Motivate Your Employees to Commit to a Common Vision

Is each member of your team moving in the exact same direction, pursuing the same objectives?


As leaders, it is critical that we create a culture where everyone is working to achieve one common goal, pursuing one common vision. If there is NOT a common vision for the team to work towards, there is no way we can expect the individuals to put the team first, to go above and beyond for the good of the team, and to ultimately put in maximum effort to help ensure that the team goals and objectives are accomplished.

If you don't currently have a vision (one that is communicated throughout your entire team or company), create one! When getting started on your vision, keep in mind that effective visions have 5 main characteristics: Realistic, Easy to Understand, Commonly Understood, Inspiring, and Meaningful.

Creating a vision, and helping others to become motivated to work towards it is the only way to create an environment where employees are willing to put in the absolute highest level of commitment. An organizational vision is something larger than each person's job title or duties. It is something each employee can rally around, something they can be proud of, something that motivates them to be the best they can be day in and day out, even when nobody is looking!

Tip for Coaching Employees

First, ask yourself...
Would you like to be a more effective coach for EACH and EVERY employee of yours?


Today, more and more companies are trying to build an "environment of learning" by attempting to coach employees, rather than simply manage them. For this to be effective, leaders must first understand that coaching everyone in the exact same way, with a broad brush, is not effective or acceptable. A successful coach/coachee relationship is completely reliant on the coach first knowing as much about the individual coachee as possible.

To successfully coach an employee (which will ultimately help them to learn and produce better results) there are many questions about the coachee you should be able to answer. A few of them are: What are THEIR strengths and weaknesses? How do THEY prefer feedback, and how often do they prefer it? What motivates THEM? What are THEIR personal and professional goals? Do THEY desire to be promoted? What skills would THEY like to learn and develop for themselves?

Knowing the answers to these questions will not only strengthen your relationship, but will set the foundation for you to lead/coach them as an individual. Doing so will also help you to align their goals to your goals and the goals of the organization- creating a strong level of synergy and commitment between all parties.

Providing Better Service

First, ask yourself...Would you like to provide better service to each and every unique customer that you have?


Regardless if we are referring to external customers or internal customers (internal customers being our employees, co-workers, superiors, business partners, etc.), the only way to build strong, loyal relationships in today's extremely competitive environment is to provide the absolute best, most above-and-beyond service possible. But here is the problem: each and every customer is different, which means that what one customer might consider to be excellent service might simply be average to the next.

The only way to provide the absolute best service to ALL of our customers is to service them through what's called The Customer Paradigm. This means that instead of worrying about what you feel to be good service, you are only concerned with their opinion. We can begin to operate under The Customer Paradigm by asking ourselves specific questions, such as: How do THEY feel about my service? What do THEY really want? What do THEY consider to be excellent service? What do I know about THEIR preferences? How can I improve on our past interaction to make it better, according to THEM?

The key is remembering that just because YOU feel you did a great job doesn't mean they feel the same way, and their opinion is the only one that really counts. In order to make sure your customers have an A+ experience every time, you should evaluate every aspect of your service (through their eyes) which will also help you to decide if there are any parts that could be fixed, changed, eliminated or improved to enhance their experience.

Achieve Better Outcomes While Empowering Employees

First, ask yourself...
Are your employees ever unsuccessful when they are empowered with brand new tasks for the first time?

Empowering someone is an excellent way to develop their skills, and increase their commitment to the goals of the team/organization. However, if the proper steps are not followed, the act of empowerment can backfire - often resulting in conflict, mutual lack of confidence, and a regression in that particular employee's performance AND desire to be empowered again in the future.

The 1st step (out of many) to successfully empower someone is to provide them with an extremely clarified description of the role or responsibility that you would like them to perform. Seems like common sense, right? Unfortunately, this easy but important step is often overlooked due to our tendency to assume that since WE know exactly what to do and how to do it, that means the OTHER PERSON does as well.

Clearly communicating exactly what the task is will ensure the employee fully understands what to do. Going into specific detail will also proactively uncover questions they might have - usually ones that you would have never thought to address!