Recently I executed an employee engagement survey across a client organization. When I compared the senior executive team with the blended front-line results I discovered a very troubling outcome.

The senior executives were almost unanimous in the belief that they had done an excellent job of communicating the core values of the organization — yet results from the front-line indicated exactly the opposite.

Even worse, some of the comments indicated that the values the front-line were observing were inconsistent with the “advertised” values.

Too many organizations believe that the values are clear in their organization. However, all too often, the values that are communicated are coming via actions rather than words — or the actions speak louder than the words.

Here are few questions to ask yourself.

• Have you crystallized your values and written them down?
• Does everyone at the senior level of the organization agree and commit to live by these values?
• Did you involve your employees? Were they involved in establishing the organizational values? Do they feel ownership?
• Did you solicit buy-in across the organization and give them an opportunity to discuss them and what they mean in their daily lives?
• Do you regularly communicate the values? Do you explain your decisions in the context of your values so everyone understand how the values come to life?
• Do you live your values? Actions speak louder than words — are your values being demonstrated on a daily basis in your decision-making?

My Perspective: If you don’t have clearly defined core values, this is a missed opportunity to influence and engage employees. Too often organizations have a communications plan — but it doesn’t do a very good job of communicating internally.

Having a clear set of values also let’s people know what kind of organization is being built and they have an opportunity to decide whether they want to belong to that kind of organization. And in return, you have the evaluate people for a good fit with your team.

Clarity is key.

This is the first in our series of articles that looks at leadership capacity and its impact on organizational growth and transformation. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed.

Leadership capacity is more than simply skill development; it’s about performance, growth, transformation and change. For the purpose of our discussion in this series of articles, let’s define it as;

“Leadership Capacity is the skilful use of leadership attributes for the growth and development of ourselves, our colleagues and our organization”.

Great leaders not only understand how to engage and inspire their teams to get the best results — they understand the need to create participatory and collaborative processes that develop the abilities of the next generation of leaders.

Leadership lays the groundwork for success

Successful companies do not happen by accident. They are the result of building effective leadership capacity and an awareness and willingness to take the necessary steps in identify internal talent and nurture them into the leaders of tomorrow.

Leadership lays the groundwork for success in 3 key ways:

1. Builds an internal development system: Not unlike a great sports dynasty with a deep pool of talent in their farm teams, strong leaders foster leadership in all levels of their organization. When leadership capacity is developed at all levels of the organization, it creates a farm system of future leaders that will be prepared to move up and take on new challenges, preventing the organization from experiencing a future leadership gap. Internal leadership capabilities also create a rich internal resource of new and innovative ideas that management can consult when charting out the future of the organization.
2. Creates a competitive advantage: Companies that invest in leadership development are the minority. Organizations and their leadership get caught up and focus on the day to day operations of the business — the most pressing issues that drive short term results. They forget to invest time in the future because the ROI is less obvious. When this happens, it is the long term vision and growth potential that tends to suffer because of gaps in leadership transition. If your organization is one of the few that consistently commits to developing internal leadership capacity and is constantly producing future leaders, you will have an advantage over competitors — not only because ideas and innovative thinking are constantly being revitalized, but also the ability to attract the best new talent that can be developed into future leaders.
3. Fosters innovation: Leaders at the top of the organization need to intentionally gather information from across the organization. To consistently have the ability to grow and stay fresh with your thinking you need leaders at all levels of your organization that are able to evaluate activities and provide honest feedback based on understanding the vision and values of the organization. When employees are given additional responsibilities and the ability to make decisions, this puts them in a position to expand their capabilities, grow as an employee, and develop their skills — which leads to new insights, perspectives, and efficiencies that benefit the broader organization as well.

Leadership elevates your ability to grow

Leadership has a direct impact on your company’s ability to grow. While much of the attention about leadership is focused on the leaders at the top of the organization, it is the leaders at the mid-level and front line that have the greatest direct impact on growth.

