The situation went something like this:

The executive director resigns and leaves before an interim replacement can be found. The board chair steps in to serve in the interim role until one could be hired. What he discovers is support staff that is not just lacking in motivation, but not doing their jobs. 

He wonders how did we get this way? How did I not know? More importantly, what are we going to do about this? These are critical questions that complicate a leadership transition.

This is a common occurrence for many reasons. The staff may be poorly motivated, or ill-equipped to do their jobs. But those are symptoms of deeper problems.

This kind of situation is one of the things that I listen for when I talk with executives and business owners. What are their expectations for their staff? How do they communicate those expectations? Are they intentionally hiring people who can fulfill those expectations? Are the staff evaluated based on those expectations?

Managing employees is one of the great challenges of organizational leadership. As one business owner remarked to me, “How do I find people who not only have the skills and experience for the job but can also pass the drug test?”

The reality is that every person we hire comes to us already formed as a person. There really is no such thing as raw talent. Each one of us is a person who has been influenced, nurtured and shaped to be the people we are.

For some of us, it has set us on a path to a life of significant impact. For many others, the toxic influence of people in their past comes with them when they are hired.

Hiring for Contribution Potential

I know people who think that dealing with employees is a hopeless responsibility. For some reason, they have lost the patience required to be the developer of people.

I have never seen a situation where a new hired didn’t require some level of development to perform at a high level. I’m not merely talking about the onboarding process when a new hire starts a job. I am talking about building a relationship of trust where the new employee understands how their work needs to take a step up in performance.

Treating people as components in an organization and not as a valued contributor is one of the sources of a leadership-starved company. Develop their capacity for making a difference and the company shifts to being a leader-rich one.

Every new hire is a transition. The most significant change is in the employee’s perception and the company’s perception of their value, role, and contribution.

To find people who are able to fulfill the expectations that we have for them, we must create a culture of contribution beforehand so that people know that they are entering a place where the expectations are high.

The Circle of Impact is based upon a principle of leadership where all leadership begins with the personal initiative to create impact.  To learn to be a person of leadership impact is to learn to be a contributor.

To be a contributor begins with the belief that you have something to contribute. Consider this perspective as it relates to your organization.

How many new hires join your organization with the desire to be a contributor and by the end of their first month that noble ambition is gone, and they are just looking to get through the day? If you hire contributors, you must support them as contributors. This is what it means to become a leader-rich organization.

The challenge of a contributor mindset is that too often people have been influenced to believe that they are entitled to certain privileges and benefits. This is the opposite of the contributor mindset.

For this reason, creating a culture of contribution includes being very clear that your contribution is not just an abstract value, but a behavior that is to be measured and used in evaluating employee performance.

Creating a culture of contribution is not this quarter’s employee motivation project. It is rather how a company develops as a place of impact.

To make a contribution is to create some beneficial change. To see that change for the individual is to see how their lives make a difference. This is a missing element in human development today.

The Relationship With Employees That Matters

Instead of employees knowing what their potential contribution could be, they know the tasks of the job that they are expected to perform. There is a world of difference in knowing what your job responsibilities are and what your contribution is.

To create a culture also requires the formation of an environment of mutual support and peer mentorship.

I have a friend who makes a distinction in human relationships between those that are transactional and those that are transformational.

In the former, a person seeks to acquire some benefit from another person. They see the other person as a means to an end. It is a utilitarian kind of mindset. It is the result of the shift of work from being about the talent and skills of the person performing the job to work which is repetitive and disconnected from the product’s final outcome.  This is a relationship based upon an economic exchange of value.

In a transformational relationship, the focus is on the impact of the relationship, and being a contributor is a core perception of this understanding. The relationship matters beyond the exchange of service or financial payment.

It is like what I heard during a meeting to draft a corporate values statement when I asked, “What was the company like twenty years ago?” The answer, “We were a family. We cared for each other.”

Their culture was not an entitlement culture but a contribution one.

Final Thought

In the situation at the beginning of this post, the staff was unmotivated because the routine of their jobs was disconnected from the purpose of the organization. The fact that the Board Chair was unaware of the poor performance of the staff probably means that the board is also disconnected from the purpose of the organization.

To create a culture of contribution requires a clear intention. Focus on the impact or the change that you wish to see if all your people saw themselves as contributors rather than merely as employees. To empower people to be contributors is, therefore, to free them to be leaders of impact.

Dr. Ed Brenegar is a Leader for Leaders working with individuals, their teams, organizations and communities who find themselves at a point of transition. Ed has developed an innovative leadership model called, Circle of Impact, that clarifies what the impact of their life or the work of their organization can be. From this perspective, impact is the change that makes a difference that matters. Ed. for over 30 years, has inspired and equipped people and organizations to practice this fresh understanding of leadership. All leadership begins with personal initiative to create impact that makes a difference that matters. Everyone within an organization or a community can, therefore, practice leadership initiative. In so doing, they turn what were once leadership-starved organizations into leader-rich cultures that make a difference that matters.

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