The world is replete with organizations with great strategies. But how many of those great strategies are actually executed?
Less than 15%. That’s the number that John Spence shared with me when we spoke recently.
John is the author Awesomely Simple, and an executive trainer and coach who has worked as a trusted advisor with numerous Fortune 500 companies over the last 20 years.
When we spoke, we discussed what he’s noticed about organizations that are very successful at building and sustaining high performance teams that effectively execute strategies.
Following are the highlights from our discussion. (If you’d like to watch the video of the interview, click here.)
John’s advice is to focus on creating and sustaining a winning workplace culture. If we get the culture right, we can create the conditions for excellent execution.
My discussion with John revealed 6 powerful, easily-actionable ideas for creating and sustaining a culture of high performance.
1. People need to feel safe in the workplace.
Of course, people need to know that they’re physically safe. But they also need to know that they are emotionally and psychologically safe.
A winning culture must include an environment where people know that they will not be attacked emotionally, and they need to know that they can openly and safely share ideas.
2. People need to feel that they belong to something that matters.
As humans, we naturally seek out something bigger than ourselves to belong to. We can help fulfill this deep, human need by creating a workplace where people are inspired by the work we do, and can see how their work is tied to the big picture.
Knowing how important this sense of belongingness is, when taking on new team members, we should also pay close attention to whether or not a person would be a good fit for our culture. If a person doesn’t feel that they fit in, they could quickly become disengaged.
This article was originally published on the Huffington Post. To continue reading, please click here.