No matter where your leadership development is as an organization, here are 4 critical elements to consider when evaluating the overall leadership capacity and culture within your organization.

Establish and communicate a clear direction: Strong leaders communicate a vision that inspires and attracts people with shared beliefs and values. Having a clear direction ensures that the correct infrastructure, resources and people are in place to advance the growth process. A clear direction also provides leaders with a measuring stick they can use to gauge decisions, strategy and future planning. A clear direction, clearly communicated is also a highly effective recruitment tool for other top performers.

Define goals and objectives: Leaders that clearly lay out the specific goals and objectives not only for the organization, but for each department, project, and employee make it easier for employees to commit to those outcomes. Everyone needs to be clear on what success looks like in the organization. Leaders that define what needs to be done will have greater success gaining the desired results from their people.

Set standards of behaviour: Outcomes are important — but by themselves can be detrimental to the organization if the “how” is also not clarified. Great leaders understand that leadership starts first through the behaviours they model; however, true leadership capacity is more than simply leading by example. Leaders must create a working environment that fosters and rewards desired behaviour in addition to the desired outcomes.

Embed continuous improvement into your culture: Many organizations are pretty good at the first 3 elements — but fall down in the area of continuous improvement, which is the most critical. This only occurs when everyone in the organization is committed to building their own leadership capacity and helping the organization grow and evolve based on people willing to providing input from across the organization.

If the organization only has direction, goals and behaviours — without the consistent, positive tension of personal contribution and improvement, senior leaders lose the benefit of the wealth of ideas from less senior leaders across the organization. Resultant, the farm system is not strengthened and the flow of innovative thinking is stifled.

What can leaders do tomorrow?

Building out your leadership capacity must one of your prime objectives. Without building your personal leadership capacity, you will inhibit both your personal and companies’ ability to change and grow.

Leadership impacts performance and performance impacts growth. Growth will not happen if people do not perform. Effective leadership builds more effective people, teams, and organizations. When leadership is present at all levels it helps to accelerate business results and makes it possible to fire up change and growth.

Consider this information and think about how it applies to you as a leader and your company. Think about the current state of your leadership and think about ways that you can put yourself in a position to be a better leader and achieve change in your organization — even from the bottom up.

The next article in our series will examine the characteristics that leaders must possess to create change and improve their companies’ ability to grow.

Are you finding that you are not hearing the fresh ideas and new thinking in your organization that you would like. Are you often faced with sitting through presentations that sound like the same ideas rehashed again and again.

Well maybe you are burying good ideas under a bad process.

Before you hear their ideas — are your teams spending time getting them “right”? Are they vetted, reviewed, revised and debated around in circles until all the edginess and excitement has been “fine-tuned” right out of existence.

Imagine if ideas for the iPhone had been fine-tuned to death before they were presented to the boss. Of if space travel had been fine-tuned before making the suggestion to president Kennedy?

My Perspective: As a leader it is your job to foster an environment where good ideas become great — not where good ideas get ground down into mundane ideas.

Instead of insisting that ideas are thoroughly vetted before your hear them, instead find ways to be part of idea generation sessions where you have the opportunity to hear raw, unfiltered ideas that need championing, not fine-tuning.

Skip the fancy presentations, remove the filters, roll up your sleeves and create idea incubation sessions where people present raw ideas and concepts that aren’t well thought out, but still hold the promise of greatness. Then embrace some of these ideas and help them grow with your support.

Just think, one of those ideas might turn into the next Google, Zappos or iPhone.

Just imagine

How often have you attended a meeting — or worse, a number of meetings — without any concrete decisions being made or action steps agreed?

Too often the team just seems to be going in circles.

This form of indecisiveness — or paralysis by analysis — plagues many organizations. In fact, some people actually use this as a strategy to avoid being held accountable for the success or failure of any initiative.

