Of course you don’t want to DE-motivate your staff, but maybe you are if you:
- Communicate predominantly through meetings,
- Hold pep talks instead of open discussions,
- Rely on poster philosophies that say success and teamwork is all their responsibility
Remember your parent’s lectures?
No, I’m not equating your staff with adolescents. However, they are like your family (hopefully) and if you are not cultivating two-way communication with your staff, they will resent your occasional appearances that are solely purposed for “motivational” pep talks and meetings.
Most of you business owners have had bosses in your previous lives that by the time their “there is no ‘I’ in team” meeting was over, you just wanted to walk out the front door.
Remember why you were de-motivated?
- Because the discussion was superficial.
- You knew what really needed to be discussed and those topics rarely came out.
- Your boss was out of touch with the actual business performance and didn’t seem to care.
- S/He cared even less about you as an individual.
Aren’t these some of the reasons you wanted your own business? Don’t repeat this pattern.
Avoid high turnover through sincere and meaningful communication
Bottom line, if you continue one-way communication, your staff will also eventually go one way – out the door!
Get out on the floor and get to know your staff and your customers. Learn the problems first hand.
Employees are the most important investment in your company
Remember, employee loyalty is highly linked to business success. Most managers are not even aware of the high replacement cost of employees… Why would you be willing to spend the time it takes with new hires to screen, interview, do background checks, train, and deal with new hire mistakes and unhappy customers, yet not invest time in your current staff to keep them happy and productive?
Tom Peters has it right: “Kindness to staff begets kindness to customers…”
Related Articles
- Kindness to staff begets kindness to customers? – Tom Peters (bizcommunicator.wordpress.com)
- Top 10 reasons your staff is blaming you for their poor performance (bizcommunicator.wordpress.com)
- 3 ways to DEmotivate your staff (bizcommunicator.wordpress.com)
- How to motivate your staff and increase sales (bizcommunicator.wordpress.com)
This is great. And Michael Scott is the classic demotivator. One more to add: Communicating predominently through e-mails. I former boss decided to announce a major personnel issue through e-mail. It ruined morale.
This is great. And Michael Scott is the classic demotivator. One more to add: Communicating predominently through e-mails. I former boss decided to announce a major personnel issue through e-mail. It ruined morale.