Employee engagement is not enough. Team members need to be on the same page. Find out how to make that happen.
A lot of companies strive for employee engagement, but that alone does not guarantee success, writes Gordon Tredgold for Inc.
In fact, engagement is one of the first steps toward creating a high-performing team. Engagement means that everyone is trying. But just because they are pulling does not mean they are all going in the same direction, according to Tredgold.
“Often when I see disengaged teams, people are disengaged not just because they lack interest, but also because of the lack of belief that the direction [they are going] is the right direction,” says Tredgold, citing a statistic that said 75 percent of project participants lack confidence that their projects will succeed.
Giving team members the confidence that they are pulling in the right direction is necessary to overcome this problem.
Tredgold offers four ways to ensure that the team is in unity: communicate a clear picture of what success looks like, have a clear and simple plan to achieve your goals, keep goals and targets to a minimum and ask your teams if they think the initiative will succeed.
Asking if the initiative will succeed “is a great question because if there is a misunderstanding, it gives you a chance to clarify it,” Tredgold writes. “However, if the concerns are valid, it gives you a chance to address them early which then gives you a confident team.”
Going through the four-step exercise can align your team, show them how to become successful, make them excited, add to their engagement and, ultimately, set your company on a path to become a high-performing organization.