Empowering Your Employees to Empower Themselves

June 5, 2020December 13, 2018 Andrew Cooke Behavior, Behaviour, Employee Development, Employee Engagement, Employees, Leadership, Leadership Development, Management, Management Development, Teams, Uncategorized

How to create an environment that empowers people.

As a manager or leader, do you let your people assume more responsibility when they are able? Do you know when that is, or do you keep telling yourself that they aren’t ready yet?In my travels from organization to organization, I talk with thousands of people every year who want to be treated as “partners” rather than as employees. They want information to flow up as well as down. But, oftentimes, leaders do not want to give up control.

Marshall Goldsmith, the world’s leading CEO, tells a story of a CEO he knew who was the leader of one of the world’s largest global organizations. This CEO received feedback that he was too stubborn and opinionated. He learned that he needed to do a better job of letting others to make decisions and to focus less on being right himself. He practiced this simple technique for one year: before speaking, he would take a breath and ask himself, “Is it worth it?” He learned that 50% of the time his comments may have been right on, but they weren’t worth it. He quickly began focusing more on empowering others and letting them take ownership and commitment for decisions, and less on his own need to add value.

Your employees understand their jobs. They know their tasks, roles, and functions within the organization, and it’s time for you to let them do what they need to do to get the job done. But there is a critical point that is often missed: It isn’t possible for a leader to “empower” someone to be accountable and make good decisions. People have to empower themselves. Your role is to encourage and support the decision-making environment and to give employees the tools and knowledge they need to make and act upon their own decisions. By doing this, you help your employees reach an empowered state.

The process does take longer — employees will only believe they are empowered when they are left alone to accomplish results over a period of time — but it’s effective and worth the time. If a company has a history of shutting down or letting go of initiators, for instance, the leader can’t just tell employees, “You are empowered to make decisions.”

Part of building an empowering environment is dependent on the leader’s ability to run interference on behalf of the team. The leader needs to make sure people are safe doing their jobs. To make sure this happens, an ongoing discussion of the needs, opportunities, tasks, obstacles, projects, what is working and what is not working is absolutely critical to the development and maintenance of a “safe” working environment. You are likely to spend a lot of time in dialogue with other leaders, employees, team members, and peers.

Following are a few things leaders can do to build an environment that empowers people.

1. Give power to those who have demonstrated the capacity to handle the responsibility.

2. Create a favorable environment in which people are encouraged to grow their skills.

3. Don’t second-guess others’ decisions and ideas unless it’s absolutely necessary. This only undermines their confidence and keeps them from sharing future ideas with you.

4. Give people discretion and autonomy over their tasks and resources.

Successful leaders and managers today are willing to exercise their leadership in such a way that their people are empowered to make decisions, share information, and try new things. Most employees (future leaders) see the value in finding empowerment and are willing to take on the responsibilities that come with it. If future leaders have the wisdom to learn from the experience of present leaders, and if present leaders have the wisdom to build an environment that empowers people, both will share in the benefits.

There are much more things that leaders can do to build and environment that empowers people. Please send any ideas you have. I would love to hear them!

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

How to Avoid Staff Turnover Impacting Your Teams

April 17, 2020December 11, 2018 Andrew Cooke Employees, Teams Employee Turnover, Teams

How to reduce the risks and costs of changes in your teams

High staff turnover is a major cost and drain on an organisation. Apart from the costs associated with recruiting and replacing an individual, a major cost (which is often under-estimated) is the loss of knowledge, expertise, insights and relationships.

This becomes a real problem when an experienced individual retires, takes redundancy or leaves for another job. When they go they take their relationship and everything that is “up top” in their head, and which has often not been captured. This creates a relationship gap and a knowledge vacuum it is difficult to fill. This reduces the effectiveness of your people, your team and your organization.

So how do we maintain key relationships and capture this intangible knowledge, insights and expertise?

Relationships

Don’t become reliant on a single person for a key relationship. Look to include other people who can develop and build their own relationships with your clients, suppliers, third parties etcetera – this provides continuity as and when people leave. This takes time, so you need to do it well in advance of the need for it occurring (i.e. people leaving and/or your becoming reliant on certain people internally).

