The people working for you are an often untapped source of ideas. Companies such as Google and Apple are renowned for their ability to use this resource.
Are you making the most of yours?
Tomorrow I’m facilitating an annual strategic planning day for a client I’ve been coaching since 2004. As an established and successful general insurance brokerage with a stable team, you might assume there’s not a lot that’s new to discover. Yet this firm continues to innovate and improve, based on the input of all the team.
There are two main reasons: Firstly, they are in the fortunate position of having a team that are all inventive, as measured by their Harrison Assessment profiles. This means that each team member is both experimenting (with a tendency to try new things and new ways of doing things) and persistent (with a tendency to be tenacious despite encountering significant obstacles). Secondly, they actually ask for – and listen to – input!
Even if you don’t know all the natural strengths of your team, finding out what they think about how you do business and what could be improved is easy. This is how we’ve recently helped three businesses to do just that:
1. Structured interviews with selected staff followed by a briefing for the partners on the key concerns and suggestions.
2. A simple 3-question email eliciting (anonymous) feedback for the principal on a specific issue.
3. An online survey with written and verbal reports and recommendations to the management team. (See this post for more info.)
The overwhelming response in each case was that staff were very pleased to be asked and more than happy to share their ideas. Using an intermediary such as Balance at Work to facilitate the process can make it more comfortable as a first step towards more direct involvement of your team in innovation and improvement.
Tip: Asking is the easy part. Unless you are prepared to put in the hard work of really listening and trying new ways of working – please don’t bother asking.
As always, I’d like to know what you think. Please share your thoughts below.
Susan Rochester has been managing director of Balance at Work since 2006. Susan has a natural tendency to balance analytical thinking with an optimistic outlook to set direction and solve problems. She is an effective facilitator and constantly creates new and more effective ways of doing things, motivated by helping others to achieve their goals.