Today, millions of Americans will go to a job they hate at a company with a vision that was not conveyed clearly.
These three critical keys to changing the work environment and improving team morale will ultimately increase profits and productivity and result in happier clients.
You may be thinking while you read this, "These principles will not work for my organization."
Well please let me challenge you to open your mind for a moment and consider these three key elements that will help you create an engaging work culture to ultimately help improve your bottom-line results.
Vision
As the CEO of an organization, regardless of size, financial background, or current status, it is your responsibility to convey where you want your team to go. Period.
Think about this: If you get into a taxi and do not tell the driver where you want to go, you will likely arrive at an unwanted destination.
As a leader, you must convey your goals, your vision, and your mission clearly. Otherwise, you will end up in an unpleasant place with undesirable results.
Direction
So, imagine this for a moment:
You are a sales manager, a CEO or someone else in a similar leadership position and you have a goal in mind. It is enough of a challenge for you to develop goals and to push your teams to the limits, but much more is required to be successful.
You have to communicate to your team an effective game plan that comes with the right road map so that everyone can understand where they are going and how they will get there.
Without the how to or the direction of how your team intends on arriving at a set goal, the whole enterprise will all be sorely disappointed. Without clearly explaining our vision to the team, board members, or investors, everyone will be lost.
To be a success, you must decide how you intend on achieving your vision. You must also be extremely efficient in communicating this vision.
For instance:
If you want to sell 100 more cars this quarter than last, you must convey exactly how you intend on doing it.
If you wish to see an increase in profits of 10% this quarter, you also must have an active, workable plan in place for reaching that goal and get this information to everyone involved.
The communicating direction is critical to organizational success. Without it, you will find yourself in that unwelcome place where everyone involved feels disappointed, neglected and mislead. So, do everyone involved a favor and provide that effective road map that keeps the entire machine moving in the same direction.
Expectations
Communicating clear expectations is relevant to every member of your organization from the CEO to new hires. If you want the newest team member to take part in the process of achieving organizational success, create ways to communicate your expectations effectively in a clear, understandable way.
These are not some ideas I have imagined or made up out of thin air. I have used each of these in reviving dying non-profit organizations, private businesses, and public sector organizations.
You can carry out each of these keys and begin changing the atmosphere of your organization, with little to no cost. In fact, implementing these keys will possibly be the greatest and most rewarding investment you have ever made into your organization.
So, how are you doing in developing, delivering, and instituting the right plans to help your team produce for best bottom-line results? What else would you add to these three key elements to help people succeed in your team's mission?
I would love to hear your thoughts!
Originally Posted on Linked2Leadership.com
Photo: Flickr/InfusionSoft