The great military and political leader of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, was quoted as saying, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon.”
In more recent times, the Corporate Leadership Council identified that fair and accurate informal positive feedback from a knowledgeable source (such as a person’s immediate manager) is the single most effective performance management lever available.
Every organisation has a purpose. A story about who they are and what they seek to achieve. How this story is framed and communicated is a critical part of creating an engaged, motivated and productive workplace.
How is it that we get excited by games and sports, but often not about work?
Last week we took a look at the things that managers can do to make behaviour inefficient, and thereby ensure poor performance from their team. This week we’ll take a look Gilbert’s model for engineering high performance. And we’ll compare the factors in that model with the key drivers of employee engagement identified through global research.
Employee engagement, or employee motivation if you prefer that term, is important to you and your organisation. There is now considerable evidence from many sources that low employee engagement generates lower employee productivity, business unit performance and profit; along with generating higher employee theft, accident rates and employee turnover.
Why would you ask questions to kick butt? Your job as a manager is to manage the behaviour of your team members to ensure they are doing the right things to achieve the results you need. When they’ve done the wrong thing or nothing at all, our inclination can be to tell them. Tell them what they’ve done wrong. Tell them what they haven’t done. And tell them what they need to do differently. However, often there is a better way.