Mcgraw-Hill - Briefcase Books - Motivating Employees.pdf - Mcgraw-Hill [Briefcase Books] - motywacja007

Encouraging

Entrepreneurial

Thinking

and if you want them to be the most valuable asset on your

balance sheet, then let them feel and experience ownership in

the organization. Effective managers make every employee

feel like a business partner. Why? Because when people feel

ownership of something, they look out for it.

Make Everyone Feel like a Business Partner

Encouraging an entrepreneurial mindset goes beyond profit

sharing and stock options. It’s a motivating attitude instilled in

others by you, the manager. We see this attitude demonstrated

and translated into profits in companies such as Hewlett-

Packard, Southwest Airlines, Nordstrom, Intel, Starbucks, Wal-

Mart, Microsoft, and hundreds of smaller companies, where

employees are motivated to take exceptional pride in their

work because they’re treated like business partners, not

hired help.

I f you want your employees to be motivated to do their best,

Motivating Employees

How do you create

such an atmosphere of

entrepreneurial attitudes

and pride? You begin by

understanding and

acknowledging that

employees today want a

say in how the organiza-

tion is being run. Their

input can be extremely

powerful, especially if

they know and understand how the organization operates. By

the way you interact with employees, you can help them

begin thinking as entrepreneurs and feel more accountable for

the organization meeting its goals.

To succeed in today’s rapidly changing work environment,

employees need to know far more about the organization than

just how to do their specific jobs. So you must help workers

better understand the entire organization, gain a clearer per-

spective of how the organization operates, learn what the

competition is doing, and develop the ability to take intelligent

risks and to be creative. In other words, you need to help

employees take full advantage of their human capabilities to

perform at high levels.

Five Steps to Creating Entrepreneurial Thinkers

There are five steps you as a manager can take to help your

employees think and act more like entrepreneurs on the job:

1. Explain the organization.

2. Demonstrate how the organization operates and generates

income.

3. Help your employees understand the competition.

4. Encourage intelligent risk-taking.

5. Inspire innovative thinking.

In implementing these strategies, remember that you’re not

trying to create a bunch of independent decision-makers who

Entrepreneurial mindset

As it’s used here, we mean

“thinking like a business

owner.” Although the term can be

used to characterize somebody who

acts independently, perhaps even as a

maverick, it’s intended here to convey

a sense of feeling joint ownership, of

being a partner in a business, and car-

ing about the success of that business.

Encouraging Entrepreneurial Thinking

don’t take into consideration the needs of their colleagues or

the organization. You’re simply trying to help your employees

feel a sense of ownership and pride in their work and a sense

of commitment to the organization and its goals.

Step 1. Explain the Organization

One key to your success as a manager is that you understand

the organization’s mission, its goals, and its strategies for

achieving these goals. If you’re a manager, you know how

much it helps to see the big picture within which your specific

responsibilities lie. Because you understand how you fit into

the organization, you better understand your role and why the

company values your contribution. It’s easier to identify with

the company and feel motivated to work harder and smarter.

It’s the same for your employees. If they understand about

the organization and their role in it, they can feel similarly

motivated and much more likely to develop a positive attitude

toward their jobs and their fellow employees. You don’t need

to make everyone managers, of course. But you can help

your employees better understand what’s going on beyond

their desks, cubicles, and work stations and outside the walls

of your department. When they know how they fit in and the

difference they make, they can do their work more intelligently.

How can you help your employees become more aware of

their role and feel more a part of what’s happening throughout

the organization? Here are a few suggestions for you to consider:

• Give employees books and articles about the organization.

Keep a scrapbook to record important chapters in the orga-

nization’s history—the bad as well as the good. This will

give employees a historical perspective of the company

and inspire in them a greater sense of identity and pride.

• If the organization issues an annual report, show employ-

ees how to understand and interpret it. Point out the CEO’s

message, which can be valuable in clarifying the organiza-

tion’s mission, measuring progress toward long-term goals,

and describing challenges the organization might face in

the future.

Motivating Employees

• Share the monthly departmental profit-and-loss statement

with employees. This will help them understand even better

how their work fits into their small section of the organiza-

tion, their neighborhood of your economic community.

• Help employees understand your organization’s mission

statement. Look for opportunities to discuss the mission

statement with members of your team. Show how it drives

behavior and decisions in the organization.

• Encourage employees to identify things they can do to

contribute directly to achieving the organization mission

statement objectives. Discuss with them the role(s) of your

department and whatever strategic goals you might have.

Then give them the chance to act on their ideas.

• Encourage employees to tackle obstacles by having them

lead task forces to find solutions and begin implementing

them. This can be as formal or informal as you deem appro-

priate. What’s essential is to encourage your employees to

think together about how they can improve their work envi-

ronment and the performance of your department.

• Reinforce the value of your organization’s communications

department, if you have one. Suggest that employees con-

tact the department for copies of executive briefings,

recent newspaper clippings that profile or discuss the

organization, recent ad campaigns, and corporate

brochures. Or, simply get copies of these documents your-

self and post them around your department.

Step 2. Demonstrate How the Organization

Operates and Generates Income

As a manager, you understand how your organization operates

and manages its finances. So you might not realize what it’s

like to work without knowing how every person and every job

affects the bottom line. When employees become aware of

how the organization runs and how it spends and brings in

money, they become more motivated to help make a

difference.

Encouraging Entrepreneurial Thinking

How can you help each of your employees understand

how he or she alone impacts the organization’s bottom line?

Here are a few recommendations:

• Arrange for a business basics training program for all

employees. There are several on the market that can be

customized to your organization’s needs. These programs

may use a game format to explain how your organization

operates and how it makes and loses money. This can be

an enjoyable way to teach employees the business.

• Give employees documents that describe strategic plans,

financial goals, and operating philosophies of the organiza-

tion. Again, the corporate communications office may

have just what you need. You might want to explain a few

of these documents at every departmental meeting.

There’s no need to turn your meeting into a seminar; just

take a few minutes to sum up each document and why it

matters to the organization and your employees. Then,

summarize the impact of your group in all this, in terms of

costs and income generated.

• Analyze scenarios that show the impact one person has on

the entire organization. This can be a real eye-opener! The

Great Game of Business offers some good

suggestions on how to

do this.

You can probably

come up with scenarios

for your organization. In

fact, most organizations

have horror stories involv-

ing employees who didn’t

care enough about a par-

ticular job or didn’t fully

understand the impor-

tance of what they were

expected to do. Whether

you find actual examples

or create realistic scenar-

Open Book

Managing

Over the past few years, the idea of

open book management has become

popular.This concept involves sharing

the organization’s financial data with

employees and showing them specifi-

cally what they cost and what value

they add to the organization. A good

resource for learning about this

approach is the 1992 book, The Great

Game of Business, by Jack Stack.

Information is also available on the

Internet at http://greatgame.com.

Mcgraw-Hill - Briefcase Books - Motivating Employees.pdf

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