What Everyone Ought to Know about Engaging Their Staff

Many years ago I worked as a reporter with ABC on a half-hour weekly current affairs program.  I had an experience there that made me believe that enjoying your work was great for engagement and made me addicted to more. Not long after I started my boss said to me – why don’t you do the whole program?

“What the whole thing?”

“Yes”

Once my initial shock turned to glee, I threw myself into the program.  It was to be on the subject of the shifting routes for drug trafficking across Asia and the effects the drug trade has on local communities (pretty terrible but that’s another story).  My manager gave me his contacts and a deadline and set me off.  I loved it.  Until then I had never had the experience of really WANTING to work, of being proud of what I was doing and excited and engaged.  My own program – autonomy and responsibility. 

Near the due date he asked to listen to what I had.  I was apprehensive – would he like it?  Would he approve it? He listened carefully to whole thing, made some suggestions for improvement and again offered some contacts to interview.  Not only was he fair, reasonable and balanced but helpful.  He was right too – it became a better program.

Again I threw myself into it, came in at odd hours, woke in the morning with ideas and energy.  I never worked so hard, so carefully and so diligently.  Everything was double-checked, edited to perfection.  I even came in on my day off to make sure the tape was in the right pigeon hole for broadcast (I said it was a long time ago).  And I was really proud of it.  Eventually it was aired on Radio National and Radio Australia (to about 30 million listeners).  I, as you can imagine, was chuffed.  Not only that but I would trust this guy.  

The point of this story is that when people are happy at work – they work happily.  There is now research to back that up.  You can help that by giving your staff:

• autonomy
• help and support
• responsibility
• milestones to the goal

So – make your life easier.  Rather than new thinking about how to motivate and engage your staff – help them to do it for themselves.

Do you need to do more with less?  Do need your staff to perform at their peak?  Cris provides coaching, mentoring, keynotes and workshops, to help you build a high-performance culture.  Get in touch with Cris: info@crispopp.com or (+ 61) 0438 545 607