Nov

26

Five Steps to Engaging Your Employees

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Ram Charan writes describing Five Steps to Engaging Your Employees, emphasizing that:

Great leaders understand the numbers, but they also touch people’s hearts.

To get people fully engaged, you have to pay attention to them and make a personal connection with them. There are lots of different approaches to doing so, but here are some specific ways to improve how you lead people:

  1. Spend time and listen. There’s no substitute for personal interaction. Even the most competent, motivated professionals can lose focus, energy, and commitment when their interaction with the boss dwindles. You have to make the time to converse with people in person, by phone, through email, at lunch, or through periodic sit-downs one on one. Asking how a person’s current challenge is going and whether there’s anything you can do to help shows you care about his success. Listening is more important than talking.
  2. Help people see why their work is important. It’s hard to feel engaged when you’re working in a vacuum. You can help people see their individual contribution as part of a bigger picture.
  3. Give people honest feedback. It’s a human phenomenon: When someone is doing really well and you reinforce it with positive feedback, good performance becomes even better. People need to be seen and recognized — and not just once a year in a typically brief performance review. They need to hear what you think of their work often, with candor. When people aren’t meeting expectations, let them know that, too, so that they have a chance to improve. Don’t let your disappointments build and fester. If you talk to people regularly there’ll be no surprises.
  4. Take an interest in people’s careers. People will be all the more committed to their work when they know you’re the kind of leader who is truly interested in their success. Look for what people are naturally good at and work with them to find ways that they can leverage their talents.
  5. Take an interest in the person beyond the job. Not every conversation should be about work. People have lives outside of work; indeed, some people are very different outside of their jobs. People will know you care about them if you take time to learn what’s important in their lives.

In this new economy, the need to engage people in the organisation’s vision and mission has never been greater and these fives ways provide a great starting point for thinking about the role that us as leaders need to play. Ram Charan sums the issue up well stating:

Sure, you can hire a motivational speaker to fire up the troops. But the effect will last 15 minutes. If you really want to get your employees fully engaged in their work, you must be fully engaged with them. It’s you who makes the difference. It’s in your daily behavior, and it’s your energy that creates energy in others. It’s that simple.

How engaged are you? How engaged is your team? Select one of the above five steps and implement it over the next few weeks to increase your team’s level of engagement.

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Comments

3 Responses to “Five Steps to Engaging Your Employees”

  1. Judi Otton on November 27th, 2006 17:58

    This is great. The need to really connect with people on a genuine and personal level is so important, and too often overlooked. Thanks for your great blog. I really enjoy it.

    Judi Otton

  2. Middle Zone Musings » A Fast Five on Leadership on March 1st, 2007 4:59

    [...] Five Steps to Engaging Your Employees [...]

  3. Steve Harper on March 20th, 2007 22:56

    Great post on how to engage employees!

    Just found your BLOG and look forward to becoming a regular reader.

    Ripple On!!!

    Steve Harper

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