CEO Staff
Wouldn’t it be great if all staff operated like owners or like a CEO? Working hard to do their job and then giving that little extra that makes all the difference? Not just doing the “what” (the duties of the job) but also the “how” (the approach of the job).
The how of a job is where work gets personal and it’s what is remembered and makes employees standout. It works the same way for your business. Delivering a good product does not make you standout, but delivering a memorable experience on top of your good product does.
People typically only take higher action when the benefit outweighs the cost. This is one of the reasons goals work … they help a person see a future benefit while they experience a short term cost.
When looking at staff, the job description is an employee’s product and how they do the job is the experience. When they do the duties found on their job description, it is not impressive because that’s what you’re paying for. The employee is even with you and even is not memorable. But when they give a little more … stay a little later when needed, have a positive attitude, help out with something that is not in their job description, they become memorable because they have given that little extra.
The reason they stand out when they do this is because they have created surplus for you. They have gone above the job description. Putting you in surplus means they are in a deficit. Here’s where human nature becomes important to getting people to go into deficit and give a little more.
People typically only take higher action when the benefit outweighs the cost. This is one of the reasons goals work … they help a person see a future benefit while they experience a short term cost. Exercise is a great example of this. People who never exercise suddenly start when they have a health concern. Why? The benefit of exercising now outweighs the cost.
Leaders have three ways to create the situation where the benefit of higher action outweighs the cost:
- Rewards (pay them more)
- Punishments (perform because your job is on the line)
- Raise an employee’s value … how they see themselves … by making their work success a priority (now the higher performance you’re after lines up with how they see themselves).
Option 3 is the best way to get staff to operate at a higher level and make your business standout because it does not impact your bottom line and the results last longer because they come from within the employee.
As leaders, if we make people feel valuable for who they are by being interested in their work success and not just department success, their value will go up and so will their performance.
