At Peoplogica our motto is “Love Your Work”. It’s a state of mind we’re dedicated to helping everybody achieve. And by helping you to identify and help your team members do what they are best suited to, chances are your colleagues (and boss) will be saying it more often, about your work too!
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner we thought we’d share some ideas on how you can help your team members “love your work”, by helping them love theirs!
- First and foremost it’s worth asking the question “to what degree are my people doing what they’re best at, as opposed to simply struggling to do their best?” Each of us has natural abilities and when we get to spend the majority of our time and effort on things we’re naturally inclined toward, good results will tend to follow. Have an open and frank conversation asking team members to share with you what, if they could, they’d love to do more of and less of. Now, we all have parts of our roles that we favour less but still have to do – but this conversation is always very powerful in my experience;
- Help get them more engaged. And by that I mean help each member of the team understand just how valuable their contribution can be. When President John F. Kennedy met two cleaners who worked at NASA one shared that his job was to “Help keep the place clean and tidy.” The other observed “I help put man on the moon.” Neither was more right than the other but clearly the second person had a stronger sense of how his role connected to the bigger picture. Help your team members develop a greater sense of worth in their role by understanding how their part contributes to the wider business;
- Put your best people on your biggest opportunities, not your biggest problems. First suggested by Jim Collins in “Good To Great”, it’s often the case that managers are overwhelmed by operational challenges and it’s tempting to keep the best people focused on solving on the most pressing problems, rather than focusing your best people’s efforts on your biggest opportunities. Working on opportunities has a tendency to be a virtuous cycle where your people are doing exciting and rewarding work, which yield greater returns than problem-solving tends to. As a result I’m more inclined to love my work!
- Give them a dollop of CTDSR… Catch Them Doing Something Right. You don’t have to make a big deal about it. It doesn’t have to result in a pay rise or a promotion. But if you make a point of looking for opportunities to say “Love your work!” on a regular basis just watch the smiles in return… and the discretionary effort go up!
Happy Valentine’s all!