3 Simple Steps to Get your People to Step Up: Step 1: Paint a Clear Picture

As the saying goes, if you don’t know where you are going any road will get you there. If the destination isn’t exciting or inspiring why should you even start out on the journey? And if you do know where you are going but can’t articulate it clearly your team they could arrive somewhere else entirely!

So it is no surprise that this is the first and vital step in getting your people to step up. I have worked with enough clients to know that they often think they have this step licked. They know where they want to get to, they know what they want their people to step up to, but they somehow aren’t getting the message across and things stay the same.

First and foremost you need to be clear, very clear, on where you are heading yourself. If it is left vague people will interpret things their own way. And then you get frustrated because they aren’t able to read your mind!

Now I know you are probably already very good and clear on all the physical and intellectual stuff - targets, budgets, technologies e.g. £x turnover, x% efficiency improvements. But let’s face it they aren’t very inspiring are they?

People generally aren’t motivated by logic. Time to tap into the “emotional” stuff! I know you might think there is no time or place for emotions in work. Well I’m here to tell you you can’t stop them - they are alive and well.

I love Dan Chimp’s analogy in his book “Switch” where he talks about the rider and the elephant when it comes to successfully changing people’s behaviours. The rider represents the logical side, that side of us that knows where we want to get to and how to get there. The elephant represents our emotional side. Without some internal motivation, some excitement, some reason to change, the elephant simply won’t move no matter how much the rider kicks or waves his stick.

So how can you appeal to the elephant. What kind of atmosphere do you want to create? How will people be behaving? What will it be like for people to work with you? How will they be relating to each other, your clients? And so on. Paint a picture of a bright future in glorious technicolour. Imagine yourself as the leader in this new world. Think big, think bold, think exciting, think anything is possible! Are you feeling excited about the prospect? If not keep working on it until you are! If you aren’t excited, how you expect your people to be?

And now you get as specific as you can about every aspect of your future vision. How will the work or service you deliver change? How will your processes change? How might your organisation be organized? What kind of people will you have on your team? What skills will they have? And most importantly pay particular attention to how you want people to behave. All of these aspects need to align. No point in saying you want a flexible and ‘fleet of foot’ workforce if you put rigid and bureuacratic processes in place for example.

The aspect most overlooked is behaviours. When you first ask yourself this question you’ll probably say things like, ‘take initiative’, ‘be flexible’ etc. But what does that actually mean? What does ‘taking initiative’ look like? How will you know it when you see it? And more importantly how will your people know that they are doing what you need? Now this isn’t about spoon feeding or writing out endless directions on how to take initiative - that would defeat the whole purpose! This is about being clear about the end game. Think of good examples you have seen, and bad ones.  For example, a telecommunications company who wanted their people to be ‘client centred’ identified that the client’s first point of contact should follow an issue through from beginning to end. What is it in your case?

And one final thing to paint a clear picture is to get clear on your why, why this is important to you? What difference is it making to you, your people, your organisation, the world? Why do you want this particular future - what is the reason for that? This is where your passion comes from and it is infectious. When people see this is important to you and they can also envisage their future then they will be drawn in.

Best,

Anne Dargan
Helping dynamic and caring leaders who want to make change happen

P.S. Watch out for Step 2: Involve your People - coming soon.