Six Steps to Help Your Employees Take Ownership and Responsibility

Are you being asked to accomplish increasingly with less & less?

Are you under pressure to meet hard to accomplish goals & targets?

In today's business surroundings, productivity is king, stretching objectives & targets are method & managers continually need to do increasingly with less & less. Sometimes such as these, you need all employees to take full possession & responsibility for themselves & their actions. You need every single worker to be working towards delivering the vision for the organization.

Do you have a queue of employees at your office door wanting you to solve their issues for them & adding to your ever-increasing to-do list?

These six steps will help your employees become more self-reliant & productive, more energetic & enthusiastic & more willing to commit themselves to achieving personal & business objectives.

one. Don't take the monkey

All of us experience the "monkey on our back" at work, in other words a serious issue that won't go away. Employees often think that, because managers & leaders are more senior (& more highly paid), it is their responsibility to solve issues & make decisions. So they arrive at your office door all prepared to give you the monkeys on their backs . For leaders there is the strong temptation to help their employees by taking on their issues & solving them for them. But taking their monkeys is nothing over rescuing them. In lieu, invest the small additional time to help them take the initiative & tackle the issue themselves.

two. Reduce the noise

When employees come to their managers with a controversy, it is often accompanied by lots of "noise". A bit like a poorly tuned radio station, the actual issue is confused by lots of interference from other issues, other people & other emotions. of the most helpful things you can do at that point is to help your worker focus on that area that they are able & willing to influence & is likely to have the largest impact on the situation.

three. Be solutions-focused in your approach

There is nothing to be gained in analysing what is wrong, why it is wrong, who is to blame & all the things that are going to get in the way of making things better. All that will do is demoralise & drain energy at exactly the time when the opposite is necessary. A way more efficient & effective approach is to help your worker to think through what they need in lieu of the issue or situation as it is. What would be the tiny & visible signs that the issue is being addressed & that progress is being made?

However bad the situation might appear at the time, when your worker has thought through how they need things to be in lieu, they are likely to see that there's some things, however tiny, that are already working in their favour. Helping them think through all those things that they have already done to move things forward, what they already know about how to solve the issue & who else is available to help will build their confidence & encourage them to take action.

four. Identify what is already working

five. Express confidence in their ability

Take this chance to let your worker know what strengths, skills & positive qualities you see in them that will help them solve this issue for themselves. Recognising & naming these useful qualities helps to build their self-belief, as well as enhancing your relationship with them.
Six. Identify tiny next steps

All of your worker needs at this time is tiny next steps that will let them start making progress. They came to you because they were stuck. By them identifying tiny actions they can take now, they will become unstuck. If these actions are built on what is already working the worker will usually be motivated to try them out & they are likely to be effective.

In case you can have these kinds of conversations with all of your direct reports, you have the key to unlocking the capacity of every individual in your team & each person taking personal possession & accountability for carrying out their role & delivering the vision of the organisation.