The BEST way to engage and motivate your people

You can wang on about mission, purpose and values all you like (and they are good things to wang on about at the right time and in the right place) but if you don’t spend some time fixing the operational issues that are driving people insane you’re missing a trick.

You know, the ones that cause duplication, confusion, discomfort or any other number of things that suck the life blood out of your ‘greatest asset’.

What I always loved about those Undercover Boss type programmes was how many of the ‘little things’ had driven people mad for ages, but nobody had done anything about it.  They were often simple and inexpensive to fix and made such a difference to staff morale.

So go and ask your most junior people what you should change and what difference it would make to their worlds. I bet there will be some simple fixes or some ‘not that simple but well worth investing in for longer-term gain’ fixes, too.

Oh, and by the way, they won’t say ‘We need to update our mission statement’.

Will they?