Use Some Heart (to Inspire the Brain)
By Jay Forte – Humanetrics, LLC
In the past 24 hours the world changed; this change is marked by events affecting the economy, the environment, diplomacy, human rights, safety, world markets, medicine and many others – virtually everything is continually affected. Our success in business depends on our ability to quickly and effectively incorporate these changes into our days; to use whatever comes our way in new ways to constantly drive our business.
This change is brought on by our new high tech, high speed, information rich environment. Today, we can “Google” nearly any topic. In the past, information was limited to far fewer people; now any employee has access to large amounts of significant information. This creates a new type of employee and one of significantly greater value to this service-oriented and intellectual-based economy. This creates a new type of employee…a knowledge employee and as you can imagine, the methods to effectively manage this type of employee have changed.
In this environment, “thinking” is what makes the employee our greatest asset. His value is in his ability to review and assess information, accommodate change and think on his feet. What this employee knows and how he uses it can create significant or marginal performance for a company. Organizations that view employees as expenses and concentrate on minimizing the expense, unfortunately limit their performance. Organizations that instead see the employee (his critical and creative thinking) as an asset and thoughtfully invest in him, will see extraordinary performance.
The unusual thing about intellectual contribution is that the employee (and only the employee) controls the amount and intensity of the contribution. Intellectual capital cannot be mandated with procedures or policies; it is intrinsically given or withheld. We are now primarily a service economy…and a service economy succeeds with a different kind of worker. A service worker needs to be fully connected or engaged to his work all the time since each service event requires exactly the right thoughtful response to perform it effectively and to win customer loyalty. Gone are the days of repetitive procedures, tasks that require little concentration or thinking. And gone are the days of loyal customers if we do not have thinking and engaged employees.
So how do you get an employee hooked or engaged? How do you help them want to use what they know and make a difference? It is clear…have a heart.
Employees have always admitted that they work for more then pay…they work for the approval of their manager; employees quit people before they quit companies. To have a heart means that employees work for managers who care about who they are as people. They watch how they work, match them to their talents, modify their jobs to take advantage of what they know, guide them with performance expectations that help the employee invent their responses and own their work. Managers with heart are honest about employee performance and they hold them accountable for their contributions. Managers with heart always ask their employees what they think, how to improve and how they would handle events. Managers with heart know each employee well enough to know how to reward actions that deserve a reward…at the right time, in the right way, with the right reward. Managers with heart develop employees regularly, promoting when the role matches the employee’s interest and talents and always encourage skill development and constant learning. Managers with heart require their employees to think like owners and share what they know to help their teams improve, maximize the customer experience and drive the business. And employees of managers with heart, voluntarily contribute their best. They think, they invent and they perform…their choice.
“Having a heart” with your people means that you care about them both in and out of the workplace. In an intellectual environment, employees choose to perform; that means mandating performance is out. Managers now need to manage by encouraging performance. To do that, start with the person. Understand them, work with them, care about them. Having a heart is how to activate the brain…and performance in a service economy is all about the brain.
Humanetrics, LLC. All rights reserved. 2007.