The dots are each person, each task, every one of their small daily wins.
Your job as manager and leader is to show them how they connect with each other to create a brand, one that connects with each other and with their customers.
Connect the dots all the way to the company’s purpose, mission and goals.
That is how you create a clear line of sight not only to the company’s purpose, mission and goals but with each other and how each person helps their peers in reaching them.
At our company I explained how our IT-Guy Extraordinaire kept our servers up running and our computers updated so they ran fast. That helped our sales people answer the sales line quicker, deliver proposals faster, which wow'd those prospects into signing and being our customer - faster. Fast and thorough responses were how we wow'd our customers, generating more testimonials and referrals and loyal customers. Those first two, referrals and testimonials, helped bring more customers without advertising. Together, they drove faster revenue growth and kept our cash-flows positive so we could buy the equipment the IT Guy needed to keep our technology updated. The cycle renewed itself, with anyone and everyone being a catalyst to speed it up, to drive more results, to make all of us - employees, prospects, customers, partners and vendors - happy.
I would praise each one individually and often at company meetings. But, people being people, if I praised one it made the others wonder if I failed to appreciate them and their contributions. Finally, I changed how I recognized achievements in meetings. I would still start by recognizing an individual's win. Then I would quickly tie it to another person's win and show the relationship of one to the other. I would continue around the room showing how the win in one area of the company made wins possible in the other area which in turn made wins possible in the other area.
Good feelings all around.
But when others began to make those connections and speak them out at meetings, then I knew we were on to something big. We were.
Revenues grew
Cash flows stayed positive
Testimonials and referrals continued to grow. Testimonials, with their permission, were posted on our company's website with their full name and picture and company name. Referrals always mentioned who referred them. As a way of saying thanks, we sent a bouqet of flowers to the referral's source. That incited another round of word-of-mouth advertising at their offices, generating more referrals.
Conversion rates jumped from 50% to over 80%.
Here's the previous steps to jumpstart your employee engagement.
Photo Credit: 123RF
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