The Leadership Insiders network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “How do you make tough business decisions?” is written by Vip Sandhir, founder and CEO of HighGround.
All company leaders will face major business decisions throughout their time as the heads of their organizations. Difficult decisions related to activities such as M&A, leadership changes, restructuring, and massive growth plans will directly impact the company’s employees.
If you’ve already established trust with your workforce, you can significantly minimize potential negative impacts and be more assured your employees will buy in to your decisions, even if they don’t necessarily agree with them. But earning their faith takes time. As a leader, you are trusted only to the degree that people believe in your ability, consistency, integrity, and commitment to deliver. The good news is that you can earn confidence over time by relying on a few strategies:
Instill trust through an employee engagement program
By encouraging consistent feedback and establishing an honest environment, employees will trust the direction and information you give them. Create a highly engaged culture by prioritizing real-time recognition, continuous feedback, and ongoing goal-setting.
Change and react with meaningful conversations. You’ve likely had to adjust your business plan in the middle of the year. Real-time, continuous communication helps you keep employees in the loop and adjust to expectations as your organization’s needs change.
Giving timely feedback is the most effective way to communicate expectations. Not only that, but saving your big kudos until the end of the year isn’t just ineffective—it is makes it more difficult to deliver.
Ongoing goal-setting can help people understand where their contributions fit within the organization and where they need to aim. Better yet, these can be transparent across the organization so everyone is held accountable for the outcomes and behaviors that drive your business and cultural success.
Gather and measure sentiment during times of change
Part of the difficulty in making tough business decisions is leaders don’t want to surprise or disappoint employees. Think about the last time you made a major company-wide announcement. Did you know if employees were happy? Were they shocked? Or even worse, did you have no insight into their reactions at all? If you regularly measure employee sentiment through real-time pulse surveys—especially during times of change—you can more accurately pinpoint reactions and address issues immediately. The results of these pulse surveys empower your leadership team to be more forthcoming moving forward, earning the trust of employees and strengthening a transparent company culture.
If there is a strong link between employees and managers to the goals of the organization, the vision and values of the company will be embraced by all.
At the end of the day, the mindset shouldn’t be about how you can make tough decisions easier, but how you can make those decisions in a way that won’t negatively impact your employees or your organization’s objectives. Create a collaborative feedback culture, and when the time comes to make difficult decisions, you know that with your team’s insights in mind and trust in the leadership, the decision will be accepted positively.
“透視領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力”是一個(gè)在線社區(qū)，最睿智、最有影響力的商界大佬會(huì)在此回答一些有關(guān)職業(yè)生涯和領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力的問題。今天的問題是：面對(duì)艱難處境該怎樣決策?答問者是人力資源軟件公司HighGround創(chuàng)始人兼首席執(zhí)行官威普桑德爾。
每位企業(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)都會(huì)碰上做重大商業(yè)決策的時(shí)候，包括并購(gòu)、管理層人事更迭、企業(yè)重組，以及與員工密切相關(guān)的大規(guī)模業(yè)績(jī)?cè)鲩L(zhǎng)計(jì)劃等。
如果你在員工中建立了信任，就可以大為減少潛在的負(fù)面影響，還有信心認(rèn)為即使員工不認(rèn)同，至少也會(huì)接受。但贏得員工的信任需要時(shí)間。身為領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者，只有充分展示出能力、言行一致、誠(chéng)信待人、信守承諾，才能獲得信任。好消息是有一些策略可以用：
通過培養(yǎng)員工敬業(yè)態(tài)度建立信任
鼓勵(lì)員工不斷反饋，營(yíng)造坦誠(chéng)的氛圍，員工會(huì)相信前進(jìn)的方向沒錯(cuò)，得到的指令也沒問題。把重點(diǎn)放在即時(shí)認(rèn)可員工的成績(jī)、持續(xù)反饋，不斷給員工設(shè)定目標(biāo)，就能營(yíng)造高度敬業(yè)的企業(yè)文化。
企業(yè)出現(xiàn)變化后，跟員工溝通時(shí)要真誠(chéng)。有時(shí)根據(jù)業(yè)績(jī)情況年中會(huì)做業(yè)務(wù)微調(diào)，此時(shí)跟員工保持溝通就會(huì)有助于維護(hù)穩(wěn)定，也能推動(dòng)員工根據(jù)企業(yè)情況調(diào)整預(yù)期。
調(diào)整預(yù)期方面，及時(shí)反饋是最有效的溝通方式。此外，平時(shí)多交流就不必等到年底再統(tǒng)一反饋，不僅收效甚微，還增加了溝通的難度。
持續(xù)設(shè)定目標(biāo)可以幫助員工找到自己最適合擔(dān)任的崗位，明確奮斗方向。更好的做法是讓公司上下權(quán)責(zé)透明公開，每個(gè)人都努力追求優(yōu)秀業(yè)績(jī)，愛崗敬業(yè)，推動(dòng)業(yè)務(wù)發(fā)展并成功打造企業(yè)文化。
出現(xiàn)變化后要注意員工情緒變化，估計(jì)可能造成的影響。
領(lǐng)導(dǎo)做重要決策時(shí)還有個(gè)難處在于，不希望讓員工意外或失望�；貞浺幌履阕罱淮蜗蛘麄�(gè)公司宣布重大決定時(shí)的情景。當(dāng)時(shí)你知道員工是什么反應(yīng)嗎?是開心還是震驚?或者更糟糕，你根本不了解員工有什么反應(yīng)?及時(shí)做做滿意度調(diào)查、把握員工的態(tài)度，尤其是在變動(dòng)期間，從而更精準(zhǔn)地預(yù)判員工的反應(yīng)，出現(xiàn)問題立即解決。滿意度調(diào)查的結(jié)果可以幫助管理層對(duì)未來的行動(dòng)更有前瞻性，贏得信任，促進(jìn)企業(yè)文化更公開透明。
倘若員工和管理者能為了實(shí)現(xiàn)企業(yè)的目標(biāo)而緊密團(tuán)結(jié)，企業(yè)的愿景和價(jià)值觀就會(huì)被廣泛接受。
歸根結(jié)底，企業(yè)領(lǐng)導(dǎo)不應(yīng)想著把困難的決策簡(jiǎn)單化，應(yīng)該考慮如何做決策才不會(huì)打擊員工士氣，也不會(huì)影響企業(yè)的宗旨。只要建立了協(xié)同反饋的企業(yè)文化，領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者今后在做艱難決策時(shí)，會(huì)很清楚員工的想法，又擁有員工的充分信任，公司上下積極接受決策便會(huì)順理成章。