Having a voice

Tomorrow is election day in our area, which got me thinking about why having a choice is so valuable in being motivated.

No doubt you’ve heard that you can steer children towards a good decision by giving them the choice of two alternatives, both of which are acceptable to you as the parent. It works well, and with adults too.

Because having a voice in decisions matters. That’s important in our society and in the workplace.

Notice that the choice is between just two or three alternatives. Why is that? Because it puts a safe and useful boundary around the result.

Imagine that you’re coaching an employee. You might ask them about where they’d like to take their career long term. Fair enough, but it’s likely that they want to take their career away from working for you and even this organization.

You might feel hurt by this, but it’s a very fair answer. Even with a fantastic worker, should you realistically expect that both you and they will want to be doing the same thing ten, twenty, thirty years from now?

This is how you can steer the conversation towards useful progress:

• (As the representative of this organization) my job is to always be looking for things which will make us more productive and make customers happy.
• And of course we’d want to focus our resources on things which will benefit the organization.
• Because I really value the work you’re doing, I’d love to keep you around and excited about the work we do.
• I totally get that you may not want to work here forever, and that you have a personal life and interests. That’s fantastic – we all need that!
• But let’s focus the conversation toward how your development can make you happy, and also benefit the organization.
• Those are the things where you’re likely to get help and support, whether it’s for classes or tools or even a new job assignment.

What I did here was to support the employee, while also steering the conversation towards a beneficial result. Of course it all depends on the freedom you’re given as a leader, resources available to you, and the attitude of the employee. And you’ll change the language to fit your environment and how best to help this person.

Give them a voice in their future. And listen!