Who is more important...your team or your customers?

Who do you think is more important....

Your team or your customers?

Clearly they are both really, really important!

But for those of you who chose team......I think you're right.

Because if you treat the team right and get them loving your business....

in turn they'll treat customers right

and if customers are treated right....they'll reward your business with loyalty!

Do you agree?

Let's start with a bit of theory....which is a very useful way to look at how we get the most from our team and it's all about satisfaction.

Here's the Theory bit!

Hertzberg's motivation-hygiene theory says that:

Job Satisfaction and Job Dissatisfaction are not opposites!

·       the opposite of Satisfaction is NO Satisfaction

·       the opposite of Dissatisfaction is NO Dissatisfaction

So, remedying the causes of dissatisfaction will not create satisfaction.

Nor will adding the factors of job satisfaction eliminate job dissatisfaction.

Now, if you're like me when I first read this you'll likely need to re-read that last bit!

So, in simple terms  

There are things that cause dissatisfaction. We call these 'Hygiene Factors'

and there are things that cause satisfaction. We call these 'Motivators'

If we get rid of all the causes of dissatisfaction in our team eg. work conditions, policies, salary (that is...we're good on all the 'hygiene factors') it doesn't mean we have a satisfied or motivated team. It's just that they're not p***** off!

We might have PEACE but we won't have enhanced PERFORMANCE.

So how do we improve performance?

Through improving Satisfaction.

And how do we do that?

We need to focus on satisfaction factors or 'motivators' like Achievement, Recognition and Responsibility

(think of 'hygiene factors' as being the launch pad and the 'motivators' as being the rocket)

So how do you fair on all of this?

I recently conducted an exercise with a client's team to explore ways to make it a "great place to work".

Now, the context to this is that it's already a very good place to work and performance is strong

But we wanted to involve the team to understand what they felt would help.

The engagement in the exercise was superb with all individuals in the team contributing fully.

How did we get such good engagement?

We ran a STOP - START - CONTINUE exercise.

We posed the question:

"If this were your business, what would you do to improve company performance and to make this a great place to work?"

We wanted the team to say what they felt we should STOP doing? START doing? CONTINUE doing?

Have you tried this approach before?

Give it a go. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

If you're interested in how this exercise could help you with your team fill in the form to get a free template and summary steps or feel free to give me a call on 07972 310997 or drop me an email on [email protected]