Knowledge and Expertise

Treat knowledge management as an on-going project that is part of what every project team does. Create an environment where team members are encouraged to share ideas, experiences and learnings and document this on an on-going basis. Formalizing a knowledge transfer system, including helping people learn from those more experienced as part of their personal development plan. Doing this allows you to:

Improve your team’s knowledge, capabilities and capacity
Become more flexible and insightful in running and managing the project
Build a more robust and resilient team which is less at risk when key people leave
Maintain and improve your ability to deliver on schedule, within budget and to accepted quality standards.

So, what are you going to do to anticipate where and how you need to build relationships for the future; and what do you need to do to build, retain and leverage your team’s knowledge and expertise? Share here the one action you will take, right now, to address this.

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To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

Five Ways to Create an Environment for Employee Engagement

April 8, 2020December 11, 2018 Andrew Cooke Employee Engagement, Employees Employee Engagement

Only employees can engage themselves. You can’t do it. All you can do is create an environment which helps people to be self-motivated and engaged. Everyone is different, that is true, but there are common factors that are intrinsic to everybody’s level of satisfaction and engagement at work.

Engaged employees voluntarily invest time, effort and take the initiative to contribute to business success in various ways over and above what is expected of them. Why? Because they feel three basic human values: a sense of belonging to a group; a sense of fulfillment and a sense of purpose with their job. These factors help them to be enthusiastic, passionate and energetic.

To achieve these values and engage people in making the following visible and part of your business and how they work:

Produce meaningful work  – people who believe the work they do is important and valued, will believe in themselves and engage with their work environment. What you need to do is to consistently make clear the importance of their roles to the success of the business. You need to show them the connection between what they do and the company’s success whilst setting goals and challenges that will give them a sense of purpose.

Create growth and opportunity  - people want to use their skills, and respond to encouragement in stretching themselves and developing themselves further. Are your people fully using their strengths and abilities? Do you know what their strengths and abilities are? Are they being given the opportunity in what they are currently doing to use them? Are their achievements moving in the direction it makes them grow? Are there projects or challenges they can work on to expand their skill set? Help them advance within the company, and provide clear and consistent feedback on how they can improve their performance. This will benefit, in terms of growth, both for the company as well as the employee.

Uphold inspiring leadership – Hands-on, passionate and competent leadership is vital to enthuse and engage teams, whether they’re in admin, sales, manufacturing or else. A genuine interest in understanding the needs and aspirations of teams as a group and individuals will pay dividends.  Sending the message that their contribution is valued and of importance when wanting to stretch them to achieve goals. Get involved with their experience in the workplace, find out what motivates them and how they define success and what is rewarding to them.

Foster a culture focused on people – It’s well acknowledged that companies that recognize their people are their greatest assets reap the benefits. Understand the responsibilities and values of your people outside of work and consider initiatives that will enable them to achieve and carry on their personal pursuits. Encourage people to balance hard work with socializing and doing what is important to them. Encourage them to share their ideas, insights, and experiences and build up in them a sense of being valued, of camaraderie and of a community where they can thrive; this will increase engagement.

Reward and recognize – people who know their efforts will be recognized and rewarded will happily give their best, volunteer time and deliver great work as opposed to feeling they are obliged to. This is the difference between staff commitment and staff compliance. Demonstrate you’re aware of their hard work by appreciating and thanking them for their efforts. Praise great work in meaningful ways and publicly celebrate accomplishments. This will encourage individuals and boost their performance and confidence. Competitive pay and benefits are basic factors to perform well, however, incentives for over and above results give employees something extra to strive for.

More motivated, loyal, and committed employees are typically high performers who contribute and produce better results for both their employers and the company clients.

Doesn’t everyone want more of these employees!

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here.

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

3 Requirements for High Employee Engagement

March 18, 2020December 10, 2018 Andrew Cooke Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Employees, Leadership, Management, Sustainability Enablement, Energize, Engagement

Sustainable Engagement

Are your people really engaged in their work or not? What does current research tell us? What are the implications of the results?

Falling levels of engagement are leading indicators that your business is likely to experience a fall in productivity, a decline in customer service, and increasing rates of absenteeism and employee turnover.

Disengagement, in all its forms, is a real risk to the organization’s productivity and performance. This is especially important in increasing competitive and volatile times, especially as organizations downsize with reduced workforces having to do more with less.

