Your vision is exactly that: yours. Not everyone has the luxury of immediately understanding the strategy behind your decisions, but it’s important that your team grasps the deeper meaning behind their work. After all, how is your team supposed to think critically and be innovative if their perception of the work is misaligned?
If you’re part of the 33 percent
of executives who aren’t confident that their employees could accurately communicate the company’s business strategy, then listen up! I’ll let you in on what’s holding you back, as well as some of my newfound secrets to help your team understand your vision.First, here’s why your team may be misinterpreting your strategy:
You’re Not Communicating Clearly
This one seems like a given, but you’d be surprised if you took another look at past communication involving projects. Go ahead and think back to the last time you stayed up past midnight redoing an employee’s work. If possible, re-think the conversations surrounding the project and see if there were important things you missed. Sometimes fixing miscommunications isn’t enough. A study of high-performing companies with “clearly articulated public strategies†found that only 29 percent of their employees could correctly identify the company’s strategy out of six choices. If this isn’t an issue, and you can point to where you gave clear direction, then speak to the employee about comprehensive reading of certain messages or teach them to return to something specific, like a project brief before working on a project.
An Employee Lacks Experience or Necessary Skills
Depending on your industry, some employees just may not
be capable of understanding the mechanisms of your business. After all, we’re sometimes limited to hiring for skills (not experience). So while someone may be an exceptional writer, designer, or web developer, they might not have the experience to grasp how your business works. Even those who are skilled and understand your business may simply lack the drive to get behind your company flag. When that happens, it may be time to change something.Read more at www.businesscollective.com…
Maren Hogan is a seasoned marketer and community builder in the HR and Recruiting industry. She leads Red Branch Media, an agency offering marketing strategy and content development. A consistent advocate of next generation marketing techniques, Hogan has built successful online communities, deployed brand strategies in both the B2B and B2C sectors, and been a prolific contributor of thought leadership in the global recruitment and talent space.
BusinessCollective, launched in partnership with Citi, is a virtual mentorship program powered by North America’s most ambitious young thought leaders, entrepreneurs, executives and small business owners.