How does answering 4 tough questions to achieve 25% more performance sound?
Read on to reveal the roots of performance and a great employee experience. They are one and the same.
Do you see willing collaboration beyond the job description and the tasks being set?
That would be “discretionary effort.” Where does the motivation come from, in part, trust.
Favors fuel engagement.
Let us reframe discretionary effort as “I will do you a favor”. In the context of trust, we do favors for people we trust. We work to check the boxes for those we don’t trust, completing tasks well enough to avoid trouble.
More than that, creativity and innovation come from ideas.
Ideas stop being ideas when they are implemented. Ideas are not proven or operationalized. Ideas are risky, we don’t share ideas with people we don’t trust, fear holds back creativity.
So, can we grow and learn if we can’t act on ideas, can an organization innovate in the absence of trust?
We only share ideas if we believe the listener will go beyond listening, they will support, share their perspectives and knowledge to grow the idea. In other words, do us a favor.
Putting an organizational context on it:
There are many articles and papers that help managers and leaders grow trust in their teams, to gain unified effort to represent the best versions of your department’s services. Organization wide trust has to go beyond your team, Organizational trust is where it is OK for us to embrace the diverse knowledge that exists within every organization and support each other to grow the ideas that make us a stronger, more efficient and more effective organization.
Most organizations sort diverse sources of knowledge into groups called departments.
Ask yourself this:
How does each department support shared organizational purpose?
Do you see value in engaging with a given department because they help you deliver more, and perform your function better? Is your ability to deliver your purpose enhanced because of your interactions with another department?
To simplify things, we intuitively know that HR should help us improve our employee experience, grow our skills and abilities, that Procurement gets us the best deals for the best equipment, that safety gives us the means to achieve safe work.
But do we trust that their services deliver the value we intuitively know it should? More than that, would we work hard to do each of these departments a favor?
Who helps you to do your job better?
It is a neurological, scientific fact that the brain rewards us, fuels curiosity, and stimulates learning when we find those that help us deliver our purpose. We will seek to include them in our decision making and we will help in return. Do us a favor, we owe you one back.
What you do on purpose is your purpose.
It isn’t what you stand for, it is the way that you deliver that drives engagement and trust.
Trust has 2 main components. Character and Competence.
Where we see individuals lead with “character”, we relate to them as being humane with intentions to help, learn, support, grow, etc. we warm to them. If “competence”, i.e. skills and abilities to get things done, follows character, this enhances our willingness to engage as we see a beneficial relationship.
Leading with “competence”, which is power, authority, achievement, etc. we see as less humane. We doubt character when people lead with “do you know who I am and what I’ve done”. This diminishes trust.
Organizations put knowledge into diverse Groups: how inclusive are we of diversity?
Back to departments. They are how organisations group diverse knowledge. We view departments through a lens of fairness and inclusivity. We welcome a departments diverse knowledge when they behave in a way that helps us achieve, that include “us” in how their services are designed and delivered.
Those Departments that lead with “do it my way” use their power and position to impose. Their reputation, and the respect we feel from them and for them, is lessened by their behavior and approach.
Our emotional brain pushes us to engage less, so we achieve less, collaborate less and are further and further away from doing them a favor. They too lose our knowledge, so decision making becomes less informed, performance is lost.
Redesign your services and how you interact:
It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it!
Commanding people is met with rejection. Resentment is built by pointing out mistakes and highlighting if only you’d read the perfectly logical memo and followed the procedure. It is seflish and self serving, It is harmful, not helpful.
Here are 4 questions we all ask ourselves, and a guide to what every human wants:
1. Is it fair?
As a matter of principle, we judge those that act for social good as worthy of our trust. We engage and follow those that wield their power fairly to help.
2. Is it Safe?
Psychosocial risk, psychological safety, and trust boil down to something very simple. If I give you this information, will you use it to harm me, selflessly help me, or selfishly help you?
3. Is this what I signed up for?
Our employee experience relates to “do I get to fulfill my purpose here, and do I get the support of those around me to do it”? If you don’t then the work loses its meaning, if we do, motivation comes from meaningful work.
4. Is it worthwhile?
We all join organisations where we can see how our contribution helps. We see our purpose aligns, and we can learn and grow. All intrinsic motivation. Those that help us, we will go the extra mile for, the source of "I'll do you a favor" in the knowledge economy.
How do you gain access the the Knowledge Economy locked within your organisation?
To oversimplify the philosophy: if you design helpfulness into your departments practices, i.e. services and professional interactions, including others affected in the re-design process, all parties "own" the new way of doing things and will help ensure its success.
Being helpful means reduced risk in information sharing. Guarding information means you are trusted with the truth; acting in mutual benefit means that belonging and thriving become sustainable outcomes.
Here are the 4 solutions to integrate human values into departmental services.
The source of I’ll do you a favor, and the discretionary effort that fuels performance.
At www.orgtree.me we customise our unique cultural approach to each and every customer's context. We have the results, and the metrics, that show leadership how to guide the behaviours that co-creates valuable interactions, govern professional interactions and therefore steer increasing value creation through critical thinking, problem solving.
The philosphy bears fruit. We guide you from revealing the roots of your organisation, the real values in play, connects your departments and individuals in your OrgTree on purpose, to purpose, shifting performance through willing collaboration and knoweldge sharing.
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