The 3 Elements of Sustainable Engagement

Tower Watson describes sustainable engagement describes the intensity of employees’ connection to their organization, based on three core elements:

The extent of employees’ discretionary effort committed to achieving work goals (being engaged)
An environment that supports productivity in multiple ways (being enabled)
A work experience that promotes well-being (feeling energized)

Traditional engagement

Belief in company goals and objectives
Emotional connection (pride, would recommend employer)
Willingness to give extra effort to support success

Enablement

Freedom from obstacles to success at work
Availability of resources to perform well
Ability to meet work challenges effectively

Energy

Ability to maintain energy at work
Supportive social environment
Feelings of enthusiasm/accomplishment at work

How Engaged are You & Your Team?

A study by Towers Watson in 2012 shows that only one in three employees are highly engaged – the rest are unsupported, detached or disengaged. These types of engagement and whether people in each category are engaged, enabled or energized is shown below.

Types of Engagement & Attributes Mix

Global Levels of Engagement (Tower Watson, 2012)

On average, only one in three of your employees are engaged – the rest are not sustainably engaged.

About one in five is engaged but lack the necessary support to perform and/or a feeling of achievement and support at work.

Nearly one in five is detached – they have the support they need to perform, and the feeling of achievement and energy, but they are not aligned and engaged with their work.

One in four is disengaged – they are not engaged, energized or enabled in their work. As such they are unhappy in their work, and use your business as the means by which to share their unhappiness to other employees, clients and others.

What Does This Mean for Organisations?

Organisations need to take the time and make the effort to understand their people and where the engagement gaps are that need to be addressed. To help engage people, and to create performance and the realization of the right outcomes and productivity you need to ensure:

You have the right people
Who are using the right tools, who have
Access to the development of the skills and behaviours they need

So what are you going to do, and where can you work first to have the greatest impact? Your people are your biggest asset not on your balance sheet – so invest in them!

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

How Starbucks Demonstrated Leadership During Hard Times

February 18, 2020December 7, 2018 Andrew Cooke Employee Engagement, Employees, Leadership Communication, Shultz, Starbucks

Millions of people and businesses have been impacted, directly or indirectly, by the recent stockmarket drops in China and elsewhere. It is a cause of concern with over $1 trillion being wiped from Asian markets recently, the Dow Jones Industrial Average being sent plunging, as well as in other markets.

Starbucks’ CEO Howard Schultz decided to do something about it. He proceeded to address some major concerns – not directly to customers, but rather, to his employees (these are known as “partners” in Starbucks parlance).

All 190,000 of them.

Here is the brief memo that appeared in the Washington Post.

To: Starbucks partners; managing directors for company-operated and joint venture markets
Date: August 24, 2015

Re: Message from Howard: Leading Through Turbulent Times

Dear Partners,

During our 23-year history as a public company, we have experienced–and successfully navigated through–several periods of extreme stock market volatility. And although we are not immune from the global stock market selloff that has now made its way to Wall Street, my confidence in our company and in all of you has never been greater. We are in the midst of another record-setting year – combining our unique “third place” in-store experience with highly relevant coffee and tea innovation and differentiated customer-facing mobile and digital technologies. We are making a profound social impact in the communities we serve around the world, and will continue to do so today and into the future.

Our company has weathered many different types of storms. But our brand has never been stronger or more relevant. Our pipeline of new products and breakthrough innovation has never been more robust. And our long term commitment to delivering an elevated partner experience is unwavering. I can assure you that we will continue to lead and manage the company through the lens of humanity, doing everything we possibly can to continue to make your families proud of our company and all we stand for. You have my word on this.

Today’s financial market volatility, combined with great political uncertainty both at home and abroad, will undoubtedly have an effect on consumer confidence and perhaps even our customers’ attitudes and behavior. Our customers are likely to experience an increased level of anxiety and concern. Please recognize this and–as you always have–remember that our success is not an entitlement, but something we need to earn, every day. Let’s be very sensitive to the pressures our customers may be feeling, and do everything we can to individually and collectively exceed their expectations.

Our growth plans for the future of our company will not be impacted by the turmoil of the financial markets. We will positively manage through today’s challenging environment just as we have positively navigated through challenging moments in the past. The experience we deliver in our stores, the strength and equity of our brand, and the primary reason for our current and future success is because of all of YOU. I believe in you and have never been prouder to be your partner.

Onward,
Howard

In this brief memo Shultz did a number of things:

Expressed pride and confidence in the achievements of Starbucks and its employees (paragraph 1)
Provided strong, unwavering leadership and personal commitment to all employees (paragraph 2)
Encouraged employees to reach out and show special concern for customers , and that Starbucks earns success from its customers (paragraph 3)
Reassured employees that Starbucks and its employees would weather the storm as it has weathered other storms previously, and that current future success is because of the employees (paragraph 4)

Shultz did this in just 382 words! Brief, concise and effective. If you were a Starbucks partner how would you feel reading this?