This lack of decision-making hurts organizations financially because issues and opportunities are not addressed and it creates a sense of powerlessness with the team members who recognize that nothing is happening. It effectively creates an under-performance malaise  that affects the financial goals of the organization and the engagement of the team.

Years ago I worked with a leader who was faced with a team that was unable or unwilling to make a decision. He decided that going forward they would make a decision and then be prepared to adjust that decision if it wasn’t the right one. He felt that they could make a decision; find out it wasn’t the ideal decision and then make a new decision based the new input — faster than they were currently making any decision.

This approach introduced nimbleness to the organization and also sent a signal that people would not be criticized for making a wrong decision. Both excellent messages for any organization.

Here are some tips if you are faced with indecision in your organization

• Ensure people feel safe when making decisions. Of course, decisions need to be made based on good information and thoughtful consideration, but if a decision turns out wrong based on the best use of information at the time, then people should feel safe from criticism.
• Use decisive language in your communication. Confidence and clarity in language sets a tone. Give people honest feedback and discourage indecisiveness. Be clear when providing direction and expect the same from others.
• Ask for opinions and then ensure the opinion is valued — even if everyone doesn’t agree.
• If a decision needs to be delayed, make sure there is a specific reason (i.e. additional information is needed) and establish a time-line to re-group with responsibilities identified to gather the missing information.
• Make sure every meeting ends with a summary of decisions and next steps. Every discussion point should have a concluding next step.
• Ensure each next step has clear accountability on time-lines and responsibilities.
• Follow up to ensure that next steps are being executed; offer support where needed to get the task concluded.
• Solicit feedback to ensure that the decision continues to make sense. This isn’t second-guessing, it’s simply monitoring outcomes. Don’t be afraid to re-visit a decision if the facts change. Sticking with a bad decision is as bad as making no decision at all.

My Perspective: Sometimes I like to say “I never change my mind.” The statement is intended to cause people to pause and think about what I said.

I then add that if presented with additional facts, I haven’t actually changed my mind — but made a new decision.

Good decision-making is evaluating all available facts and then having the courage to make a decision to take action. In some cases, that decision might be to take no action for a specified period, because you need more information — but it needs to be intentional, not by default.

Joseph Michelli, was granted full access to Zappos employees across the organization in preparation for writing his new book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow. I have invited John to share some thoughts from his research with you this week.

For more information about Joseph and his book visit http://www.josephmichelli.com/

The Zappos Experience – Getting Caring Right!

It is a subtle but powerful distinction – do you care for or care about your customers?  I’m not suggesting that you can’t do both but I am asserting that most businesses struggle to do the former let alone the latter.  The “caring for” dimension emphasizes service competence while the “caring about” aspect focuses on the personalized or humanized dimensions of a compassionate experience.  In my recently released book, The Zappos Experience: 5 Principles to Inspire, Engage and Wow, I take a deep dive into how leadership at Zappos (an innovative online – clothing, shoe, and housewares provider) executes both the “caring for” and “caring about” experience dimensions of their business.

Here are just a few Zappos examples from each of these categories:

Caring for (Operational excellence committed to “getting it right” and “making it right.”)

• Obsessive attention to website loading speed
• Consistent qualitative and quantitative analysis of user website behaviour as a guide to improving user experience
• Return policies that maximize customer ease (365 days to return product with free shipping both ways)
• Tenacious focus on the pictorial, video, and content accuracy when presenting products online
• Consistent training for call-centre staff (referred to as Customer Loyalty Team members) to assure product knowledge
• Email follow-ups after customer calls and web chat contacts to evaluate customer satisfaction and engagement

Caring about (Authentic personal connections committed to delivering happiness)

• Encouraging call-centre staff to form PEC’s (personal emotional connections) with customers
• Allowing staff to find products for customers that are not in-stock at Zappos by searching for those products at competitors’ websites
• Supporting staff as they send personalized handwritten thank you notes to customers
• Facilitation of staff development of personal twitter accounts so staff can authentically connect with customers
• Dedication of staff resources to immediately engage in service recovery conversations through social media

While The Zappos Experience offers a detailed exploration of how Zappos creates a service culture that has catapulted the brand from veritable extinction to a game-changing thought leadership, Zappos really offers an opportunity to benchmark our own business practices to see how committed we really are to world class customer-centricity.  In essence, are we doing what the best of the best service companies do to engage their employees and their customers.

