Is Your Work Listening Optimized?
Posted by Jeff Schacher on Tue, Jul 27, 2010 @ 06:26 PM
Did Lee Iacocca, former turn-around CEO and Chairman of Chrysler, capture how to create a great team in one influential remark? "Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate and reward them. If you do all of those things effectively, you can't miss." Perhaps yes, or no, but who can argue with those principles?
When you really look at it, isn't his point: build great relationships? Motivations and listening are a key part to any relationship. Based on the right rewards, employees become motivated to perform. Perhaps they are monetary, or more intrinsic, such as a feeling of importance. To know any of this, listen. Without listening how would you know what motivates an employee to work that extra shift or, more importantly, add creativity to a guest experience that results in pleasurable dining. According to Inc Magazine, being more effective in an organization, requires active and engaged workplace listening. So, are you as engaged in actively listening all of the time? Hard for some of us, but we have an app for that...
The growth of workplace productivity tools has turned the once unknown project or process into the known. We can now listen to the dining room remodeling process, by engaging gantt charts via project management tools. We can communicate with vendors about orders on upcoming special events (I guess they listen in this example). But what about your employees? How can a busy restaurant operator listen "to it all of the time"? The trick is employee engagement. Below are just a few examples of how to engage your employees, through listening...
- Pass it on... Managers should be ready to listen to employees and should not be reluctant to pass any grievances or problems faced by their employees to their superiors who have the authority to take the necessary actions.
- Speak your mind and heart... As a manager, speak up and say what you think. As obvious as this point seems, people have a difficult time articulating their needs, wants and desires.
- Actions speak louder than words... an employee’s experience of your organization’s actions influences them much more than communication, but communication creates the linkages and can play a central role in many of those experiences.
Next Blog: The secret is listening to your data