"Energize employees by taking every opportunity to recognize
their contributions and urging them to excel."
their contributions and urging them to excel."
Every conversation with your employees produces one of three results: positive impact, no impact or negative impact. You want to create as many positive encounters as possible.
To inspire people, set their sights on a faraway goal that's so exciting and potentially rewarding that they cannot help but covet it. Help them visualize what it'll feel like to reach the mountaintop-to know that they gave every ounce of their effort to deliver superior performance.
Skip the long speeches when you're trying to inspire employees. Instead, summarize a tantalizing goal and then ask lots of questions. That will turn your workers into true believers. Try these techniques to engage them:
- Remind workers of their past triumphs. Ask them to reflect on what drove them to achieve successful outcomes in the past. Examples: �When you won the Jones account, what did you learn that you can apply to this challenge?� or �Remember your great work organizing our Hawaii convention? How about topping yourself by planning an even better convention next year?�
- Probe to identify your employees' source(s) of inspiration. Ask them to tell you whom they admire as a mentor. Examples might include their parents, siblings, friends or teachers. Armed with this information, you can ask each employee how his or her most cherished role model would approach the situation at hand.
- Align their interests with yours. Succinctly explain why the goal is important to you and your organization. Then give the employee a chance to chime in. Use this format: �Here's why it matters to me. Why does it matter to you?