70% of employees are termed disengaged in the workplace, which basically means 7 out of 10 employees would rather be somewhere else! It is easy to understand why many teams and businesses do not reach their maximum potential. As a leader there are things you can do to help engage your team, and therefore achieve more success. We call it IDEAS, every team needs ideas to grow and to succeed. In an environment where ideas only come from one source, the ‘boss’, then your team will not be providing their best performance.
In our terminology ideas means Initiative, Direction, Education, Acknowledgement, and Society.
If your team can act on their own initiative without fear of blame or ‘getting it wrong’ then they are more confident and more emotionally tied to the result. After all its easy to excuse or deflect failure if it was the boss’ idea all along. Direction is formed by a good vision, that your team know where they are headed and in what manner. This gives them a framework for making decisions and acting on initiative. Education helps people grow, and boosts confidence as well as self esteem, also encouraging further learning and imagination. Acknowledging good work, or good effort, means that you encourage more effort and subsequently better performance. Finally having a social connection means the team work better together, as they move from simple acquaintances, to colleagues and then perhaps even friends, and to some teams that can nearly extend to family. Having a strong societal culture in your team will help members engage and commit to better performance and therefore better results.
In terms of Propellor, how we help teams engage is by including a level of transparency to the tasks and goals which need to be achieved and by whom. We include team or project dashboards so everyone can see what needs to be done. We include Key Performance Indicators or what we call Propellor Metrics so teams can help each other, and with great discussion and collaborative tools, your team can discuss options, come up with great ideas, and congratulate each other as work is complete.
Employing people or managing a team can be a daunting experience, and it is usually the person who has performed great work and achieved individual success that finds themselves with this new adventure. Propellor can provide a communication and planning framework for success to happen leaving you to focus on the important stuff like education and direction.