You start your day by hitting snooze twice, you yell in traffic, and your heart pounds as you approach the office door. It starts and ends with your boss and his/her ability to instill confidence in you!
…Reset….
You leap out of bed ready to attack the day, rock out to the radio on the way to work, and enter the office with a smile. Two words swing the pendulum: Thank You!
A lot has been raised over the approach to workforce management in 2012. Dictatorships are being transformed by bottoms up thought leadership. Organizations are moving out of silos to turn one way streets into a highway of motivation. Enterprise applications are helping us promote one another’s goals and to empower success despite our position in the pecking order. Closed door performance reviews are giving way to collective organizational roadmaps to success.
Change is coming and we all know that the first reaction to change is resistance. So how can we bring new ideas to the table with the certainty of adoption? Two words: Thank You!
You may remember Gary Vaynerchuk’s book, The Thank You Economy. The super energized change agent used his book to explain how customer appreciation drives long term loyalty. This works in organizations as well.
There are 2 Leadership certainties:
1. You will no longer get by being mediocre
2. There is no I in Team (and you are always part of a team)
Your Word Against Ours
How often have we seen middle managers preserve themselves by holding back their most talented producers. (If you haven’t noticed the aforementioned CYA strategy, the joke is on you). Manager to Peer judgement is a one way street that dismisses the talented and retains the mediocre. Our workload might prompt us to resist a world of open goal setting for fear it will distract us. In reality, allowing transparent goal setting actually makes everyone’s job easier. Transparency breeds enterprise success, silos keep organizational differentiators under lock and key.
The Easiest Way to Motivate
The above explained scenarios are differentiated by the way the engaged and disengaged are managed. It’s as simple as helping your team concentrate on the things they do well, creating strategy based on strengths, and putting the keys in your employee’s hand!
Thank You is more than two words it is a frame of mind. If you use positive empowerment to motivate your team they will be more willing to perform. Say Thank You to me and I will be empowered to do well because I know I can. Say Thank You to me and I will feel obligated to return the positive sentiment by performing well. Tell me I am great and you have allowed me to choose success. Tell me I am not-so-great and you have made the choice for me.
Thank You for reading!
Dave Kovacovich
