Do your Employees have your Attitude and Mindset?

After the webinar, J asked a very inciteful question: Do you apply the Who-What-When-Where-Why Model to attitude/mindset?

I loved this question. Yes, J, the who, what, when, where, and why of the Strategic Objective and the Value Statement have so much to do and apply to attitude and mindset.

Thank you, J, for joining us at the webinar: "What You Need to Know Moving Forward your Business Idea." I shared three areas of this leadership webinar: your personal Primary Aims, your company's Strategic Objective, and your company Value Statement.

First, let me tackle how you apply these areas to your mindset.

Imagine yourself sitting under this stone pergola. Relaxing and enjoying reading a good blog post.

Strategic Objective is your companies' Who, what, when, and where.
Who are you as a company?
Who are your clients?
Who are your employees?

What are the services you offer?

When will you be at the sales and the net you envision?

Where are you located?
Where are your clients located?

 

This one-page written document puts your thoughts on paper.

An employee knows precisely what kind of company they work at.

An employee does not have to try to figure it out or make it up.

It leaves little guesswork for the employees.

 

Now, they know who they are and who their clients are.

They know what services the company offers a client and,

just as important as what services the company does not provide.

This knowledge gives them owner-like senses. 

 

This knowledge is the foundation of a great mindset for the employee. 

 

Employees know what kind of company they work for and play in and who their clients are.

Your employees now have an anchor for decision-making in almost every company area.

An example of the mindset of an employee in the Sales Department:
She gets a phone call from a potential client.

You, the owner, have the knowledge and the experience to handle the potential client. You happen not to be in the office. How do you want the employee to handle the potential client?

With the knowledge of "who" the client is and "what" services you offer, she can make better choices and decisions with the questions she will ask the client.

The client may ask for this or that. But she knows how to answer the client.

Yes, Sir, or yes, Ma'am, we offer that; let me help you.

Or No, Sir, No, ma'am, we do not have those services, but let me help you find someone who does.

This decision-making power gives them owner-like senses.

This a what a great mindset can have for the employee.

 

 

From the first webinar, you know that leadership works in synergy with your network of people that work with you and the systems that run the company. Digging deeper into the leadership key helps you share and mentor your employees with your knowledge of the company.

 

Now, let's look at attitude.

The Value Statement is the "why" of your company.

It is a one-page document for the reason you exist and the values you live and work by.

These values are mentored and taught daily by the leader. 

We looked at what it is, why it is crucial, and how to create/implement the concepts.

 

It is a statement of how you act with each other and the clients.

Even if you, the owner, are not present.

You have been mentoring the employees in daily work life.

Let's say you are out in the field one particular day. You are not present to tell them how to act.

Employees have a blueprint of the culture through the value statement. They know how to act; is part of you and part of the company's culture and values.

 

These values are how your culture becomes an attitude toward how to act for the employee.

 

One area of the company where I used this document is in the hiring process.

I hire for values first and skills second.

This document helps me find people that have similar wants. (oops, I mean the company wants.)

My values of learning and growing professionally. My value of using systems. My value of teamwork. 

It helps us find people that want to work in a team with systems flows. 

 

J, I wonder about the reasons you are asking about attitude.

I can only imagine it may be an issue in your company.

 

I know when I started growing my company, all the work was getting more challenging. I had so much time in the day to do the work. I was micromanaging the employees and the work. I needed help.

I started by creating the company's Strategic Objective and Value Statement. Now, I had two documents for the employees to understand more about the company and its clients.

Now came the hard part:

Do my employees have these values? Will they start living and acting on these values?

How do I instill these values with the team already in place, especially if they haven't used them?

How do I make these values the culture of my company?

For me? I, too, was learning skills to become a better leader.

So, how I handled instilling and mentoring may not have been the best.

 

This document, "Why Statement," was a way to act and work, an attitude for how to act for the owner and the employees.

 

But I discovered that many of the present employees did not have the values I was mentoring.

It was my fault the way I hired for skills without knowing if they had the same values.

It was challenging to change the employees to become something they were not.

I worked on this for many years.

 

For example, I found that many did not like the idea of systems to run the company. 

Some did not want to learn to be in a position. The employees loved to wear many hats. 

There were a lot of emotions running through us all. Many employees, I discovered, were not of the same culture (attitude) and values (mindset).

 

In the end? I found that 100% of the employees working, in the beginning, were not part of the organization at the end of 3 years. We had a strategy and a direction. We had a culture and values. 

It wasn't about a good attitude or a bad attitude.

It wasn’t about good employees or bad employees.

It was about having similar values or a mindset.

It was about having a similar culture to the company attitude.

 

I believe the way to great success is by having everyone eat at the same table.

If you have a vegetarian at the table for a game dinner.

Soon, the vegetarian knows he/she does not belong at that table.

Nothing wrong with the vegetarian person. 

But, they belong at another table. 

 

This is how attitude and mindset apply to the owner and the employees.

J, I hope this helps.

 

If you need more help or understanding, if you want to discuss this further, drop me an email at [email protected].