One Conversation Away

As a leader, you might think you know what drives the people in your team. But don’t assume! If you don’t ask, you might get it wrong, and gap makes it harder to keep them engaged, energised, and ready to embrace change. https://swiy.co/go-one-conversation-away As a leader, do you truly understand the motivation behind each of your people and the reason they’re at work? I was speaking a couple of weeks ago at a conference in Thailand. This was for an Australian franchise group in the food and beverage industry that took all their franchisees to Phuket for their annual conference. While I was there, I was thinking about the different motivation between the people who were there – the franchisees, the business owners – and the staff they employ. The sort of person who buys a franchise is buying a business, and for many of them, this is their retirement plan – instead of relying on super, property, or shares. They might also be planning to make this a multi-generational business, passing it on to their children. But, for many of their staff members, who are often young people, this might be their first job out of school. It might be a part-time job, they work casual shifts, for an hourly wage, in between studying for something else. These motivation are almost at two extremes! The franchise owner is building a business for retirement and legacy, while her staff are earning money while planning a career elsewhere. Even if you’re not running a franchise business, this applies to you as well. Your motivation is probably different from the motivation of each of your team members. It might be unrelated to their age, demographic, or even stage of life. Everybody is motivated by different things. If you understand that, you can give each person work that’s meaningful for them – which aligns with their personal passion and helps them achieve their goals outside work. When you do that, you’ll have a much stronger team, who are more willing to take on new challenges, manage uncertainty, and embrace change. On the other hand, if you don’t understand their motivation, it’s much more difficult to keep them willing, engaged, energised, and empowered. And that creates a challenge when you need them on board as you navigate change together. Fortunately, the solution is simple: Just ask them! Ask each person in turn what motivates them – for example: - What do you do in your work that feels meaningful to you? - Who do you most want to help through your work? - Is there a cause, problem, or idea outside work you really care about? How could we bring that into one of your projects here? - Is there a skill you’d like to develop to make your work more meaningful? - Is there a project you’d like to take full ownership of, start to finish? - How would you like your work here to be remembered? - What can I do to help you? How can we keep having these conversations regularly? If you’d like to know more, join my free, public, online presentation, “Keep The Change”, this week – and invite others in your team and your network as well. Register for the virtual masterclass: https://swiy.co/go-one-conversation-away Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.