Tapping Your Talent for Business Improvement

One of the most productive ways for managers to gain insight into the needs of a business is to go right to the source - the employees. There is no one better than the “feet on the street” or individuals in the trenches to understand what’s working and what’s not working in a growing business. It’s likely that employees are already sharing needed changes with each other and these conversations probably result in some pretty awesome recommendations. So it may seem obvious that the way to harness those discussions and ideas to improve your business is simply to ask the employees! But what if, when you ask, all you hear is crickets?

Much like other human interactions, trust is a table stake for open communication in business. You may think you have the ultimate trust with your employees, especially if things are going well, because agreement requires little to no trust. This “don’t ask don’t tell” assumption that all is well can make it easy to assume that trust exists - and sometimes such an assumption is completely correct! But trust is something that has to be earned through consistency in communication and actions. A culture that values employee input is one that is more likely to experience a healthy give and take. So when you hit your first impasse and determine that the solution is to rally the troops and get their feedback, if you have yet to fully prove your commitment to open communication and action, don’t be surprised when the response is underwhelming.

I work with a dynamic manager, “Ryan”, whose default decision-making approach is to consider employee impact first; a fabulous enabler for building high trust cultures. He has been a manager for eight years and his team has low turnover. Recently, Ryan decided that he would like to meet weekly with his team to get a better understanding of how he could help them improve their working environment. Such open solicitation of employee input had never happened in the fifty years of the firm and some of the employees were puzzled by the meeting request. Despite this, the first meeting went very well and Ryan actually received a suggestion which he could quickly act upon and that directly improved the team’s day to day experiences. Given that the team had now offered a suggestion, observed Ryan’s commitment to action, and benefited from the result you might expect that in the following meeting there were three great ideas! Well, actually there were zero.

While Ryan took a positive step to gain trust by quickly acting on a relevant employee suggestion, one such moment and action can only start the trust earning process. There is still much more to be done. Unfortunately, Ryan’s optimism led him to confuse “kicking off the trust building process” with “having built the trust”. This left him disappointed by the lack of further ideas flowing in subsequent meetings. In fact, one employee openly expressed that “these meetings are a waste of time.” Buzz kill? Yes BUT, also absolutely expected in an organization where ideas have never before been solicited and only one employee suggestion has thus far been enacted.  

Creating a high trust environment alone is insufficient to guarantee the desired outpouring of suggestions and insights. I also work with a successful business owner, “Susan”, who is an outstanding communicator that consistently meets with her team and appears to have built a high level of organizational trust. Susan recently established a lucrative strategic alliance with a former competitor and her business is poised for accelerated success. While her operations are solid, Susan recognizes that to maximize the value of this alliance, there is room for improvement and that her employees are the best source for improvement ideas. 

Susan is a firm believer in rewarding people for their ideas and promptly established a reward and recognition program that allows employees to earn points for business enhancing suggestions that can be turned into gifts of their choice. The Q1 program was kicked off in early January and last week Susan reported that after a two week surge in activity in January, no one has taken initiative to earn points through suggestions. What went wrong?

The rewards program was new and frankly, neither Susan nor her managers were 100% clear on what success looks like or how the program would run most effectively. While Susan’s employees and managers inherently understood her positive intent, no one fully understood what was being asked of them. Perhaps Susan should have asked the employees how to design the program. Regardless, Susan concluded that she could have done a better job explaining the expectations and benefits. The good news is that there is something called Q2 coming up and Susan and her managers are putting together a simpler program with more achievable goals.

For a genuine and mutually beneficial relationship with your employees, high trust is built by consistently demonstrating trusting and trust enhancing behaviors. Before high trust can be attained, managers must first break a vicious cycle where lack of employee input leads to lack of management opportunities for demonstrating action which leads back lack of trust and therefore lack of employee input. Thus the cycle continues. If employees do not initially respond favorably when asked for input, never fear! The silence is hardly a sign that it is time to give up, but rather that it is time to step on the gas. The benefits of a high trust environment far outweigh the hard work needed to get you there and the hard work goes beyond consistency in meetings.

Both Ryan and Susan have the right idea in engaging employees in the design of a feedback system; they both just need to iterate. Their first attempts sent the message that they want the feedback and plan to use it. The consistent actions of Ryan continuing his weekly meetings and acting on suggestions that arise will, over time, establish the high trust culture he is seeking. Susan, in refining her Q2 program, is building on the existing trust to create positive outcomes for employees and business alike. While each waits for the trickle of ideas and insights to become a gusher (or at least a flow), Ryan and Susan should continue to acknowledge and celebrate the opportunities their teams highlight. The possibilities are vast, and the most important thing is to build trust by continuously encouraging open and honest feedback.