How can I motivate my employees?

And what am I doing wrong?

Is poor communication in the workplace just annoying or 

is it costing your company real money and driving your best talent away?

Here is how you can turn it around (my experience, not AI's).

I recently worked with a manager for an automotive group who is a high-performing team leader. On most Monday mornings, her team meetings continued to derail into confusion due to tasks being unclear, priorities conflicted, and by Friday, frustration and stress peaked. One by one, her best people left. Not physically but mentally. 

(You see, here in Germany you have secured contracts and can't be fired right away like back in the US.)

At a first glance you may think that the solution is “clearer communication”.  Looking deeper into the situation, it became clear that there were a few things missing.

The deeper problem:

·      The upper management kept changing the target

·      The vision was not clear (no clear why)

·      People felt like their opinions did not matter

Even when everyone knows about these problems, there is a lack of investment to fix them. 

That’s where negative reviwes about the company continue to surface online. 

The solution:

No, not a workshop.

Instead, a genuine individual conversation with the stakeholders and key persons at the organization about these issues and their values needs to be held.

Before trying to fix the problem, you first need to get buy-in. 

The willingness to make the workplace a better place for everyone. 

One big obstacle is the “budget” for such initiatives.

On the other hand, how much is this costing the company in...: 

• sick days

• mental absentism 

• employee fluctuation

• time and energy from current employees 

Millions of Euros per year. 

It is not often quantified because it is a slow and untracked process. 

From my years of training and coaching leaders, there is one thing every leader has.  The desire to be successful and be recognized for it.

Now imagine this as a leader. 

You take the initiative to work on turning things around for the better. 

Your initiative shows in the P&L at the end of each quarter. 

Your employees are more engaged and praise you for it.

It's time to have those conversations and create the change we all want to see and feel.

As for the example above, I got together with each stakeholder and identified the obstacles and the assumptions that were causing the friction. Then we organized a workshop to work on it together once everyone bought into the initiative. 

Hi there, my name is Jeury and I am a communication trainer who focuses on helping leaders connect everyone to the organizational goals and see how their work fits the bigger picture.

#Leadership, #InternalCommunication, #EmployeeEngagement, #Growth, #HR