My question for you is this: what can you do for your employees and customers to provide them with the support, confidence and direction they need? How will you lead through turbulent times?

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

How to Hire for Attitude, Not Just Aptitude

February 6, 2020December 7, 2018 Andrew Cooke Employees, Performance, Recruitment Aptitude, Attitude, Behaviour, Interviewing, Values

How attitude is a good predictor of prospective employee success, and how you can identify those with the right attitude for your business.

The top challenge for CEOs according to a survey from the Conference Board (January 2013) is Human Capital – the ability to develop and acquire the right people, with the right skills needed to take the business to the next level. But skills alone are not enough.

“Hire for Attitude, Train for Aptitude”

This is an old mantra which, if ignored, can be costly. Companies I have worked with have found that recruiting people with the right skills can be costly if they do not have the right ‘attitude’, where there is a lack of ‘fit’. This is reflected in a study by Leadership IQ of over 20,000 new hires over 3 years which found that 46% of the people about to be hired will fail within the first 18 months on the job. And they won’t fail for lack of skills but rather for lack of attitude.

Top 5 Reasons for Why New Hires Failed

The following are the top areas of failure (i.e., were terminated, left under pressure, received disciplinary action or significantly negative performance reviews):

Coachability (26%): the lack of ability to accept and implement feedback from bosses, colleagues, customers and others.

Emotional Intelligence (23%): the lack of ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions, and accurately assess others’ emotions.

Motivation (17%): insufficient drive to achieve one’s full potential and excel in the job.

Temperament (15%): attitude and personality not suited to the particular job and work environment.
Technical Competence (11%): functional or technical skills required to do the job.

The key point from this is that when new hires fail, and 46% of them will, 89% of the time it’s because of attitude and only 11% of the time because of skill.

As such, the key predictor of a new hire’s success or failure is their attitude, not their skills. As such we need to be clear on what attitude we are hiring for. To do this requires two steps:

Define the Specific Attitudes – what are the attitudes that make your business different from the rest. This is both in terms of what is good (which you want) and what is bad (which you want to avoid).
Adapting the Hiring & Interviewing Process – you need to make sure that you focus on these attitudes, so adapt how you do this as appropriate.

How Do We Do This?

Define the Specific Attitudes

Attitudes in themselves are not visible or tangible. Where they are made apparent is in people’s behaviors. How people behave is an active display of their attitudes. Their behavior should also be a reflection of the business’ core values which provides guidance to people in the business. A good example of how the core values are made tangible, and the expected behavior (and hence attitudes) is shown below.

The US Marine Corp

The US Marine Corps has Core Values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment. The concept of these core values runs throughout all aspects of Marine life, beginning in recruit training and continuing into combat. These “warrior ethos” provide guidance to Marines in difficult ethics situations and as a reminder to provide good order and discipline. These values are defined as:

Honor – integrity, responsibility and accountability.
Courage – do the right thing, in the right way, for the right reasons.
Commitment – devotion to the Corps and my fellow Marines.

Adapting the Hiring & Interviewing Process

Too often, when interviewing, we focus on prospective employees’ technical skills and competencies. Why? They are the easiest to assess but, as we have seen, they are a very poor predictor of the success or failure of a new employee.

When you look at jobs being advertised the experience, skills, and qualification that are detailed it can be seen that the business advertising the position has the expectation that a perfect candidate will apply. This is about as far from reality as you can get. Realistically, there is no ‘perfect candidate’ and, as such, there can only be attitudes that are right for your business – they will never be perfect.

Tests for Finding the ‘Right’ Attitudes

High Performers’ Test – what are the distinguishing attitudinal characteristics of your top performers. List up to 10 responses that reflect your business. For example:
- They own the problem.
- They always see problems as opportunities.
- They are great listeners and communicators.
- Etcetera.
Low Performers’ Test – what are the distinguishing attitudinal characteristics of your low performers. List up to 10 responses that reflect your business. These are not just the opposite of the attitudinal characteristics that make a high performer. For example:
- They avoid responsibility and are quick to blame.
- They focus on themselves rather than others.
- They do the bare minimum work required.
- Etcetera.

