By Alusine Fullah
Unfortunately, business failure is common – and it’s not just start-ups and small businesses that fold every year. Fifty percent of the Fortune 500 companies that existed 20 years ago have disappeared, and the life expectancy of multinational companies is limited and shrinking.
In recent years, engaging your employees and harnessing their potential has become a hot topic in the business world. Get it right, and the results are remarkable. Get it wrong and it can destroy a company. As the world is gripped by worldly crises, business owners are seeking answers to help them navigate change and challenges, emerge stronger and create opportunity out of adversity. Now, more than ever, Stefan’s thought-provoking, straightforward, proven approach helps business owners and leaders create tighter cultures, more connected, engaged and agile teams, that is appreciated by businesses all over the world.
Lack of authenticity and transparency: to build and maintain a successful organization, you must have the trust of your stakeholders and employees. Gaining this trust requires transparency, authenticity, and honesty – even when things go wrong. Organizations or the managers must communicate their purpose and mission, and be transparent about the business processes that affect customers.
A great example of this issue is transparency around a company’s use of data. The companies that try to hide the way they use data (or exploit users’ data for nefarious purposes) will fail, and the ones that are fully transparent about how, when, and why data is being used will thrive by building consumer trust.
Arrogance is a company killer!! As soon as leaders become complacent, their companies begin to fall behind. To succeed, companies need humble leaders who still maintain a smidge of fear that motivates them into action. Leaders should be aware that they can’t afford to cling to any past or current successes because sitting back on their heels will cause their companies to fall behind.
As managers, you should be tackling the problem head-on, and focusing on caring, focusing on feelings, and understanding more, and taking action on those things, so we can reduce the effects of burnout and mental health strain that have become so alarmingly widespread and prevalent amongst employees worldwide, in every industry.
If leaders fail to act, their organisations wind up with people who care less. And guess what – caring for one’s work is a driver of positive business results. Because when people care, that’s when the magic happens. That’s when employees delight happen, when innovation happens, and when the business thrives.
Don’t overlook peoples’ feelings. Caring is a two-way street. People’s feelings matter, and if it becomes clear to employees that the organisation doesn’t care for them on a human level, it compels them to care less about their work.
Many leaders are uncomfortable when it comes to employee feelings. Or, worse, they’re dismissive of how people feel, preferring to simply believe that employees are just in it for the money. When leaders fall into either of these traps, they are abandoning an opportunity to galvanise their employees and create the kind of workplace that people value – and more specifically, the kind of workplace they don’t want to leave.
This brings me to my next point: the resignation of workers from their offices.. It’s in full effect, and the reasons are well documented. People aren’t leaving for a larger pay packet. They’re resigning from jobs that aren’t compatible with how they want to live their lives.
According to the WSJ article, organisations have not been good at caring about their people and what they’ve experienced over the last year:
And here is the crux of the matter. If an organisation’s business model relies upon the assumption that its employees will tolerate onerous requirements, such as forced overtime and higher workloads, well, that organisation is probably reaping what they’ve sown at this very moment. Collectively and nearly globally, employees have decided they’re not going to take it anymore.
Caring for employees is a necessity. If an organisation is to thrive, caring for employees is a necessity. What does “caring” mean in a corporate context? In short, it means listening to employee feedback and responding.
The WSJ article gave a great example of exactly this: one organisation had mandated “meeting-free Fridays” to provide people with focus time and combat Zoom fatigue. Workers there told executives that the meeting-free Fridays were nice, but relaxing deadlines and putting more people or technology on projects would help them more.
Your staff are your cultural cornerstones, upon which you can build their future – if you can quickly understand staff needs, and just as swiftly use that feedback to close any glaring holes and align leadership on what they want people to feel as members of their team.
