As management, MT or founders of a company, you have a certain vision in mind. But how do you get your employees to go along with it? I hear this question quite often, sometimes the company has already actively tried to get the employees behind their plans or behavior at work, sometimes it has remained mainly wishes and little action. This is of course a very complex issue, in this blog I will give you a hint of what the most important steps are.
1. Clear vision
Is what you envision super clear and concrete for your team? Are we talking about being a little more professional, a little more customer-focused, a little more profitable? Or are you very concrete with where you want to go. Does everyone understand this vision and more importantly where it is needed and urgent? There is nothing more deadly than another management turnaround for no good reason. In every project, we start with a clear goal poster so that everyone can see where we are going in the coming years in measurable terms. And we talk to the employees about why this vision is there, what the point of it is.
2. Clear task and role division
Is there a clear job description for each employee with responsibilities and goals to be achieved? Is it also up to date? Does the employee agree with it and does he/she have the right attitude, motivation and skills to carry it out? This is sorely lacking in most SME organizations. People are once hired on a particular job description but rarely with clear goals (KPIs). It also often lacks a look at whether this job still suits the employee, whether they still need training or guidance and also matches their ambition.
3. Behavior
What kind of behavior do you want in your company? What does that look like in concrete terms? And do you, as MT, always show it yourself? The finger is often pointed back and forth; the shop floor points to management that things must improve and vice versa. We all have to show better behavior, otherwise there is no point. Does that mean you always have to tiptoe around and be perfect as an MT? Of course not, but as much as possible. And when you realize you’ve dropped stitches, just admit it. I worked years ago for a company where “trust” was one of the core values and hung on the wall everywhere. Unfortunately, the management behaved very differently, lying and cheating to each other, to their families and to the customers. Then you can expect little motivation from employees that they do always follow the rules. Fortunately, we see more and more that MT members also dare to be very vulnerable in this respect. This can sometimes seem very scary, but it often wins you much more respect from your employees than a closed attitude.
4. Making difficult decisions
Often, although a half-hearted attempt has been made to change the business, it has failed due to difficult decisions. Sometimes you have to decide to terminate certain customers who no longer fit your business, to fire employees who really don’t want to go along with change, or change complex procedures that no longer fit what your employees need to function properly. This is critical!!! So take a good look at what the obstacles are and no matter how difficult or expensive, tackle them. I heard a great comment the other day “a year from now, do you wish you had started today?”.
5. Team
It is not enough to lay down a vision, communicate with your people and make some decisions. In everything you do in the company, you have to make changes. You can’t do that alone, so make sure you have a team from different layers of your organization who also want in on the change and have them give input into how to do it. The crux in this team is to make sure they are different from you. So from a completely different department, with a completely different style of communication or personality. The people who are similar to you will get you along anyway, just pick the people who are different because they will get the rest of the organization along.
6. Sustain, sustain, sustain
Making a real improvement in your company cannot be done all at once; it takes time. Moreover, you can implement many changes in little time, but chances are that after a while people will fall back into old patterns. So make sure that you are always busy with steps 1 to 5, continuously measuring on a qualitative and quantitative level whether your goals have been achieved and people are on board.
7. Get guidance from a professional
This may seem somewhat self-serving written by a business coach, but you can rarely make a real organizational improvement on your own. There will always be some employees who won’t tell you to your face why what you want is never going to work or what they really think. Confidential conversations with a business coach help tremendously with this. And a good business coach will also give you honest criticism that you won’t hear from a client (why should they, if they don’t like your company they will leave), from your spouse (who has better things to do than spend hours sparring about your business), or your employees (too critical and they are afraid of getting fired or losing hum bonus/promotion opportunities). Moreover, a good business coach has experience with this kind of process which makes it better and easier.
8. Look at costs and subsidy
Nobody likes to incur costs for such a course, but also look at what it will get you. If, by changing behavior in your business, you would make 10% more sales and 12% more profit per year and do that times 10, what would it give you? Or how much less stress and complaining would there be in your business and what is that positive change worth to you? At Brilliant Work, most of the programs we implement are grant-funded. Also in the field of improvement management. So ask us without obligation if a subsidy is possible in your case, it often saves 50-80% in costs.
Author:
Lizanne Jakobs, Founder of Brilliant Work. We were voted best SME coaching and consulting firm in the Netherlands for 2019.
