The Truth About Getting the Best from People (2nd Edition) by Finney Martha I

Author:Finney, Martha I. [Finney, Martha I.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pearson Education
Published: 2012-12-06T22:00:00+00:00

Truth 35. If they aren’t buying it, they aren’t doing it

Over recent years, the wise thing has been to help employees see the connection between their work inside the company and their external customers’ experience of their product. Southwest Airlines, of course, has been famously trotted out as an example of this internal branding. It gives its customers the “freedom” to fly affordably and enjoy life through travel. Therefore, the employees should feel the same kind of freedom to do their jobs well—and enjoy life on the job. With internal branding, all the whys of how they’re expected to do their job are imbedded in the cultural conversations employees have with the company overall. Make the experience of doing the job consistent with the experience of using the resulting product, the reasoning goes, and you’ve got a better product (not to mention a stronger customer relationship and larger market share).

On an organizational, macro level, these kinds of conversations are driven via big campaigns coming out of corporate communications, marketing, and HR. But, as a people manager, you have the microlevel responsibility of making the same kinds of emotional links to the employees’ daily deliverables. Marketing managers understand that customers are volunteers—they can always go somewhere else for what they need. Your employees are also volunteers—they can always go somewhere else for a paycheck.

Your employees are also volunteers—they can always go somewhere else for a paycheck.

You’re the ultimate brand manager—helping your employees connect the value of what they do in their jobs to the value of the jobs themselves. This isn’t about engaging what you might have once considered to be their discretionary effort. This is about engaging the basic fundamentals of their job responsibilities. If your employees aren’t fully engaged in the spirit behind the tasks of their days, they will do just the bare minimum and then sit around waiting for you to tell them what’s next. In addition to telling them the what, you have to inspire them with the why. Do that well, and you’ve got employees who are sold on the mission of the day.

You’re the ultimate brand manager.

Your clout as the boss won’t cut it anymore. “Because I said so” may have worked with a 5-year-old (once), but not with people who probably know their job better than you do. And, of course, you better forget about “my way or the highway.” Just as you can’t force a customer to buy, you can’t compel a valued employee to perform. “My way or the highway” will result in just one response: “Yeah, okay.” And it won’t be the okay of compliance.

In today’s daily workplace, your job as manager is to sell the value of the mundane as much as the marvelous. Your challenge is only as difficult as your customer (your employee) is resistant, or as easy as your employee is emotionally bought-in to the powerful value proposition behind the task.

Your job as manager is to sell the value of the mundane as much as the marvelous.

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