Once you’ve got your two lists, conduct a quick assessment to make sure every point is on target. This can be done by asking yourself the following two questions about each attitude listed:

How does this attitude add value or competitive advantage to this organization? (If the attitude brings no benefit to the organization, it doesn’t belong on the list).
Who cares about this attitude? (If the attitude doesn’t bring benefit to your customers, it doesn’t belong on the list)

Doing this provides insight into both what you want and what you don’t want in the terms of attitudes and the associated behaviors. It then helps you to prepare for the interview by focusing on how they respond to questions around both these areas. However, how the questions are phrased is just as important as what the question is. You need to develop the question with the kind of response that you are looking for in mind. But that is a separate article.

In summary, be clear on what values, attitudes and behaviors you want in your business, and which you want your new employees to exemplify in what they do and how they do it. Get clarity by distinguishing the attitudinal characteristics of both your top and low performers – this helps you to identify what you want from a potential employee, and what you don’t want. Around this then adapt your interview and hiring process to ask the kind of questions that will help you elicit answers which will help you determine the prospective employee’s values, attitudes, and behaviors. Take this into account when you look at their technical skills, as it is their attitude that is a predictor of their skills – not their technical skills and competencies.

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions,

How to Assess Potential High-Flyers

October 22, 2019December 4, 2018 Andrew Cooke Employee Development, Employees, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity Performance, Personal Development, Potential

How to determine and assess future leaders, and where and how to focus your efforts in their development.

You are looking to develop future leaders for your business. How can you do this so that you can consistently evaluate them across the board? What is more important when you evaluate them – their past performance or their future potential? It isn’t an either/or question. You need to understand both their past performance, and to identify their future potential. This is where the Performance/Potential Matrix comes to hand.

Performance/Potential Matrix Overview

This consists of a 3×3 matrix contrasting the two elements:

Performance – this is the extent to which the person achieved their objectives (“the What”) and the extent to which they demonstrated the appropriate leadership behaviors. (“the How”).
Potential – this is a person’s capacity to be a top performer in a more senior role.

By assessing where an individual sits on each of these two axes you are able to determine two factors:

Where they currently sit as you and/or others perceive each individual;
With whom to focus your efforts and where (performance and/or potential)

An example of how each of the 9 grids can be labelled is shown below. In doing this the matrix provides a simple and effective tool by which to calibrate criteria and expectations, and acts as a diagnostic tool for development. As such its real value is in being a catalyst for robust dialogue and it facilitates shared ownership rather than one person’s opinion.

Headings

Red Headings – people in these grids are likely not to be retained
Grey Headings – these people are unlikely to progress futher, but given their level of performance may be best suited in develping further in their existing field
Yellow Headings – these people may develop further, but need attention and resources to help them develop. If they do not develop further, or sufficiently, they may slip into a red or grey box.
Green Headings – people with real potential who should be in the firs tier for leadership development.

Common Pitfalls to Using the Performance-Potential Matrix

Misunderstanding high-potentials – there are misconceptions about the term “high- potential.” People use the term to talk about all top talent, as opposed to talent with the potential to become leaders. It can be difficult for managers to assess “promotability”. Often most managers are subconsciously thinking, ‘Do they remind me of me?’ “
Using the tool for individual assessment. – the matrix is not designed for individual assessment, you need to be able to compare different people. Without comparison, it enables neither valid assessment nor career decisions about an individual.
Expecting too much. – the matrix is only one tool. You need to ensure that you use other mechanism with more data e.g. 360-degree reviews.
Using quotas for each box – don’t try to allocate people by quote, you need to reach a common understanding and agreement where each person should be realistically placed.
Failing to include change management – when using it you need to engage peope so they understand it and buy-in to the approach and understand what the benefits are for employees and the organization.
Overcomplicating the process – don’t try to make the matrix more complex, the effort will usually not add significant insight or value.
Failing to differentiate between employees – once you have identified the stars and top performers, you need to direct resources towards developing them—higher salaries, plum work assignments, mentorships with executives, exceptional training opportunities and coveted job rotations—to retain them and develop their talent.

Benefits of the Performance-Potential Matrix

It allows managers to use the matrix to assess their people and calibrate them between the leaders.
Assists in the creation of meaningful, accountable development plans.
Allows you to aggregate relative comparisons between talent.
Stimulates discussion and constructive debate, and creating a shared and common understanding.
The accuracy of assessing performance and potential improves with multiple perspectives. Managers often have blind spots with their own employees, and are

unaware of how they are perceived by others. These discussions can help shine a light on superstars and poor performers.