Much of Zappos commitment begins with how well Zappos leadership cares for and about their employees (at Zappos this has led to being chosen among Fortunes best places to work) and it travels out to decisions that affect the daily customer experience.  For example, are you willing to spend less on advertising and spend more on expediting service?  Are you allowing staff to take the time needed to address customer needs or are you rewarding rapid movement of customers through lines or phone cues (possibly at the expense of accurate service delivery)?

If you say you care both for and about those you serve, what do you point to to prove your claim?  How do you know how well you are caring?  Would your customers’ assessments align with your responses?  In the end, Zappos get it! “Caring for” builds satisfaction — “caring about” fuels loyalty!

What might you learn from Zappos?

You have just established a new team. Maybe a small work group, or possibly you have moved to a new department in a leadership role. How do you set the foundation for a strong team to achieve their full potential?

There are 4 things I like to keep in mind.

1. Create a Strong First Impression: Make sure that you start out strong. Come to the first meeting/introduction prepared to make a good first impression and establish expectations. How the team initially starts their working relationship has a huge impact on their long term interactions.
2. Establish Expectations: Set expectations early. Don’t assume people have shared values on expectations and don’t wait until things are below and then try to rise them up. Starting high and keeping them high is easier than trying to raise expectations after they have settled in too low. Set ambitious goals together and then work hard to achieve your potential.
3. Create a Sense of Importance: People perform better when they believe that what they are doing is important and will have a positive impact. Create some urgency with a specific delivery date or milestones so the team has a concrete target and the opportunity to see the successful completion of their assignment.
4. Deliver a Challenge: Decide to do something that isn’t easy, but requires something extra. Set goals that will challenge the team to exceed expectations and will engender a sense of pride in the team. When faced with a challenge, people are willing to step up and achieve more.

My Perspective: Successfully leading a team is a complex task. By keeping these 4 thoughts in mind you can motivate, inspire and lead any team to greater heights.

In May we discussed the first 5 of 10 tips to create more powerful employee engagement. We are continuing this article with the next 5 tips.

Clarify what’s expected of employees
It’s essential that your team members know what’s expected of them. When they start, generally they’re given a job description but that’s not enough.  Clear expectations set the standards and means there’s no confusion and everyone is working towards the same goal. Putting things in writing is a valuable step to avoid confusion that can occur if only verbal instructions are given.

Offer internal career opportunities
People don’t want to feel they are stuck in a dead end job. If you consider current team members for promotion before ever going outside the organization, people will be more willing to stay because they can see room for improvement and promotion if they perform well. Give people opportunities to learn and grow within their own role. Make it clear that your desire is to promote internally where possible. This will also minimize people looking elsewhere for new jobs without your knowledge.

Empower frontline employees
Are your team members able to use discretion when handling customer complaints? Do they have to always seek permission for something that isn’t within their power to correct? A great deal of frustration can build up if frontline employees are powerless to take immediate action to satisfy a disgruntled customer. If they can save a customer having to wait for action to be taken, it’s a win-win for everyone.

Encourage teamwork
Employees should work together as a team and support each other. No matter what sort of work it is, teamwork is essential to a healthy, positive work environment and helps employees feel more engaged in their work. Team members also learn from watching other members interact with customers. No amount of training can prepare a new employee for what happens on a daily basis better than observing a skilled team member — regardless of whether they’re working with easy or difficult customers. If team members offer each other support, it enables them all to get through any difficulties they may encounter without having to necessarily get a supervisor involved.

