Engage your people
by Miki SaxonBefore we engage…
In still another blow for unwired freedom, I’d like to salute media guy Jerry Kolber for his psychic and emotional strength in a back to the future switch from Blackberry to phone. Way to go, Jerry!
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Now to engaging…
How many times have you heard people in an organization (whether team, executives or somewhere in-between) say should have, as in “We should have…” or “My boss should have…?”
What if you could harness the creativity behind those thoughts to improve performance—the company’s; the group’s; the individual’s; your own?
The idea is to take that attitude and make it a constructive function to foster corporate/personal growth and motivation, since the more comprehensive the view of their job and company the more creative people will become.
Drawing in all your people, no matter their level, encourages them to see a larger picture, juices creativity, surfaces ideas from unlikely sources and enhances their sense of ownership.
Improvement happens because how they think is the basis for how they perform.
For this to work, you must foster an environment of trust, where the messenger is never killed and people feel safe saying what they really think.
If your MAP makes you the type of manager to whom this appeals then encourage your people to ask
- “Why did she do that?”
- “What can I learn from his decision?”
- “What would I have done differently?”
- Later ask, “Would it have worked?”