A few years ago I was in Tajikistan, where I worked with a company that was struggling with both finances and motivating its staff. I was forewarned that the staff members did not have business sense because they had become accustomed to the Soviet system in which the state did everything. The private enterprise system was foreign to them.

My job was to motivate the staff, and I was given two full days to accomplish this. After flying to Tajikistan and getting a VIP welcome at the airport, I was brought back to reality when I travelled by jeep to the company’s headquarters. What was supposed to be a 12-hour drive in the mountains turned out to be a 19-hour commute with four flat tires and no real washrooms or restaurants along the way.

We reached our destination at 3am. The view of the mountains was nothing short of spectacular. Getting out of the car, high in the mountains, I was greeted by thousands of stars, each seemingly bigger than the earth. I was watching with my entire five-foot-seven-inch height. If I’d ever wanted to learn a lesson in humility, it was right there.

Getting out of the car, high in the mountains, I was greeted by thousands of stars, each seemingly bigger than the earth

“I won’t motivate them”

At 8am the CEO was knocking on my door, saying, “Hey, Mr Motivator, please come and motivate my people.” I told the CEO that I was not doing that. He was surprised because that was the purpose of my engagement.

I told him that what I wanted to do was spend the first of my two days interviewing his top 25 people. He didn’t think that was going to help because they had no idea about business. I told him that didn’t matter because I needed to understand the challenges from their perspective before I could motivate them. I did not leave him much choice.

I spent the entire day interviewing his top 25 people, many of them with the help of a translator. I asked them three questions:

1. Do you have a clear idea of the vision and mission of your company?
2. What are the big roadblocks preventing you from working at your best?
3. If you were the CEO of the company, how would you run it differently?

As they responded, I made notes and ended up with about 30 pages. In the evening I asked the CEO to assemble these top 25 people at 8am the next day. He asked me when I was going to start motivating. I told him, “Sometime tomorrow.”

I woke up at 2am and summarised the 30 pages into 10 key areas, which I wrote on a white board. At 7am I went through these 10 points with the interviewees to confirm that I had captured the essence of what they had stated the previous day. They studied the list hard and confirmed that the points encapsulated our individual discussions.

I woke up at 2am and summarised the 30 pages into 10 key areas, which I wrote on a white board

rom my interviews, I learned that no one had a clear picture of the vision and mission of the company. I decided to put them into groups of four to brainstorm about where they would like to see the company in five years’ time. I gave them approximately 30 minutes to do this.

Subsequently, I had one member from each group present their findings. As we went through each presentation, they were not only able to articulate a powerful vision and mission but also came up with a logo and branding proposition. Incredible! I had never seen any group that I have dealt with come up with all of this in a matter of an hour and have consensus around it. This was a group that supposedly had no business background. Absolutely amazing!

This example illustrates two key points. First, we underestimate people’s capabilities. We all have innate gifts. Second, without clarity of purpose and direction, there is no motivation.

Importance of clarity

If you don’t have a clear sense of your purpose and goals, you cannot use your innate gift well.

A few years ago, Harris Interactive, the originators of the Harris Poll, polled 23,000 American residents employed full-time in key industries and key functional areas. Among other things, they reported the following findings:

• Only 1 in 5 was enthusiastic about their team and organisation’s goals.
• Only 1 in 5 had a clear “line of sight” linking their tasks and the team and organisation’s goals.
• Only 15 per cent felt their organisation fully enabled them to execute key goals.
• Only 17 per cent felt their organisation fostered open communication that was respectful of different viewpoints.
• Only 10 per cent felt their organisation held people accountable.
• Only 20 per cent fully trusted their organisation.

In his excellent book, The 8th Habit, Stephen Covey explains these findings as follows:

If, say, a soccer team had these same scores, only four of the eleven players on the field would know which goal is theirs. Only two of the eleven would care. Only two of eleven would know which position they play and exactly what they are supposed to do. And all but two players would, in some way, be competing against their own team members rather than the opponent. Can you imagine the personal and organisational cost of failing to fully engage the passion, talent and intelligence of the workforce?

A shared vision is an absolute must

Is everyone aiming at the same goal? If not, there will be scattered energy. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, often shared with his teams the GE philosophy for the organisation: Either they were #1 or #2, or they would fix, close or sell. His blueprint for transforming GE’s performance was to keep it simple. That is the power of mission and focus. It is important to have a common or shared vision. Once people buy into a vision, it is easier to implement. You need the contribution of everyone who is part of the vision.

Part of good leadership is to set a clear direction, find your employees’ innate gifts and encourage them to use those gifts. By doing this, you encourage your employees to work to their potential. You may lose some employees when they realise they do not belong in your team—but better to get them off your team early rather than late.