Provide regular feedback to employees
It’s crucial for all employees to be given regular feedback on their performance. Regardless of whether they’re excelling at their job or they’re new to the company, people need to know where they stand. Are they doing everything they’re supposed to be doing? Are they doing too much? If they arrive late all the time and leave early, that must be addressed. If they’re doing other people’s work because some people are lazy, that should also be addressed.

Employees need to know how they’re doing and it does keep them more engaged if their performance is regularly being reviewed. It makes them work harder to achieve everything expected of them.

So now you have a reminder of 10 techniques that drive employee engagement. Maybe you are already executing all 10, but if you employ just one new technique, or renew focus on one you are not fully leveraging, you will see an improvement in your employee engagement and be closer to developing a high performing work environment

Positive, engaged employees will stay with a company much longer than those who simply turn up and do the bare minimum because they’re unhappy, bored or the job isn’t challenging enough for them.

Studies reveal that engaged employees:

• Have a 38% higher productivity rate.
• Create 50% higher customer loyalty.
• Deliver 27% higher profits and
• Produce 50% higher sales.

So it makes good business sense to build more powerful employee engagement. Although it’s impossible to do everything your team wants, there are plenty of ways to get your team more engaged in their work so they become more positive and you’ll retain them longer.

In this 2 part article, we will examine some of the techniques managers can utilize to build engagement with their teams.

Lead by example
Staff models the behaviour of their leaders. If you have a negative attitude, your team will soon see through it and copy it, even if it’s only subconsciously. If you want your team to remain actively engaged and care about their work, you need to be actively engaged and to be seen to be actively engaged in the work you do. It’s the old philosophy of “do what I do” as opposed to “do what I say.”

Delegate responsibility
Delegate additional responsibilities to deserving team members in addition to their normal role. This acknowledges the excellent work they have done and provides an opportunity for growth. It’s also a great way to determine if they can handle more responsibilities and demonstrates that you trust them enough to give them that extra work. If they handle the new responsibility well, in some cases, this may prepare them for promotions or transfers to other departments within the company.

Acknowledge staff performance
Employees need to be acknowledged and appreciated for the work they do. Regardless of how it’s done, recognition for a job well done goes a long way towards boosting morale and keeping your team engaged in their work. After all, people don’t leave their work — they leave their supervisor.

Recognition can be in different forms including: promotions, financial incentives, plaques or certificates or a simple pat on the back or a thank you. All of these forms say the same thing – well done!

Recognition doesn’t always have to be for the person who has “done the best.” It should also be for consistent effort or marked improvement in their work. There are people who consistently work hard but never seem to appear at the top. Recognizing their efforts is a positive way to inspire them and keep them just as engaged as the highest performers.

It’s important to be specific about the action that was noteworthy instead of just telling them they did a good job. Examples reinforce the desired behaviour and help others to learn and improve their own performance.

Solicit employee input
Employees appreciate being able to have their say on issues relating to work. It may be personal or specific work issues but being able to speak up is a fundamental need of every team member.

If they don’t feel management are willing to listen and even implement worthwhile ideas, they will lose interest and may believe they’re better off working somewhere else. This input can be offered face-to-face, via email or through the use of a suggestion box. The result is the same.

Keep your team informed
Employees deserve to know about changes in the workplace that may affect them. If you want their loyalty, you need to “keep them in the loop” and you’ll find they perform better and will be more engaged when there are no secrets. Trust and respect are also aspects of communication that enable you to retain those team members that really do add good value to your company.

So there are the first 5 simple techniques that are easy to implement in any department. Watch for our next article in July.

This is the second in our series of six articles that looks at different aspects of excellent customer service and how it leads to increased overall profitability. The full series will be available for download as a white paper once it is completed.

In our last article we covered four foundational elements that every employee needs to provide superior customer service. But once we have the foundations of a strong customer-focused employee in place, we need to continue to build on the on-boarding training they receive.

