Guy Kawasaki on “How to Enchant Your Employees”

Here is an excerpt from an article written by Guy Kawasaki for the Harvard Business Review blog. To read the complete article, check out the wealth of free resources, and sign up for a subscription to HBR email alerts, please click here.

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Enchantment defines a relationship with employees that is deep, delightful, and long-lasting. If you can enchant your employees, they will work harder, longer, and smarter for you — and, ideally, you for them too. Here are the ten best ways to enchant your employees.

[Here are the first five. To read the complete article, please click here.]

Provide a MAP. In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel Pink explains the big three of what employees want from a boss: an opportunity to Master new skills while working Autonomously towards a high Purpose. There are lots of other things that might attract employees, but a MAP is what really enchants them.

Empower them to do what’s right. A logical offshoot of autonomous work is that you trust your employee enough to make the right decision for customers. When you show this level of trust and empower employees, they do the best work that they can.

Judge your results and their intentions. Most managers are harsher judges of the results of their employees than they are of their own results: “You didn’t meet quota, but I really tried to meet mine.” This is the opposite of what an enchanting manager does. Be a tougher judge of your results than your employees.

Address your shortcomings first. Now that you know what to judge, now you need to know what to fix. No employee is perfect, but neither are you. Before you pontificate about what your employees should fix, talk about how you could have done a better job yourself.

Suck it up. Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs is an enchanting guy. Why is he enchanting? It’s because he’s willing to suck it up and do whatever it takes to get the job done. Nothing is too dirty for him. Employees need to know that you’ll do the dirty, hard, and frustrating jobs too.

If you embrace these ten recommendations and truly aspire to enchant your employees, you’ll be a much better boss, and the world will be a kinder, gentler, and happier place.

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To read the complete article, please click here.

Guy Kawasaki is the author of Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.

 

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