How to motivate employees, improve supply chain efficiency

As business and operations leaders, it is common practice to leverage on workflow processes to establish supply chain efficiency. What is oftentimes overlooked is the human element of fulfillment, as being the shoulder to an efficient and productive supply chain processes. Employees that are passionate and motivated translate to overall efficiency. Here is a quick guide for busy professionals to appropriate your time for establishing a cohesive, passionate and motivated team.

 

Be in the Present

As leaders, our minds venture to future deadlines, goals and our ever-increasing to-do lists. With cumulative items that need our attention, technology that constantly distracts us, thoughts about what is going on in our homes coupled with everything else that we are balancing in our lives, we are rarely ever in the present. When employees speak to us, our minds often wonder off and focus on all the action items that need to be accomplished, rather than what employees are really trying to tell us. Being in the present allows us to connect with the human element of our businesses. While interacting with those that we lead, through being in the present, we then can have more constructive conversations, build mutual trust with employees, and truly connect with them individually. People want to feel understood by their leaders. Even more essentially, they need to trust in their leaders. Being in the present tells them, "I am here", "You are important" and "I care about your thoughts". Furthermore, it is critical to listen to our employees to truly listen rather than to simply respond and move on with our day. We become better leaders when grounded in the present. When we are in the present with all our minds, it is easier to see what our employees need from us, as they are the most important component of our businesses.

 

See Leadership in Everyone

A "leaderful leader" emancipates the thirst for quenching the internal ego, and transcends to elevate others within the organizational community. Rather than focusing on being within the hierarchy of an organizations construct, it is more important to recognize the individual potential within each member of our teams. True leaders possess a vehement passion towards building up their employees to be leaders of their own work functions. Employees that feel empowered to be leaders in their individual roles are more productive than those that are frightened to take control of their own functions. Empowerment begins by showing employees what they are doing right rather than only meeting with employees when something goes wrong. Taking the time to give kudos, write appreciation e-mails and taking notice of the good people do for us goes a long way in giving employees confidence which builds them up as leaders.

 

Empower to Reach an Overall Vision

Rather than utilizing the management mantra of coercion, intimidation and control (which has been historically the tendencies of managers); we must have the servitude to empower employees. Fundamentally connecting with our human capital while adding meaning to their place in the business community is a start to building ubiquitous vision. Creating meaning for those that we lead requires understanding the team's individual differences, passions, strengths and weaknesses. Then, business communities become aligned with a shared vision coupled with unique perspectives on how each individual genius can be impactful in reaching the vision. When the collective consciousness acts with both passion about their individual roles within the organization and to the vision, then the leader is successful in orchestrating excellence.

 

Connect with Employees

As leaders it is fundamental to connect with those that we lead before our followers see us as true leaders. Our employees won't come to us for us to get to know them. It is up to us to take the initiative and go to our employees to get to know them. It is critical to form a human connection which will give foresight into what our employees are passionate about. Passion towards an organizational mission does not happen by accident, it is from leadership instilling the passion in employees by being passionate himself; and through connecting that passion with the passions of those that he leads. To do this, we must know our followers, their personal interests and align the organizational vision in such a way that it is transferable to a constellation of individual passions.

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