Tag Archives: leadership

Leadership Card 11 – Clarity and Empathy and Employee Engagement

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Clarity and Empathy – Two Major Keys To Employee Engagement

Straight out of Harvard comes a story and research showing a simple way to improve employee engagement and your productivity, profit and happiness.  It’s called caring.  Actually caring what your customers are trying to solve, actually caring what your team is trying to solve, and providing clarity on the path to solve that problem.

Sounds simple, doesn’t it?

Yet almost no one does this.  Most people are too busy either putting out fires in their own business, or creating fuzzy, vague outcomes and mission statements that when it comes down to it mean absolutely nothing.

To Be Clear Is To Be Unkind

Something financial guru and  entrepreneur Dave Ramsey says is “To be unclear is to be unkind”.  And that kinda makes sense, doesn’t it?  It happens so often not just in business but also in relationships – when you have an expectation that something will happen but you haven’t actually made that clear.  You haven’t told the person what you would like!  And since they can’t read minds, there is a good chance they won’t actually do the thing you secretly wanted them to do.

So make it clear.

Make it clear by understanding what your customer wants.  Make it clear in a standard, repeatable process that shapes the path for your team.  Make it clear when you check in regularly to see if everything is on track.

When you’ve made it clear, another thing can happen.  It might be clear that the process is actually pretty hard.  Maybe it’s an emotional time or area for a customer, maybe it’s a long and boring process.  Nothing is perfect.  So this is where the second part of our equation comes in:

Care.

Care about your team, sympathize with their troubles.  Yes, problem solve with them using Lean CX when you can, but also just listen.  Sometimes people need to vent, and need to be heard that they are going through something tough.  Acknowledge that it is, and don’t minimize it.

Empathy and Clarity.  They both make a difference to your team’s engagement, and if you use both I absolutely guarantee you will see some astounding results.

Chat soon – David Mclachlan

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Leadership Card 10 – Tie Outcomes To Meaning

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Giving Your Team a Purpose

There’s nothing worse than getting up at your alarm in the morning, getting the kids ready for school, downing a morning coffee and rushing in to work… only to have that work mean absolutely nothing in your broader life.

You’ve been there before, haven’t you?  The work is either boring and too easy (or too hard), or too little or too much.  It’s rarely ever Goldilocks – just right – and it’s almost never a part of your real dreams, passions, or purpose.

There’s A Lot Of Disengagement Out There

And the stats on this are pretty brutal.  Nearly 67% of workers are disengaged at work – dragging their feet, making additional mistakes, and  having significant time off before leaving altogether.  But the research also shows that people want to do a good job, it’s usually leaders lacking in real team motivation, psychology and operational management skills that cause people to lose their engagement and their drive.  Which makes sense, because no one really ever teaches you this stuff, do they?  Especially not in an easy to use framework like the one from “The Lean CX Score” book.

Tying the outcomes of your team to a higher meaning has been proven to improve the engagement and purpose of your team, and the results they get.  The good news it doesn’t have to be a fancy meaning like curing world hunger, it just has to be a meaning higher than the work they’re doing now.

Things like:

  • Your work will have a direct impact on meeting our profit target in this way, or;
  • The customers you help are impacted in that way, or;
  • You are helping your broader team achieve something by doing your work, or;
  • Even almost any “because”.

Just Saying “Because” Increased People Saying Yes By 93%

During a study by psychology Ellen Langer, she wondered what sort of words she could use to get people to let her cut in line before them at the copy machine.

She used many different variations and ways of asking, but it turned out that almost any reason was enough – the highest performing sentence included “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” with a 94% compliance rate.  But just giving any reason also gave a 93% compliance rate, such as “Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies?”

Just including a “because” in your request brings a different meaning to things – a meaning that’s not just all about you, or the other person in the moment.

So when you tie the outcomes of your team’s work to a meaning, give it some thought, but don’t overdo it.  Don’t spend six months coming up with the perfect “meaning”, when a simple higher meaning will do.  And then watch your team blossom just that little bit more, as the engagement within your team grows.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 9 – Setting Clear Outcomes

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A Simple Way To Improve Engagement

In the research Leadership Cards previously we’ve seen that a big part of getting where you’re going is having a destination in the first place.  It’s that old cliche, worn out but it’s true, of setting goals to have success in your business and your life.

But setting goals can sound boring, can’t it?  Instead, we could look at it this way – it’s not so much about setting goals as it is about getting stuff done.  And further to that, getting the right things done.  Setting a clear outcome, a clear destination for your team, puts them on the right path, gives them clarity in their work and life direction.

If you were a pilot taking off from an airport, you would want to have somewhere to go.  If you just flew round in circles for a few hours, you would run out of fuel and crash.  That’s what’s happening with your teams.

The research also showed that setting outcomes collaboratively, where you sit down with your team, choose tasks that suit their strengths, improved results by up to 35%, and in some cases more.

So make it clear!  As part of the Ease of Use framework, outlined in the book “The Lean CX Score”, you find your customers (the people you serve), find what they want, and outline the steps to get there.  That’s clarity.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Leadership Card 3 – Sales and Satisfaction

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Sales and Satisfaction

It’s amazing the affect something seemingly unrelated can have on something bigger.  Most managers are busy trying to get through their day (and oftentimes night), just putting out the fires that come up.  They’re so busy that they never think about intentionally designing their work for ease of use.  Designing their work in a way that improves the small things, that affect the bigger things.

