(Excerpted from the Book “Leading People to be Highly Motivated and
Committed”)
I have heard many,
many employees in the midst of a bad workplace say that all they want is for someone
to listen to them once in awhile.
They state how great that would be even if little is ever done. That's
real hunger! The obvious question is why should they turn on their brainpower
if no one will listen? Why try to be creative to make improvements for the sake
of productivity or quality, or make suggestions to reduce cost if no one will
listen? The answer is obvious: it would
be dumb to try if no one will listen.
“Why make an effort if they don't care what I think?"
The sad thing is
that many bosses, high and low, are so busy giving direction and orders that
they fail to listen, and subordinates decide to leave their brainpower at the
door as they enter the workplace.
People with suggestions are viewed as troublemakers or complainers. In this mode, no one can participate, be
involved or be committed. They can only
be a number or a pawn, and they think that no one cares. In this state, the boss loses the employee’s
brainpower, the source of their creativity, innovation, productivity,
motivation and commitment.
§
WHAT IF people could
put in their two cents any time they chose and management would always listen
and get back to them with possible actions and/or answers?
§
WHAT
IF they were allowed to add their two cents again on this response and
the process would continue until management had decided on a course which
seemed reasonable to everyone?
§
WHAT
IF management only changed things after conducting this dialogue?
§
WHAT
IF in response to questions, our bosses were forthright and provided the
real answers and their whys?
§
WHAT
IF management took this one step further and went out of its way to provide
information relevant to job, company and anything which might affect or be of
interest to each employee?
§
WHAT
IF the working level could get in on the ground level with work plans and
policies before they turned to cement, get in on what work and how it was to be
done before starting?
Understanding the process of
gaining commitment
To be committed to
the work, one must have ownership of the work.
To have ownership of the work, one must be able to influence what goes
on in the workplace associated with that work.
And to influence the workplace, one must be heard and reasonably
answered by bosses. So when management
does the WHAT IFs above, subordinates are in reasonable control and will
develop a sense of ownership of their workplace. When managers take no action which might affect employees without
their concurrence or at least giving them sufficient time to comment, and share
with employees all knowledge about the company which might be of interest to
employees, applying their brainpower to every aspect of the workplace becomes a
worthwhile effort for employees. They
are suddenly released to their own motivations and start using 100% of
their brainpower on the work.
In this mode of
ownership, the boss provides information and assistance so that each
subordinate can take charge of their own work rather than sit around and wait
for orders. In this mode, the boss
allows people to resolve issues on their merits because he/she knows that
authoritative declarations are self-defeating and destructive of the very
commitment that gives birth to innovation and productivity.
Over-direction
always gets in the way of ownership and preempts commitment. Orders are probably the weakest action a
boss can take because employees consider orders to be demeaning and
disrespectful, clear evidence that the boss does not consider them valued team
members. In an emergency, orders may be
warranted, but for all else the rule should be “do what you think is right
unless the boss can logically convince you that a better way exists”.
Orders are a
"cart before the horse" error common to many management techniques
and styles. The most basic reason may
be that bosses have no faith or trust.
They don’t trust juniors to arrive at reasonable conclusions and thus
deny them information, rationales, value standards and listening. These bosses are greatly limiting their own
success. Superior leadership is
listening to your subordinates to receive their valuable input, and it is
rewarded by their trust in you and their commitment to the job. It has significant positive bottom line
implications to your company!
Problems and difficulties occur in any work group with a predetermined
regularity dictated by the difficulty of the work and the extent to which
employees are committed to the work.
The higher the difficulty and the lower the extent of commitment, the
greater the number of problems and the longer each remains before
resolution. Highly committed workers
continually strive for excellence. The
more committed they are, the more they act to find resolutions to
problems. The less committed, the less
energy and thought they devote to correction and the more time they spend
causing problems.
Listening requires plenty of
practice and concentration. You are
listening to your people and since they are the ones who do your work, they are
very important people. So listen
with 100% of your attention. Don’t be
distracted or be thinking about how you will respond or whether the moon was
blue last night. Listen very intently
and carefully, and to keep yourself focused on listening take notes to record
what was said. Pay particular attention
to tone of voice and body language since these may send signals more important
than the words spoken. Ensure that your
own body language and tone of voice clearly send the message that you really
care about what this person is saying.
When the person stops
talking, start asking questions to flesh out what you have heard. It is very normal for people to give you
less than half of what they know about the problem, so your respectful and
caring questions are essential to getting a full picture. Once you understand all that they know about
the problem, ask them if they might have a suggested solution or know someone
who might.
Don’t try to give a quick
answer! Unless you have an answer that
you know meets very high standards, show great respect by being willing
to go away to consider the issue. Then
return in a timely fashion with what you think may resolve the issue and allow
the person to comment on your solution before taking any actions. Gaining employee commitment is far more
important than solving individual workplace problems, and besides, committed
employees will on their own solve many, many more problems than you can.
Listening is your most
important leadership skill. How better
to lead people to treat customers and each other in the most outstanding
way. And think what you could
accomplish if suddenly your own brainpower and commitment was multiplied by the
number of employees you have.
About the author.
Bennet Simonton managed
people for 34 years. He effected four successful turnarounds including a
nuclear-powered cruiser and a 1300 person unionized group in New York
City. Ben provides the whats, whys and
how tos of the leadership skills he used to effect these turnarounds in the
book “Leading People to be Highly
Motivated and Committed”. Ben is
also the USA contact for “Breaking
the Mould”, an entirely new process designed to release the power in the
individual at work resulting in an astonishing performance improvement.