The Dramatic Change
The Dramatic Change
There has been a dramatic change in leadership, and in teamwork. Collaboration requires an engaged workforce, but only 13 per cent of the world’s workforce is engaged right now. In this working from home mode the current ways of engaging are clearly inefficient. The old approach – engaging people from outside-in through the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of work and company brand – no longer inspires people, especially the younger generations coming into the workforce. Engaging a workforce to collaborate and innovate requires a new lens and tool kit, starting with ‘who’ and ‘why’. (excerpted from Jeremy Scriven published in the Australian Human Resources Institute 2016)
The old days of “telling” employees how to do their jobs, hopefully has gone away. Of course, there are many businesses that still do things this way. “Let me show you how this is done, now you go and practice and get good at it.” I can’t imagine a workplace like that anywhere, anymore, that would attract and retain talented people.
What Does This Mean For Us?
However, this is the challenge for leaders isn’t it? How do you pass your success (or failure) to your employees and feel good about it? In my view, the hardest transition in life is going from being a performer to a leader – from doing to directing. In fact, many talented people fail in this transition. Too many people have ‘control or ego issues.’
In our management learning on demand class we identify Understanding, Accepting and Committing as three critical steps in leadership. Everyone has to Understand what we are trying to do. Everyone has to Accept that what we are trying to do is the ‘Right Thing To Do.’ Then, and only then will everyone be committed to getting it done. In America surveys tell us that only 10% of business achieve their strategic goals. Further, those surveys tell us that only 5% of the employees can tell us their company goals. It would appear that we have to work harder on communications.
Engaging motivated people is the way to satisfy everyone. I believe that everyone wants to do a good job. In many cases leadership doesn’t clearly explain to the employee what doing a good job looks like. How can anyone succeed in that environment?
Food for thought? I hope so.
The Time is Now.