Creates collective responsibility for the team in building a stronger organization. It encourages everyone to be candid, to listen to each other, and to develop each other’s employees.
It uncovers both individual and organizational strengths and weaknesses. As such the matrix serves as a needs assessment for development actions that need to be taken
Helps managers and leaders to assess potential which they normally struggle to do.

Next Steps

Work with your peers and use this tool to review your employees to identify your prospective leaders. Try looking at the people by yourself, then share your ideas, insights and reasonings with your peers to create insights, ideas and a common perspective. Use this to stimulate debate, and look to use other tools and means by which to identify the prospective leaders.

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here.

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.

The Benefits of Building Connection

September 12, 2019December 1, 2018 Andrew Cooke Employee Engagement, Employees, Leadership Connection, Engagement, Influence

How creating a “connection culture” can drive business results & the bottom-line

We are all living and working in an increasingly volatile environment where accelerating change is the norm. This, with the fact that most people like to live and work within their comfort zone, can cause problems for leaders and their businesses as people strive to cope with change whilst keeping some semblance of control.

As result of the rapid change people experience they often feel disconnected and disengaged in what they do. Unfortunately, since 2000 nearly 75 percent of people working in the United States have been disengaged with their jobs (Gallup 2013b). As leaders, to deal with this, we have to create an environment of connection where people can feel reconnected and they can choose to connect and engage themselves with those people around them, and in what they do.

Connection in the workplace is an emotional bond. It is based on shared identity, empathy and understanding that moves primarily self-centered individuals towards becoming group-centred members. As the connection is an emotional bond it is intangible, but we can sense it in our relationships. When it is present, we feel the energy, empathy, and affirmation, and are more open; when it is absent, we experience neutral or even negative feelings.

When people look for connection, and they always do, they do so in a variety of ways including how they connect to other people (relational); to their work (task mastery); and to a sense of purpose (existential). These can be summarized below:

6 Connection Needs of People

Connection Needs	Needs Type	Description
Respect	Relational Needs	Being around people who recognize us and who are courteous and considerate.
Recognition	Relational Needs	Where we are recognized by other people for what we do, achieve and contribute; and the strengths and skills we use in doing so.
Belonging	Relational Needs	Being part of a group or team helps us to be more resilient and better able to cope with unexpected or adverse events.
Autonomy	Task Mastery Needs	The freedom to do your work in your own way, to be free of being told what and how to do the work.
Personal Growth	Task Mastery Needs	Where you have the necessary level of skills to deal with the challenges we face and to achieve a state of ‘flow’ where you are fully involved and immersed in an energized way, in the process of the activity of the work,
Meaning	Existential Needs	When you are engaged in work that is important to you in some way, you are energized and put additional effort into it. You feel a sense of significance from doing this work.

The Benefits of Connection

Benefits accrue to both the individual as well as the business. Research has found that businesses which create a strong connection culture, by fostering an environment where each of the six connection needs can be met, realize significant benefits over their competitors. Compared to business units with engagement and connection scores in the bottom 25 percent, the top 25 percent’s median averages were:

21 percent higher in productivity
22 percent higher in profitability
41 percent lower in quality defects
37 percent lower in absenteeism
10 percent higher in customer metrics (Gallup 2013)

Employees who feel engaged and connected are

20 percent more productive than the average employee
87 percent less likely to leave the organization (Corporate Leadership Council 2004)

Connected employees are not only happier but are high performers. Again research has shown that:

1. Employees who feel connected perform at the top of their game.

2. Employees who feel connected give their best effort and persevere.

3. Employees who feel connected align their behavior with organizational goals, so their business has more people pulling in the same direction

4. Employees who feel connected help improve the quality of decisions as they are prepared to speak up and share information.

5. Employees who feel connected actively contribute to innovation as they actively look for ways to improve the organization. As a result, new products, services, processes, and businesses will arise

So the question is not can you afford to create and sustain a culture of connection, but rather can you afford not to. Your people drive your competitive advantage, so help them to help themselves to do so.

To view or download a PDF version of this blog click here.

Share your thoughts and ideas here, or email me at andrew.cooke@business-gps.com.au

If you found this article of use or interest please don’t hesitate to share it with others.

Click here to find out more about Andrew Cooke and Growth & Profit Solutions.