Creating Growth
Organizational leaders from days past often wrote goals to create “growth,” but really they just wanted to make the company more money, because making the company more money equaled making themselves more money. Sounds lucrative and exciting, but….this goal doesn’t inspire people’s best work. In fact, in my experience, making money as a goal inspires scheming, backstabbing, and unethical behavior. People join drug cartels to make money…and we all know what horrible acts happen in the drug trade :(
So, what if you chose to redefined growth this year. Instead of profit focused, you looked at growth as motivation focused? You can unleash a LOT more creativity, drive, and inspiration by motivating and inspiring your teams so that they feel inspired to do their best work.
Here are ways you can unlock intrinsic growth from your teams this year:
Become a better story teller. Learn the personas you are serving in your business (if you don’t have personas, have a workshop and create them), and get to the core of why the work you are doing matters to them.
Learn your team. Sit down with your team members 1:1 and ask them questions about what they want to see happen in the organization over the next year, the importance of that outcome to them, and what obstacles are crucial to remove first.
Calibrate. Not just on the story that you’re sharing for your personas, but also calibrate on what your team wants. Tell your team the high level trends from your 1:1 (keep it anonymous of course), and regularly check in on the obstacles and the progress towards what the team wants. Make sure to celebrate when you achieve growth.