Jason Alba and I have been recording conversations about business books for his new HR platform, Enhanced HR, working our way through titles like Good to Great by Jim Collins, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, and Atomic Habits by James Clear (tomorrow we’re discussing The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey). At some point in almost every conversation, Jason asks the same question. How can leaders actually help their team members implement what these books teach?
Every time he asks, I start searching for something clever. I always end up in the same place. Just talk to them.
That probably sounds too simple to be useful, but think about how leaders actually spend their time. Employee manuals. Posters in the break room. Company-wide email newsletters. Training sessions. Presentations. All of it carefully designed to communicate something important, and all of it one-directional. We spend 50 hours building a program when a 15-minute conversation might accomplish more. And unlike the program, the conversation goes both ways.
This morning I got a newsletter from Ben Ward about passion and goals. His point was that the goals that matter most are not your goals but your team members’ goals. The question he raised stopped me. Do you know what your team members are trying to accomplish? Not for the company. For themselves.
Honestly, I didn’t have a good answer. I have some sense of it for some people, but I couldn’t have written it down with any confidence. And if I don’t know what they want, how do I know whether working for me moves them closer to it or further from it? How do I know whether they’re staying because this is genuinely good for them or just because they haven’t found something better?
So I sent each of my team members at MWI an email. Not a form, not a survey, not a new initiative. An individualized email, written in about a minute, asking about their goals. What are you trying to accomplish? What does the next few years look like for you?
I don’t know yet what I’ll learn. But the investment was maybe 10 minutes total, and the worst outcome is that my team members know I thought of them and cared enough to ask.
Before you close this, a few questions worth asking yourself.
- How well do you actually know your team members as people?
- What are their goals, and do they overlap with where the organization is headed?
- How motivated are they to achieve what you’re working toward, and do you know why?
Only you can find the answers to those first three. The answers to “how much would it help to know?” and “how do I find out?” are easy. A lot, and just ask them.
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