Q. How do you get employees to understand customers’
needs and the vision?
Start with customer feedback. Put it on the board and explain
the motivations behind the interactions the customer is sharing.
Present the vision and how that
takes care of the motivations that are generating the interaction.
The vision gives them a framework, which empowers them to
make a lot of decisions independently. That reduces management oversight and overhead costs.
Q. What if an employee does
not understand the vision?
Understand the motivation of
the employee. There could be a
communication problem, or this
employee’s motivation may be
different.
There is no better way than
one-on-one interaction. Put the
truth on the table, share what
you’re seeing and ask them to
reconcile why what they’re doing
is deviating from your expectations. If there are some hurdles,
that gives a task list of what to
focus on to remove those.
If there’s no hurdles — they’re
just not motivated — you better
question why. It may be true
that you have the wrong
employee for the company,
vision, job or task, and it may
require you to make a change.
Q. What is the benefit of
having a successful vision?
Getting there is simpler. If
you’re able to see where you’re
going, you’ll take the shortest
path to it. That’s the lowest cost,
most efficient way of getting
where you are today to some
point in the future, and that can
be your little competitive edge.
If you continue to do a good
job, over time, your resource
base continues to grow and
your leverage continues to
build. If you can execute it well,
layer by layer, year by year, you
keep going from strength to
strength.
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