Giving in, listening and 2 other ways to build engagement
Posted on 17. Jan, 2012 by Adrian in Blog, Orange
In one of his first meetings with new employees, Scott O’Neil, president of Madison Square Garden in New York City, asks, “Where do you want to be five years from now?” He then explains he’ll make a commitment to help the person achieve their dream … but only if they commit to giving their very best every day. Who wouldn’t make that promise after such a one-on-one from a powerful leader such as O’Neil? And what’s more, they know he delivers. Today, there are executives all over the sports world who got help from Scott O’Neil.
The question is: Do your team members even understand the levels above them and what is realistically needed to get there? Are you helping them grow and develop?
Great people rarely want to stay stagnant. That might not necessarily mean promotions and climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, effective managers communicate areas of potential growth and learning, so employees can achieve personal goals and continue to reach for higher levels of competency and impact.
What follows are a few ways managers can help their people grow and develop and create a real team feeling in their culture:
Daily involvement. In the best workplaces, brainstorming and team collaboration are daily exercises. These actions not only make employees feel involved and appreciated for their ingenuity, but they also initiate a perpetual focus on improvement for the future instead of constantly responding to the present. Make sure a portion of every staff meeting is spent engaging your team in a discussion about new ideas, threats, opportunities, and where we are going together.
Seek personal improvement. In the best cultures, managers provide a glimpse of where each individual team member could be headed. And linked to that idea, they ensure employees not only take on but complete challenging tasks and projects within deadline—spurring growth. Personal improvement also occurs through education, taking on a new project, awareness of areas to improve, or even greater social interaction.
Just listen. To create a true partnership, we need our employees to know we are listening—and we need to know when something isn’t working. Too many leaders aren’t willing to really listen to negative feedback from their people. We call them Management Fascists. They think they’re open, but in reality they suppress all contrary or opposing views. The ability to allow disagreement, without taking offense, is essential. When dissent is discouraged, people disengage.
Give in. So many managers do it: When it comes to critiquing employee work, they impose their personal preferences, i.e., “Johnson, any professional knows a good report features the use of pie charts.” Allowing employees to insert their style and creativity into an assignment without unnecessary censorship demonstrates trust in employee abilities. And the experience of taking the lead builds competency, a sense of ownership, and trust in you as a leader. Look, we know it’s hard to hold back criticism, and a manager wants to always be right, but a good rule of thumb is, “if it’s 70 percent as good as you would have done it, then leave it alone.”
Think Orange!
About Adrian Gostick
Adrian Gostick is a global thought leader on workplace strategy and the author of several successful books on employee engagement. The Carrot Principle by Simon & Schuster has been a regular New York Times bestseller, and 24-Carrot Manager has been called a “must read for modern-day managers” by Larry King of CNN. His latest book, The Orange Revolution, was a #1 Wall Street Journal bestseller."
The Carrot Principle
Human performance accelerated? Is this book about the work place or the human race?
With breakthrough research of 200,000 people over ten years from The Jackson Organization, and massive, new global data collected by Towers Perrin, The Carrot Principle demonstrates how constructive praise and meaningful rewards powerfully motivates people from every walk of life and inspires employees to excel, engage, and bring their best to work every day.
The Orange Revolution
Following the enormous popularity of their bestselling The Carrot Principle, Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton return with a groundbreaking guide to building high-performance teams. The powerful research reported inThe Orange Revolution reveals that the true driver of exceptional success for great companies is not a genius CEO. Breakthrough success is driven by a particular breed of breakthrough team that generates its own momentum.
Follow Me