How to induce employees to do what you want

According to Robert Kaplan and David Norton, creators of the Balanced Scorecard, on average, 95 percent of a company’s employees are unaware of or do not understand its strategy.

Furthermore, only one in five sees a clear connection between his or her tasks and the company’s goals, according to a Harris Interactive/Franklin Covey poll. Consequently, many employees spend time working on things that aren’t effectively driving your growth. And many are probably not very inspired if they don’t see a connection between their efforts and the company’s goals.

The good news is that this can be fixed. It’s all about focus.

What’s measured gets done

How do your employees sift through all of the activities demanding their attention and focus on the most important ones? Actually, it’s quite simple. The things that get measured, and reported and rewarded, get done. Consistently. Repeatedly.

Understanding this is the easy part. The tricky part is determining what gets measured. With all of the activities that employees are engaged in every day, what are the most important?

Start by determining the key goals at a corporate level. Then, define key goals for each employee that align with the corporate strategy. Build accountability by tracking performance and implementing rewards and consequences. And keep it simple.  Follow the one-page rule: one page for your corporate goals, and one page for each employee’s goals.

Translate your corporate strategy into a single page. And make it visible.

The fundamental purpose of any strategy is to guide behavior. Yet, many companies’ strategies are found in a 2-inch-thick document that sits in employees’ desk drawers, or a 200-page pdf buried somewhere on the company’s server. There may be some sound thinking in the strategy, but it’s difficult to translate this into something meaningful for every employee.

To make your strategy actionable, first define the single, over-arching five-year goal for your organization. What’s the next mountain you want to scale? This provides a clear, specific, measurable focal point to engage everyone in the organization. It must be a stretch, but not impossible to achieve. If it’s too easy, people coast. If it’s too difficult, people lose heart quickly.

Next, identify the 8 to 10 key “levers” that you must pull to achieve this goal. Capture these core levers, stated as goals, on a single page. Make them visible throughout the company. Discuss them in company meetings. Track performance against them and report results to the entire team each month. Create team incentives for successfully achieving them, and take corrective action when you don’t hit them.

Link goals to strategy

To bring the corporate strategy down to the individual level, create a one-page individual alignment plan for each employee annually. Start with your direct reports. Then have each of them create a one-page plan for each person on their team.

Have each employee ask, “What are the activities I do that will have the greatest impact on the company’s success?” To distill the most important from this list, look at each one in the context of an “if – then” statement: if I do X, then Y will result. Follow this logic with each action to ensure that it ultimately links to the corporate strategy. This will allow you to establish a hierarchy of the activities and narrow down the list to the six or eight most important, highest-order activities.

Next, state each as a goal and make it measurable. Keep in mind that most employees will have a mix of ongoing and one-time goals.  For example, a marketing manager may have an ongoing goal to generate X leads per month, and a one-time goal to launch a new product by X date.

Establish accountability

Success results from employees “owning” their goals. You accomplish this by allowing them to participate in defining their goals, and by giving them accountability for the success or failure in reaching these goals. Each month, have every employee lead a meeting with his or her manager, presenting results from the previous month against the established goals. Put the responsibility on the employee to recommend corrective action for goals that were missed. This deepens the sense of ownership.

Reporting on personal successes is highly gratifying. Reporting on shortcomings is uncomfortable. Consequently, employees sharpen their focus on delivering results. They quickly learn which daily activities lead to success. And they learn which activities don’t drive their goals and eliminate these unnecessary activities.

Reward success, correct failure

Successful behavior should be rewarded. Each year, define annual bonus awards based on the goals. While many companies offer annual cash bonuses, some allow employees to personalize their incentives. Employees choose something personally meaningful that fits within company standards (meets budget, doesn’t interfere with the employee’s job, etc.) The “carrot” becomes highly motivating if you’re working toward airline tickets to Paris, season tickets to the Vikings, or a new flat-screen TV.

Likewise, establish consequences for not meeting performance standards. Create a culture that demands success, and success will follow.

Best-selling author Jim Collins states that building a company with enduring success “requires 1 percent vision and 99 percent alignment.”  By following the process outlined above, all of your employees will be clearly aligned with the company’s goals.  They will be accountable. They will be significantly more efficient and more effective in driving your growth.

And, yes, your employees will do what you want them to do.