Your business is nothing more than the sum of all the people who work within and with it. Its competitive success is derived from the combined strength of its people. Your approach should be competitiveness through employees by building trust and engagement.
Active Knowledge Questions:
How would you describe the relationship that you have built with your employees? How does that relationship reinforce their commitment to the business?
Many family business leaders would say that they treat all their employees like they are extended family members. But that type of relationship may not yield the best outcome for those employees and also the business.
‘I have not seen any business that really uses their staff well. Employees are a huge resource, why limit yourself to your own ideas?’ – Gerry Harvey, Harvey Norman Group.
Today ‘employees’ really includes everyone who works within and with your business. The traditional model of lifelong full-time employees has truly passed, however, it is still essential you engage with your employees well in order for your business to be successful.
Fail to build trust and engagement with them and your business will never achieve its potential.
If you trust someone, you should believe and have faith that they do, and will, act with your best interests at the forefront. That they will act with honesty and sincerity and will certainly not put their own personal interests ahead of yours.
‘Some of our line employees have developed innovations, in their own time, that have saved us 100,000s of dollars. These were things that our senior management would never have thought of’. – Lachlan Murdoch, News Ltd.
Viewing your business as if it were a person (yes, a person) provides another lens through which to view your business and its performance. It allows you to see the ‘human dynamic’ in your business and to build activities around that framework. It will strengthen your engagement by allowing you to see:
- Purpose rather than work.
- Habits rather than processes.
- Motive rather than monetary rewards.
- Relationships rather than hierarchical structures.
- Character traits rather than competencies.
Trust and engagement are what your employee relationships must build. And each generation of leaders will also need to re-establish this trust and engagement as they come to the helm of leadership.
A final quote to reflect on: ‘We do so many things badly.’– Gerry Harvey, Harvey Norman.
Next week’s leadership theme: ‘Effective Incentives’.
An entirely new level of performance.
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All the best in the success of your business,
Richard Shrapnel
