If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going…
…Any Road Will Get You There
In my last blog (see below) I asked if you know where you’re taking your team and whether your team is clear about the destination. We identified four key action components of leading your team:
- You know and completely understand what the team destination/goal is
- You clearly communicate that destination to your team,
- You solicit their input for how to get there, and
- You are a walking, breathing scoreboard!
Before we can tackle each of the four components above I asked you to complete some pre-work. If you didn’t do it, take some time now to complete it:
- Identify the destination/goal to which you are leading your team
- Why are you leading them there?
- How does your destination/goal fit into the larger organization’s destination/goal?
- How does it fit in with the overall Mission/Vision of the organization?
Today we’re going to talk about the first component:
Know and completely understand what the team destination/ goal is.
This might seems obvious and yet often, when you try and articulate it, it becomes confusing. Did you discover that to be true when you did the pre-work?
Here’s why. Let’s take the example of a Customer Service Department. The goal, of course, is to provide a level of service that results in satisfied customers. But what’s the final destination? How do you know when you’re there?
The final destination for any Customer Service Department is 100% customer satisfaction. And that can be frustrating because, based on human nature, it seems impossible. Nevertheless, that’s where any Customer Service Manager worth her salt is leading her department.
Unrealistic? Sure it is but that’s the thing about destinations in the business world. They ARE unrealistic. Who could have envisioned Facebook, Apple or Amazon? Could our great-grandparents have imagined flying to Europe let alone the moon? Well, someone did and today the impossible becoming reality is no longer surprising.
So wherever you are leading your team, understand that if the destination is easily reached, it’s not challenging enough for them to become engaged in its achievement. Remember, Employee Engagement is about your team having opportunities every day to use the creative parts of their minds. Our creative minds kick in when we have problems to solve, not when we are tasked with maintaining the status quo. Create a very big challenge for your team and watch them flourish.
