In order to develop high performance behaviours and foster deeper levels of cooperation among people in your organisation and to establish staff loyalty, personal, team and organisational values, mission and goals must be aligned. No re-engineering or re-structuring is necessary. Start taking into account what individuals and teams want and align it with the organisational goals and objectives.

MOTIVATION

Lasting motivation happens to people when they start achieving their goals. Lasting motivation cannot be taught and it cannot be achieved through bungee jumping or river rafting alone. You can get a team to really work together (and enjoy it), by examining of personal and team values, proper personal and team goal setting and writing of meaningful personal and team mission statements, which align to the organisation’s mission statement. Companies have invested millions of rands into failed re-invention programmes like change management, re-engineering, down-sizing etc. All they really needed to do was to allow individuals and teams to decide where they fit in and how to participate. Companies have spent millions on becoming customer focussed organisations, yet they have no idea what motivates their own staff. The same people expected to drive customer focussed initiatives with high personal motivation.

PERSONAL MISSION AND GOALS

A mission helps define an individual’s goals and purpose. Having a mission statement not only motivates and defines a person, but they also become very passionate, driven and self-empowered. Knowing where you want to go, how you intend to get there and by when, is very empowering.

Alignment of Individual, team and organisational values and missions help people to determine how they add value to the organisation. An individual’s personal mission has an impact on the degree of passion they have for their job. When their job contributes to their mission, they participate more deeply and with more passion.

TEAM MISSION AND GOALS

A team’s overall performance is dependant on their ability to make decisions, recognise and deal with conflict, participate, negotiate and overcome obstacles. Genuine teamwork can be created to enhance the performance of individuals whilst focusing efforts on a shared outcome.

Relationships, ideas, tasks, targets etc should all be negotiated. People often assume that their job should be done without question. The reality is that individual contribution and participation is valued and in fact, required.

The team’s values should be debated and negotiated by the entire team. The values should align with personal and organisational values. In other words, each individual team member must “own” each team value as though they have chosen it on their own, without influence.

Once the team’s values are established, a motivating mission statement should be written, which aligns with the organisations. When debating the mission, each individual’s own values and mission must be kept in mind.

It is completely natural for team members to experience conflict sometimes. It is advisable to learn how to deal with conflict amicably. Team members must remember to allow others to maintain their self-esteem and to focus on the behaviour, not the person.

ORGANISATION’S MISSION, GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Your organisation should have a clear well-defined vision and should operate from a set of well defined values. Once staff “buys into” the organisation’s values and mission, they start to think and act like owners. An organisation’s biggest asset remains its employees. What greater gift than to allow your employees to participate fully and to “own” the organisation?

By Elsabé Manning

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