Gaining Employee Buy-In for Improved Organizational Performance

Part 2 of a 4 part blog series discussing the importance of addressing employee motivation for improved organizational performance.

This is about establishing a business case for change. Your employees need to understand the importance of the effort at hand in order to buy in. We must craft the focus, direction, and integrated operational drive essential to achieve objectives. Our objective is to establish the rationale for change, provide clear strategic direction and results in clear, consistent policy.
If your workforce does not recognize the importance of their efforts, why would they put energy into making them succeed? What is called for here is a compelling argument for change and making the case for why the change needs to happen now.

John Kotter (Harvard Business Review, 2007) says the first step to motivating an organization to act is to establish a sense of urgency. His advice first published in the Harvard Business Review in 1995 previewed his 1996 classic book Leading Change. Kotter says that the key to find a significant opportunity and use it as a vehicle for getting people motivated to make the change in their organization:

“They then find ways to communicate this information broadly and dramatically, especially with respect to crises, potential crises, or great opportunities that are very timely. This first step is essential because just getting a transformation program started requires the aggressive cooperation of many individuals. Without motivation, people won’t help, and the effort goes nowhere.” https://hbr.org/2007/01/leading-change-why-transformation-efforts-fail/ar/1

Case and point: I led a change effort to roll out a new Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for a sales force. The sales team were silent at the initial planning process meetings since they clearly did not understand the big impact that a new CRM system was going to have on their jobs. At a meeting with all of the salespeople, I projected the generic CRM system customer data capture screen. The sales people immediately started asking questioned, providing feedback, and even shouting complaints! Yes, mission accomplished. They were now engaged.

Key questions:

• Are the goals clearly defined and communicated?
• Is the importance of the work being carried out effectively cascaded to your operating groups, team and individual levels?
• Can your employees clearly articulate how their projects fit into the larger strategy?

Note: The views expressed in this blog are my opinions and do not in any way reflect the views of my employer.