10 STEPS TO GET PEOPLE TO GIVE THEIR BEST

1.      Guide your efforts by an ambitious, inspiring, and well-conceived vision for your unit.

Vision means being able to see what your unit will look like tomorrow, and having a plan to get there. Get beyond the day to day-to-day pressures of your job. Look into the future one, five and even ten years down the road. A vision is your mental dress rehearsal for success.

2.      Share your vision and rationale behind it your dreams, motivations, and reasons with employees.

If subordinates know what your vision is, they will be able to help you attain it; if not, they will be confused, helpless, and possibly alienated. Consider these three strategies for sharing your vision.

A.     Include employees in the creation of the vision, by involving them in strategic planning.

B.     Communicate your vision to them as picturesquely as you can so they can see it, taste it, and touch it as vividly as you do.

C.     Don’t tell people what to do, but what your needs are. Let them help you decide how to meet those needs and at the same time figure out your vision from your needs.

3.      Generate expectations for each employee in achieving the vision.

What must each employee under your responsibility contribute to the total effort? Draw up a specific list for each person.

4.      Hire people who are capable of fulfilling your expectation.

When you need an eagle and you are saddled with a turkey, no amount of training, rewards, cajoling, or intimidation is going to help. Each job has its own particular skill requirement, but two qualities you need to look for in everyone you hire are communications skills and the ability the work with others.

5.      Make your expectations known early, clearly and often.

The best time to specify your expectations is just before you decide to hire someone. Put them in writing. This is also the time to discover his or her expectations of the organizations and of your as the boss. Be as sure as you can that a job candidate can satisfy your goals. And after your hire, let people know when the expectations change, and why.

6.      Negotiate to get what you want from them .

Every manager must ask this question: “How can I get people to want to fulfill my expectations? Simply telling people what to do won’t work. Increasingly, people refuse to be ordered around, and when they do something because they are told to do it,  quality rarely result.

7.      Delegate responsibility that will encourage employees to reach for the top.

When you delegate important responsibilities to subordinates you send them a vote of confidence, you challenge them, you increase their sense of importance, and your give them the opportunity to succeed at a higher level.

8.      Listen to them

Listening tells you what employees need: it keeps you from making mistakes with them; it wins their respect it enables you to negotiate successfully with them it raises their self-esteem it minimizes their frustration it communicates your caring it’s the most assertive communications skills at your disposal.

9.      Show them the enthusiasm, initiative, commitment, energy, loyalty, dependability, honesty thoroughness, caring, and competence you expect them to show you.

Example is the most powerful leadership tool at your disposal. Many people in this world are looking for a positive role model; they respond when they find one. If you do one thing as a leader and expect the led to do something else, they will either not do what you ask them to do or they will be upset that they have to do it. They may not state their resentment to you, but it will show up in the quality of their work.

10.  Give them feedback on how well they are meeting your expectations.

Each day your goal should be to catch them in the act of doing something right so you can praise them, thereby making them feel valuable and valued. Provide expert criticism whenever you, instead, catch them in the act of violating your expectations. At least once per quarter if not every day tell them what you would like to see more of, what you would like to see less of and what’s so good that it should remain the same.