HOW ENGAGED ARE YOUR EMPLOYEES?
Recently I was invited back to AAAME to discuss StrengthsFinders 2.0 with a group of business owners. We discussed their strengths as outlined in the book and moved on to discuss how those strengths played into their ability to achieve their most important goals for the year.
In about half of the cases, the business owner’s strengths were not suited towards excellent goal execution. So the conversation immediately turned to who on their team had the strengths to achieve these very important goals. Unfortunately, most of the business owners did not feel confident that their employees would be able to get these key initiatives completed. After the conversation, I left perplexed, wondering why not.
Could it be that their teams aren’t engaged? What does it take to be really engaged at work? Here’s a list of things I think help employees become engaged:
- Common purpose. If you can gather the troops around one common goal, big or small, it often helps increase the level of passion towards completing the tasks.
- Deadline. Most people work best under a bit of pressure, creating a sense of urgency and galvanizing a group together.
- Empowerment. I know this is a crazy 2010 buzz word, but it still rings true. To get to 100% empowerment, we must supply our team with authority plus responsibility plus information plus accountability. These things together will give a team the tools it needs to be empowered!
For more tools and data on engagement, go to the Gallup site.
What are you doing to engage your employees?
