Imagine what it would mean if every employee knew how they contribute to the company goals and objectives. Making sure they know can be pursued as part of a human resource strategy. You can think of it as an effort to achieve high performance teaming, or to harness the full power of the team.
This can be a very personal and revealing and developmental exercise. Some people will be attracted to it while others will be threatened and defensive. It’s a great way to get to know your people better. It is an economical way for leaders to demonstrate transparency, and to get people thinking and understanding and taking more ownership in their work.
You cannot do this without defined goals and objectives along with agreed execution strategies – this is a need which might have to be addressed in some cases before going forward. Goals and objectives must be well enough defined and agreed and packaged so that there is confidence to make it all visible and go forward. And often there must be communications and/or awareness training to make sure everyone has a good solid starting point.
It’s like Activity Based Costing, where everything that everybody does is classified along the lines of value-adding, non-value-adding, or waste (where non-value-adding is necessary and contributes). This is where the old question comes from, “what’s your value proposition”?
Everyone, maybe especially the people that need help defining their personal connection, wants to contribute and have an innate need to belong. Sometimes it seems there is more noise about the importance of people than there is action demonstrating that importance. The idea of ensuring that each employee connects with the business is a most basic and high-return activity for both the individual and the enterprise.