike discussing declining performance with their employees, and so actively avoid having to do so by reducing heir expectations of what’s required.

Employees have a tendency to protect themselves from possible failure by pushing back on what is expected. They will often negotiate/bargain the job down to a more comfortable level.

Business owners often have difficulty separating what they want done from how they want it done. Telling employees exactly how to achieve a certain goal leaves no room for the employee to think or use their own initiative. Consequently they often stop trying to contribute and become ‘sheep” – just doing what they are told. In this catch-22 situation, the owner is forced into a position where they must constantly be telling everyone exactly what to do.

Some owners may not understand the concept of person/job matching, and so have the wrong people in the wrong positions.  This situation can be extremely demotivating for the employee.

So how do you go about setting performance standards and expectations?

The owner and employee must collaborate together.They must work together on the fact that the role the employee is performing can be improved in a way where everybody wins – the employee, the owner, and the business. When you teach the owner to collaborate with the employee, not only does the performance go up, but so does the morale.

Short term goals, or wins, must be established. 90-days is the ideal.Set specific goals for the employee in 90-day increments so that there will be ample opportunity to monitor systems and progress, as well as to experience wins on a routine basis. Ideally, involve the employee in this goal setting process so they experience some control over their work.

Determine the strengths required to do the job well.If the employee is going to be successful, the owner and employee must decide jointly what strengths are required, and how the employee is going to be able to apply their strengths. This is where having a good match between the employee and the job is so important. The boss doesn’t have to figure this out on their own – the employee will probably already know what’s necessary.Set standards, and determine HOW they will be done.Decide the standards that will apply to each activity, as well as how the standards will be achieved. Understanding the level of performance required gives the employee a sense of achievement – which is one of the key ingredients to achieving performance standards. This is true for employees at any level.

Establish communication agreements.To ensure success, the owner and employee must decide at the outset how they are going to communicate progress (and challenges) along the way. Will it be day-to-day? Week-to-week? The minimum time frame is week-to-week. Less frequent than that and it all falls apart.

The employee decides how to achieve the desired results.The owner will be present and participating for this part, but it is essential that the employee be leading the process in order for them to have ownership. Help the employee take responsibility for deciding how to accomplish the results. You may need to determine if the employee has the skills and development to do this. If they don’t, provide maximum guidance to them.

Get it in writing.If it is not in writing, within one to two weeks everyone will be confused and uncertain. The focus, responsibility, resources, constraints, timetables and measures all need to be in writing. The purpose of doing this is to make sure the owner and employee are so clear on the goals and process that there is no confusion whatsoever. It sets everyone

Establish a monitoring method.Make sure you get agreement on how the performance will be monitored and how frequently. In order for the process to go forward, the employee needs to agree to monitor their own performance, and the owner must agree to sit down and review it with the employee on a pre-determined schedule. Let them know upfront that if they get busy and start canceling meetings, performance will not improve and expectations will not be met.I recommend having the employee keep track of their progress in writing and advise the owner weekly. A simple weekly progress update is a win-win solution and can take as little as 5 minutes. A monthly sit-down, face-to-face meeting is a must also.

What are the benefits of setting effective performance standards and expectations?Employees are energized and empowered to take ownership of their positions.Owners become energized and inspired, ceasing to lower expectations in order to avoid confrontation.The productivity of the company goes up.Everyone knows what is expected of them, which provides certainty to move forward.This process, itself, opens new channels of communication between owners and employees.