Timothy LaMacchio //May 28, 2013//
Employees and teams crave direction from their manager. They need a manager to communicate clear and consistent expectations about their work.
Without management expectations to direct daily efforts, employees are forced to work blind, guessing about:
The results of this employee uncertainty are predictable: Floundering efforts, wasted resources, and demotivated employees – a manager’s worst nightmare.
Define Job Success
Many managers establish employee expectations and direction without first defining job success. This “picture of performance” plays a vital role in the success of any employee and team. Defining job success entails identifying the benefit an employee’s knowledge, skills, and expertise can bring to achieving the strategic business goals.
Without asking and answering, “How will the employee or team know they are successful?” managers are unable to define job success. Absent this definition, managers fail to establish employee expectations, goals, and direction.
To answer this critical success-defining question, managers consider three sources of information.
Sources #1: Business Goals and External Customer
Every employees/team exists for one purpose. They must contribute to the achievement of strategic business goals. Defining job success requires first defining business success for the organization. Managers define job success by understanding:
These measures of business success play a critical role in the expectations and direction managers establish for their employees and team.
Sources #2: Needs of Internal Customers
Your team can never contribute to the business goals working in alone. Your team’s work can benefit the business only when working collaboratively with your internal customers. To define job success and establish management expectations, you must:
Once a manager sees how to work collaboratively with their internal customers to achieve the business goals — they can establish employee expectations and goals.
Sources #3 Common Team Problems
Identifying common problems your team experiences enables you to pursue improvements and change.Targeting this improved performance, you can define job success, then establish employee expectations and goals that direct daily work toward that definition of success.
Drawing on these three sources of information, managers can give their team the direction and guidance they need to be motivated, engaged and successful.
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