How to communicate clear expectations to your employees.Research by the Gallup organization confirms what I've been teaching for years: The number one cause of failure in the workplace is unclear expectations. Many employers wonder why their employees fail or leave. It's a lack of leadership.
Lack of leadership is caused by lack of vision and lack of communication. To paraphrase Yogi Berra, if your employee doesn't know where he's going, he might end up someplace else. Does he know exactly what's expected of him? If so, the employee feels comforted in times of change, fear and helplessness are eliminated, and productivity goes up.
A leader is only as strong as his ability to articulate his vision and to help his people take ownership of it. Great leaders, according to Fortune magazine, expect constituents to take their vision seriously. But in order to take it seriously, employees must understand it. Trickle-down communications guarantee confusion and misunderstanding, so don't use intermediaries; keep the lines of communications short and simple.
When communicating a vision, remember that it's not one entityit's comprised of the mission, values, and beliefs of the company.
Once you've clarified your company's values and communicated them clearly, you have given yourself and your employees criteria for making decisions. Buck Rodgers, former vice president of marketing for IBM, said, "Most successful customer service companies have a written, well-communicated set of values, which humanize the work environment by setting the tone for the way people in the organization do business. The values become as much a part of the company's operation as its product, service, or polices."
Values can sound simple. McDonald's values friendliness and cleanliness. You can go into any McDonald's and find friendly employees and clean bathrooms. (I know. I've found them the world over.) Disney values safety and courtesy. They've run Disneyland for decades with these values.
It is equally important to have clearly defined responsibilities and expectations for each position in the organization. Descriptions should be written so that every job is clarifiedfrom accounts receivable to cleaning the bathroom.
To help ensure compliance, the job description and standards are shared with a potential employee during the interview process. If the candidate is hired, she should then receive a thorough orientation, including a history of the company, its culture, the core values, and how these values should govern her actions. The slow, methodical way that these are communicated will send a clear message to the new hire about how important they are.
Communicating your expectations is a never-ending job; they should be continually reinforced in memos and meetings. Remember, the quality of your leadership will be the quality of your communication.
Sam Allman is CEO of Allman Consulting and Training Inc. He is also a motivational speaker, consultant and author, whose books include Heart and Mind Selling
. For more information, visit www.allmanconsulting.com.Originally published May 1, 2009For more ideas, tips, and tools for better meetings and events,
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