Are your employees really behind your mission?

You have some top priorities for your business: To create a great company. To solve real problems for your customers. To do it sustainably.

And your employees are your most important, most impactful asset. The question is whether they really are pulling the same direction to achieve your company’s mission.

Before you protest that you’ve delivered great training and make sure managers are closely directing the work.

Yet … a stunning 70% of employees (Gallup’s estimate) are not engaged in their work. Most could care less about your company’s goals, and just sticking around for a regular paycheck.

We’re doing a lousy job at engagement.

So what’s the trick? It’s not that hard. It starts with actually having a stable vision or mission or whatever works for you. Written down. Consistent. Powerful.

Then, you have to articulate it to your folks all the time. Just when you’re sick of repeating yourself, they’re starting to notice that there JUST MIGHT BE a message coming across.

Sorry, this is just the way humans work. It’s illogical and frustrating, but that’s how we are.

Then, you have to set up your systems in a way that’s aligned. If your big priority is to deliver an amazing and unusual customer experience, you have to generate and encourage creativity. You have to define what “amazing and unusual” means and then reward people for doing it.

It’s really not rocket science.  Where we fall down as leaders is by being inconsistent, impatient, and incomplete.

That drives people crazy. And they disengage.

If you’re interested to explore more, I’m pleased to announce that the Colorado chapter of Conscious Capitalism is now holding monthly meetings in Fort Collins as well as Denver.  Our next meetings are January 4 in Fort Collins and January 5 in Denver.

Come check it out!

This article was first published in InnovatioNews.