Rules are an essential part of any business. Rules are necessary to ensure we make intentional decisions. Rules are written to make sure people are treated equally and consistently.
While there’s nothing wrong with this in principle, there are always going to be situations where a certain degree of flexibility is essential because people are unique. The way they react to situations is also unique and if you’re trying to offer great customer service, you have to be flexible enough to respond to their needs.

So, apart from rules that tell an employee what they can or can’t do, it’s also essential that employees have guidelines as well. These guidelines will provide the boundaries that allow your employees to make decisions for the benefit of the customer — and the organization — without having to seek a supervisor’s approval every time.

Guidelines enable employees to exercise personal judgment which may mean all the difference between retaining and losing a customer. Customer satisfaction often leads to loyalty which greatly improves the company’s overall profitability.

It’s impossible to make rules to govern every possible scenario that may occur. When dealing with customers, situations will arise where an employee may have to use some initiative to solve a problem but they can’t do that if there’s no latitude with regards to the rules they have to follow.

Empower Your Front Line
It’s essential that customer service staff are empowered with a certain level of authority. It’s pointless if they have to check with a supervisor before making every little decision.

While a company may have a strict policy of no refunds or exchanges without a receipt, there may be times when it’s impractical for the customer to provide one. If a strict policy applies and there’s no flexibility to allow the employee to use their discretion and bend the rules in such a circumstance, they may lose that client and everyone they choose to tell. However, if a refund, exchange or gift card is granted, the customer would be happy and word of mouth would be positive.

Common Sense should Prevail
Employers should respect and trust their staff to make decisions based on their merit. Often it’s these types of quick decisions that will mean the difference between keeping or losing a customer. There are plenty of examples where guidelines would be more appropriate.

If meals are late in a restaurant, offering a bread basket or some free drinks may quell the customer’s frustration. A heartfelt apology would also be appropriate. There are times when things don’t run smoothly. Perhaps even a discount on their total bill may be necessary and the front-of-house staff need to have the autonomy to do what is necessary.

Restaurants regularly replace spilled drinks; their rules might indicate no free drinks but they replace a spilled drink because that’s good customer service. The drink doesn’t cost much but is worth much more than the cost in positive customer response.

In any customer-focused organization, we must look at the situation from the customer’s perspective to discover an appropriate solution. Often, asking the customer what they feel would be an appropriate solution will provide some direction. Experience tells us that when asked, a customer often expects far less that we would be prepared to give to remedy a situation — so it make sense to ask.

Cut the scripted responses
Have you faced the situation, whether on the phone or in a retail store, of asking questions and receiving responses from staff members that are robotic or scripted? If you ask a question they don’t know how to answer, do they seem stuck or confused? Do they just repeat what you have already been told or give you information you never asked for?

If the problem doesn’t have a “cookie cutter” response, they can become lost. This is because their training hasn’t prepared or empowered them to think for themselves.

Staff should be trained to handle customer service enquiries and provided with specific language that you would like to see used. But not all scenarios can possibly be covered during this training. Although many of their problems are similar, customers and their expectations are unique — so you can’t treat everyone the same way. It’s up to the employer and staff to realize there’s an unknown human element to dealing with people.

It’s imperative that staff understand the rules but they should be allowed to use their initiative where possible — within the agreed guidelines. Most problems can be solved if someone demonstrates they care enough to understand the issue and look for a solution; even if it requires a slight adjustment of the rules, but still within company guidelines.

Without rules, chaos would govern the workplace. There’s no doubt about that. However, management must trust their staff enough to establish guidelines with a degree of autonomy/flexibility when it comes to making decisions in the workplace.

When customer service staff takes the initiative, ask a few sensible questions and pay attention to the answers, more problems get solved and more customers leave happier.

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Now we understand why customer service staff should have guidelines, not just rules, our next article is going to talk about 4 Steps to Give Exceptional Customer Service.

