Are people in your team results driven?

Results achievement is not just the leader's responsibility but also of his workteam. How do you make them responsable?

Many managers have come to me concerned about the lack of commitment, attitude and results of the people they are in charge of.

At corporations, the most objective and absolute measure of our performance is numerical: indisputable and overwhelming. And when it doesn’t go as we would like, we “beat up” ourselves and in many cases the people on the team.

Could we lead with greater equanimity taking into account the human being who works with us? How much do we think about him, his needs, growth and contributions to themselves and to his organization?

In the ideal world, the number should be a consequence of the action taken by individuals committed to their own success and not of individuals trying to obtain goals they are not connected with, either because they are imposed by the external entity (the boss or senior management) or the system (I have a job that provides for a living). Living with these two bases as paradigms, they will behave automatically, as if life did not belong to them but to another (the capitalist system that gives them income through a job in a company that is not even theirs).

And what can we do to get them out of automatic mode? Here I propose some suggestions:

  • Share personal time with them: social or leisure activities with the team allow for spaces where we can often learn about their life context (family, challenges, dreams, difficulties)
  • Understand where they are in their career while working with us and how our organization helps them progress
  • Know their strengths and weaknesses to identify which role they perform best in the team
  • Ask them for an achievement plan for the time we estimate (usually a year), aligned with the progress they want to achieve in their careers
  • Validate with them how current work assignments will allow them to achieve their achievement plan
  • Establish monitoring moments and adjustments
  • Define the metrics for your activity and date them
  • Give them responsibility for metrics

I don’t believe in motivating anyone. Results are ephemeral.

And I do believe that a task that we all have as leaders is to help people on our team find themselves with the first six points. Help them find their individual relevance, transforming the idea of a cold, gray and unpleasant organization, into the place where the different nuances of personalities, skills, competencies and successes are developed by each individual in the ambition of who he wants to be and come together to make the organization grow. Thus, we also work to transform the role of the leader from a pursuer of goals to a promoter of individual and collective achievements.

Should we measure? Of course. But making them accountable for their numbers and with their contribution and letting them own their success. Not with the micro-management of overloading ourselves with frustrating chasing that does not achieve results, stresses us out and causes team discomfort.

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