Create Employee Involvement
Most companies and organizations would love to have higher profits, greater productivity, and more collaborative teamwork. The good news is that these things are readily available. It has been shown that when organizations adopt structures that create employee involvement, positive things happen. Communication improves, coordination between functions improve, motivation is increased, and capabilities are enhanced. The end result is improved productivity and higher performance.
Creating meaningful and lasting employee involvement (EI) is not rocket science. It might be harder than that. But what makes it difficult is NOT trying to sell it to the shop floor. Rather, it has to do with getting traditional managers to behave differently–literally, to think differently and to view their roles differently.
Time after time, in my experience, the failure to generate real EI is most often caused by managers who do not understand how their role must shift from the traditional, autocratic manager to the enabler, the coach, and the facilitator. One of the reasons why this is problematic is that managers often see this as a loss of power and authority. But this is not true. In fact, there is much more “power” in the way a coach influences than in the way a manager directs. As a coach, one builds a person. A coach strengthens from the inside out. Instead of merely telling someone what and how to do something, an EI coach uses inquiry, focusing on what the person knows and what they don’t know.