I like ideas that are easy to remember. That is one key reason why I often use memory hooks — something that helps me remember more complicated ideas. One memory hook that is always popular is the 3-legged stool. When one leg is weak, uneven — or worse, missing — the stool loses it ability to perform effectively.

The 3-legged stool is a great way to frame a discussion about the 3 essential measures of a high-performing organization. When evaluating whether your organization is performing at maximum efficiency, these 3 measures should be the basis of your scorecard;

1. Employee Engagement
2. Customer Loyalty
3. Business Results

When you have Engaged Employees, they will create Loyal Customers who will provide your organization with strong Business Results.

These 3 elements — or 3 legs of the stool — reflect the key measures of any high performing organization. If all 3 are strong, chances are that everyone — customers, employees and shareholders — are happy.

You also can’t have weakness in one without weakness showing up in the other 3 — if any leg of the stool is weak – the stool will be uneven or even fall down. If employees aren’t happy, they won’t do their best work for customers. If customers aren’t happy, business results will suffer. If the company’s performance isn’t positive, costs will have likely have to be cut, which in turns affects customers and employees.

So let’s have a look at each of the 3 legs in the high-performing organization stool.

Customer Loyalty
Many people talk about customer satisfaction versus customer loyalty. I think there is a significant difference. In truth who really wants mere satisfaction? It doesn’t inoculate your customer’s against competitive threats; at most it provides the opportunity for you to serve that customer one more time.

Customer loyalty is much stronger, based on an emotional relationship. When a customer is loyal to a company or product — they are far more resistant to the enticements of a competitor. Loyalty is based on an emotional connection not simply filling a rational need.

For example — how often have you been satisfied, but had no compelling reason to return to that company versus another that offers a similar product or service. Now ask yourself what products or services you regularly use that you will walk by a competitor to get to — because you trust “your” company. That trust is what builds the emotional relationship. Loyalty comes when the bare minimum is exceeded and customers go from being merely satisfied to becoming loyal.

Customer loyalty is something that every organization should measure. It’s critical, because ultimately, customer loyalty drives business results. Customer loyalty is also a good measure how engaged your employees are.

Employee Engagement
Like we discussed with customer satisfaction, there is a big difference between employee satisfaction and employee engagement. Like customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction is also based on rational criteria — wages, hours, convenience to where I live, shifts, benefits, etc. While these are all important elements, like satisfied customers, satisfied employees are easily lured away by the enticements of another job. We are all familiar with the expression — the grass is greener on the other side.

Satisfied employees simply fulfill their obligations — their job description — because their motivation is the rational elements of the job.

But employee engagement takes this one step further and moves into the emotional area. An engaged employee is willing to go the extra mile to ensure a customer has their expectations exceeded. Engaged employees deliver at a higher level of performance than satisfied employees because they have an emotional connection with the company. They have an emotional connection based on an alignment with their core values and those of the organization. They feel good about where they work, where the business is going, what that business stands for and how they do business.

An engaged employee doesn’t focus on money because they are working for something more. So in addition to creating loyal customers, they have a stronger commitment to the organization. Recruiting, hiring, training, and if necessary, firing employees is an expensive process, so creating an internal culture that has engaged employees is also a smart business strategy.

Business Results
Business results are the ultimate outcome. If you set your goal to develop engaged employees who create loyal customers — then your organization will be resistant to competitive pressures and deliver stronger business results, more efficiently.

That’s how the 3-legged stool relates to the essential measures of a high-performing organization. With engaged employees recruiting, hiring and training costs are lower. With loyal customers you don’t have to replace them with expensive “new” customers. And when you have engaged employees serving loyal customers you will have stronger business performance.

It’s also a great way to create a scorecard to evaluate the overall success of your business. Managers or departments who have high ratings in these 3 critical areas will outperform those that are weak in one or more areas. Only measuring business results doesn’t give you a clear picture of what is impacting your overall business results.