As a business coach I work with lots of businesses from all sectors and of all sizes and this subject comes up repeatedly. In my experience what makes a team and employees happy is involvement. As individuals we all crave the following, it’s a basic need..:
- Autonomy – have your employees got the autonomy/accountability/responsibility?
- Relatedness – do your employees feel part of something bigger?
- Competency – can your employees grow their skills/knowledge and do they have opportunity?
With the above in mind we need to find ways of ensuring that our employees have the above as part of their role, that we understand them and that they have the opportunity to grow.
I recently spent a full day with a client running a strategic planning day. It was a big investment to take close to 20 people out of the business for a full day but wow, the response. I spent some time after the session reflecting on why it was so successful. The first point to make is that we expect a lot from our teams and sometimes it might feel like they aren’t supporting us as much as we would like. I often hear directors say, “They just don’t get it”, “why won’t they just do this”, and “surely it’s obvious”.
The problem is ASSUMPTION.
We assume our employees know what we are trying to achieve, we assume they know how they can impact it, we assume they know why we are doing what we do, and why we are headed where we are headed.
The session we ran was all about alignment; communicating the next couple of years’ plan, why we want to go there, what it means to them as a team, the opportunities it brings, and why we need their support to get there. The directors didn’t have all the answers and so we asked the team how they could support it (ownership and involvement). We covered current restrictions, then strategies and solutions to overcome them, and finished with 90 day plans to start the process of implementation.
The team left with a renewed enthusiasm for the business, total clarity and direction about where they are headed and why. They were clear in what they can do, feeling part of the process and with ownership of projects to deliver. The directors left with a motivated team, reassurance that the business it totally aligned and team involvement rather than a reliance on the directors to do everything.
Alignment is a critical success factor in every great business to ensure a happy team, so ask yourself the question: Are you aligned or do you assume?