A little thing like employee engagement – how much your team enjoy and are enabled to do their work – can affect something as important to your business as sales.  In fact, if cashflow is the oxygen of your business, then breathing is making the sale – it is that necessary to life of your business.

Using the framework I describe in the Lean CX Score to get intentional about designing your work can make a huge difference, in more ways that you might initially think.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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Lean CX Infographic – More Incredible Benefits Of Employee Engagement

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Lean CX Infographic Employee Engagement Benefits

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Employee Engagement It’s Official: It Matters

Which would you rather, having a team full of people dragging their feet, complaining, making excessive mistakes and who hate coming to work?

Or a team full of highly engaged, happy, motivated people who can’t do enough for you?

Yep, I thought so.  Employee engagement matters, and having a team who is in the top quartile for employee engagement makes a huge difference, not just to your happiness but to your bottom line as well.

These top companies and teams see 28% less theft.  41% less absenteeism, meaning more and more staff turn up to do their work because they enjoy it.  And a whopping 59% lower staff turnover.

And do you think these things affect your profit and cost as a company?  You bet.  How much does it cost to advertise, interview, hire, train, and level up a new person to replace someone previously?  And how much do staff accidents and even a little bit of theft here or there really cost?  It’s more than you think.  And it can be avoided by focusing on engaging your employees.

What Engagement Doesn’t Mean

Now I’m not talking about the latest rah-rah retreat, where everybody gathers around, drinks smoothies (or cocktails) and whiteboards a bunch of baloney that will never get done.

No. Freaking. Way.

I’m talking about culture.  But not “Culture” as a broad, flimsy, consultant-type term.  Oh no.  I’m talking about culture where I can give you specific steps that anyone (and everyone) can perform every week to create a culture of high engagement and problem solving.

It’s called Designing your work for Ease of Use.

Designing Your Work for Ease of Use

Designing your work for Ease of Use is one of the easiest, fastest, and cost effective ways to improve the engagement of your team and the profit of your company.

The Ease of Use framework may seem simple, but its methods are based on research such as that above, where we are looking to improve the engagement of your teams and make the people you work with happier (and more productive) as a result.

Having a standard, repeatable process with clear outcomes may seem boring or simple, but did you know that 50% of American workers don’t know what is expected of them at work?

Making things visual so you know what to do first time without having to ask may seem mundane, but did you know that every time you have to redo something you’re not sure of, you are effectively doubling, tripling, quadrupling your cost for the same outcome?

Checking in regularly may seem unnecessary to some, but did you know that leaders who check in at least once a week with their team mates and focus on their strengths see a 27% increase in engagement?

Designing your work for ease of use matters.  It makes a difference.  And as it improves the ease of the work your team performs, it reduces their frustrations and improves their happiness too.

Chat soon – David McLachlan

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The Leadership Card Deck

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Update: You can now buy the full Leadership Card Deck of 48 cards, printed on super-strong, beautiful linen paper from anywhere in the world.  You can also watch us playing the Leadership Affinity card game for the first time.  It will raise your leadership level, and the engagement, motivation and leadership level of your teams.  Have the Leadership Cards delivered for your next meeting!

Leadership Card Deck Back

Leadership Card Deck 001 Introduction - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 002 Lean CX Ease of Use Employee Engagement Leadership Card 003 Lean CX Ease of Use Sales and Satisfaction Leadership Card 004 Lean CX Ease of Use Profit Productivity Leadership Card 005 Lean CX Ease of Use Absenteeism Turnover Leadership Card 006 Defects Theft Safety - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 007 Clear Outcomes - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 008 What is expected - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 009 Setting Clear Outcomes - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 010 Tie outcomes to meaning - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 011 Empathy and Clarity - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 012 Checking In - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 013 Focus on Strengths - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 014 CEOs Customers - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 015 Design the Situation - Lean CX Ease of Use  Leadership Card 016 What Workers Want - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 017 Intense Focus on Activity - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 018 Clear Objective - Lean CX Ease of Use  Leadership Card 019 Immediate Feedback - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 020 Certainty Variety - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 021 Significance Connection - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 022 Growth Contribution - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 023 Not Invented Here - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 024 - Curse of Knowledge - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 025 What looks like a people problem - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 026 - What looks like resistance - Lean CX Ease of use Leadership Card 027 What looks like laziness - Lean CX Ease of use Leadership Card 028 Make it Repeatable - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 029 Reduce the steps - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 030 Make it Visual - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 031 Impossible to make a mistake - Lean CX Ease of use Leadership Card 032 Checking In - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 033 Problem Solve - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 034 Rework - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 35 Excessive Hand offs - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 36 Waiting - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 037 Excessive Steps - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 038 Not getting what they want - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 039 Meaningful Work - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 040 Two Times Revenue - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 041 Million Dollar Checklist - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 042 Assertive Enquiry - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 043 Intrinsic motivation - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 044 Autonomy - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 045 Mastery - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 046 Purpose - Lean CX Ease of Use Leadership Card 047 Revealing Problems - Lean CX Ease of Use Lean CX 040 Leading Collaboration - Lean CX Ease of Use