The right way to make staff more effective and purposeful

During the Transform Your Business course that I am currently running I work with business owners on effective communication. I do this with a view to maximising the engagement of the people around them.

There is a lot of study in the area of people engagement but sometimes it’s hard to take the theory and implement it inside your business.

The first step we take on improving staff engagement is to know what you need from your staff.

Do you need them to concentrate on day to day activities or do you need them to deliver on strategic activities. (We cover setting strategic activities in the first part of the programme).

Then we look at two axes, Focus vs. Energy.  If your employee is focused on delivering the right results for you with a great sense of urgency and energy, then all the communication you need is to thank them and make them feel valued. Regularly check in to ensure you remind them how important their work is for you and the business.

If your staff member is low on focus and low on energy, we call these people Procrastinators.  From a communication perspective these staff members need to be told explicitly what you want them to do (to bring focus) and the timelines you want the work done in (this brings momentum or energy). After you have communicated what you want done. You need to set up specific delivery drops or regular updates on progress or they will quickly revert to Procrastinating….

If your employee is high in energy but low on focus, these staff members are called The Distracted. To make these effective then goal or delivery tasks needs to be communicated to them to ensure all their enthusiasm and energy is well directed.

Don’t forget to regularly praise them to maintain their results

Both of these approaches bring the Procrastinators and the Distracted into the high energy or purposeful zone that delivers better results for your business and gives higher sense of achievement to them personally.

To put this in practical terms, put the different people in your organisation into the different categories:

Low energy & low focus – The Procrastinators.

High energy & low focus – The Distracted.

Then take the appropriate communication approach outlined above with each of the respective staff members.

This is effective communication that will deliver results.

Don’t forget to assess yourself on this axes… You might need to give yourself a good talking to become more effective!!

Damien runs the 6 month Transform Your Business course with intakes in March and October.  If you are interested in transforming your business, just drop an email to info@smematters.ie.