Motivating yourself to be productive is hard enough, but when you have a team that needs to produce results, issues around their effectiveness can be daunting. However, motivating others is simple. If you have an employee who isn’t produce the expected results, the problem is one of 4 things (or a combination thereof.)
First, have you clearly communicated your expectations? Second, have they heard those expectations and then created a plan to achieve the needed results? Third, are you rigorously managing their deadlines? Fourth, do they have the capacity to actually get the work done? Let’s look at these four questions individually:
Set expectations.
As the manager or employer, your job is to clearly communicate an employee’s job description and what specific measurable results you want them to produce. No details regarding parameters, timing or scope of projects should be left out. If you don’t ask for it, you CANNOT expect them to accomplish it.
Have them create agreements that will fulfill your declared expectations.
Once you have communicated your expectations, you need to get the employee’s agreement. This means that you are clear that they have heard what you said and are agreeing to the expectations. From there, you need to ask them to create an action plan to achieve the expected results. They must agree to rigorously manage their deadlines, such that, if a deadline will not be met, they communicate with you prior to missing the deadline. This communication should include a promise for their new deadline.
Manage their deadlines.
Once the employee has an approved (by you) action plan, it is your job as their manager/employer to manage their deadlines. This must be done rigorously. They should give you a deadline list and you should be following up directly with the employee within 1 hour of each deadline being missed. You will know if a deadline is missed if you did not get the result, or a communication with a new promise from the employee.
Check their capacity.
If an employee is consistently missing deadline or irresponsibly handling communication, this may be an issue of capacity. You need to check out their abilities. Is this something they do not have the knowledge and/or skills to accomplish? If the answer is yes, you need to increase their capacity through training or education. If they are unwilling to increase their capacity, you may need to put them in a different position, or let them go altogether.
Again, motivating others is simple. It’s a 4 step process that when consistently managed, will have your business growing beyond current capacity and have your employees happy, intentional and producing amazing results!
CALL TO ACTION: Put this 4 step process into practice with one employee for at least 30 days. Come back and comment about what you learned.
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