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Lack of engagement of key employees and lack of alignment, leading to loss of potential and power of these individuals, are debilitating problems.

During a strategic planning session at a retreat for one of our clients, an executive from the finance department commented on how useful the session was for him. He said that in all the years he had worked for the organisation, all he was exposed to was finance. But the session gave him a view of the big picture and facilitated better understanding of the business as a whole.

For another client, the strategic planning exercise helped the team focus on key priorities and execution. Prior to this they were ’all over the board’, with no sense of focus or direction. The exercise helped them strengthen their marketing ideas and resolve. They were able to identify methods of expanding their business and reaching new clients.

While doing a strategic planning exercise, you will sometimes find personality clashes creeping in, when people try to protect their turf and ensure their priorities take precedence over those of others. When this happens, revisit the shared vision.

Capacity building begins with engagement of the team. The more engaged people are, the more they will understand, contribute and tap into their creativity and innovation. You can then expect them to take initiative and share ’outside the box‘ ideas. If you fail to engage them, they will be passive staff waiting for instructions before they commit to anything.

Alignment among teams

A corporation can set goals that are aligned to its brand. However, if there is no alignment between the top, middle and ’floor‘ teams, the results will not be optimal.

One of the things I have noticed across the world in different corporations is the lack of alignment between top management, middle management and the “floor staff.”

For example, I had two full-day sessions with the top management of a reputable bank. It was great—they were enthusiastic, energetic and buoyant. I was impressed.

Around the same time, I had dinner meeting with another client. She shared with me an incident involving poor customer service that she experienced in the same bank where I had just finished my sessions. I was surprised that the negative encounter had taken place with a teller, but as I reflected on the previous two days’ sessions, it was clear to me that while the bank’s top management was doing great, morale on the floor was low. This was costing the client in terms of reputation and credibility.

Alignment of all levels is crucial for achieving optimal results.

In some companies, you find the CEO sprinting far ahead, while middle management constantly tries to catch up and the rest of the team is left in the dark. These are not ideal conditions for success. It is important to fully engage the middle management and the rest of the team.

In other companies, I have noticed that inter-department synergy is missing. It is almost as if each department is an organisation in itself and not connected to the other departments.

Alignment among personal and professional

Aligning personal, family and corporate missions also enhances your ability to implement your innate gift as well as inspiring others around to do the same. Encouraging your family members to find their innate gifts by creating an environment in which they get a chance to find their passion is a wonderful gift you can give to them. One of our clients hired us to help him and his family create a family vision and mission. After a few meetings with the couple and their two children, they came up with the following mission:

Our family displays unconditional love and trust. TRUST is an acronym for:

T: Trusting that all four of us mean well and wish the family to be a place of love and growth.

R: Respecting one another at all times no matter what the circumstances.

U: Understanding each other’s needs.

S: Supporting one another at all times.

T: Time management so that we can achieve optimum use of our limited time.

It was an exhilarating exercise, and the children felt empowered and important to be part of it. Their problems did not just evaporate after the exercise. That would be too good to be true. However, the family is better equipped to deal with the problems now that they have a clear vision of what they want.

A family mission statement is a powerful way to invite clarity and unity in the family, just as clarity of a company’s mission creates motivation and focus for employees. Both can be aligned to your innate gift and greater purpose.

Alignment of ethics and principles

“It is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience”.
—Henry David Thoreau

Without principles you cannot sustain and leverage your gifts. Once you are grounded in principles, they become your foundation. They do not change with the tide even though everything else changes around you. Your principles remain intact and are the anchor of your ship.

Jimmy Carter said, “When I left the White House, I was in despair. I think everybody has to be prepared in life for failures or disappointments or frustrated dreams or even embarrassments. You have to accommodate changing times but cling to unchanging principles. If you do have an extreme change in your life that is unpleasant, what are the principles that don’t change on which you can build a new life, a better life, a more adventurous life?”

This was a president who grew up in an isolated town of only few hundred people. No one in his family had finished high school, yet he studied nuclear physics, entered politics and became the 39th president of the United States.

Without a compass for truth, the external success is short-lived and does not help you to tap into your innate gift. The Corporate Sufi strives for material abundance, but not at the expense of principles, ethics and values.

Diversity as strength

A company is like an orchestra. It can have diverse players with different instruments or gifts, but they all need to synchronize to the same tune. Harmony would be impossible were it not for the contribution of all the players. An effective leader is able to harness the individual talents into a unified force. This happens through creating a common or shared vision, knowing the individual strengths and valuing the diversity.

Everyone has a gift and we all bring different gifts to the world. A good leader is able to capitalise on this. Diversity is an opportunity to harness creativity instead of being a source of frustration.

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