NFIB

Share Your Enthusiasm With Employees
03/ 28/ 2002


To communicate your conviction in your business to staff members, make your message personal, memorable and fun.

You start your company with sheer will and the fire of your convictions; as it succeeds, you hire a staff to handle the increasing workload. How do you communicate your enthusiasm and vision for your business to those employees? Speaking coach Melinda Henning offered this three-part prescription in a recent interview with workshop contributor Karen Bankston.

First, make your message personal. Whether you're speaking to employees as a group or one-on-one, be self-revealing and tie your company's goals and values into their personal goals. Henning relates the story of a company that had been a market leader until a competitor moved in. Employees were taken aback by the competitor's gains, and some were even thinking about defecting. But the company's president was sure that if they hung in and maintained their commitment to handling the day-to-day details of serving their customers, they would soon regain market dominance.

The president needed to do more than stress his conviction. He had to demonstrate to employees why he knew it to be true. As a child, he had been struck by a degenerative illness so severe that he spent a year in a body cast. His staff was amazed by this story because the man they know today is a marathon runner in superb form.

"He was reluctant to share that story, but his faith in sticking with it and taking small steps on a regular basis grew out of his childhood experience in learning how to walk again," Henning relates.

A related challenge is to help employees attain their personal goals by working for your business. "In today's marketplace, most employees really are thinking of the brand called Me," she notes. "They need to feel that they are learning and gaining skills that will make them employable and advance their careers." Acknowledging and openly discussing employees' fears (Are they worried about decreasing sales? Will automation leave them without a job?) demonstrates your commitment to your company and your staff, Henning says, but she advises keeping your own doubts and fears to yourself. "If you're going to have a pity party, I think you should do it alone," she says. "Don't expect your staff to be your counselor."

Second, make it memorable. Henning recalls a business owner so enthusiastic about his company's new image that he had the logo tattooed on his shoulder and displayed it at the staff meeting as the new promotional materials were unveiled. If you're not willing to go that far to make your message memorable, consider how to use setting and delivery to make your point. "Brain researchers tell us that context is everything in memory," Henning notes. Take employees out for a "walk-and-talk" along the river, or hold an important staff meeting in the woods. Your employees will remember the setting - and the message. For example, "$2 million in 2000!" effectively communicates a sales goal and rallies everyone around a common cause, she notes.

Finally, make it fun. So many times when owners and managers need to share important news, they do so through a long, often boring, speech. Henning suggests coming up with a delivery method that entertains as it informs. Why not a Jeopardy-style contest? For example, you could write the answer "Inventory control" on one side of a poster and ask employees to come up with questions. "What's the most boring part of our job?" they might suggest, or "What does everyone hate to think about?" The question on the back of the poster cues them to your message: "What is the key to keeping costs down?"

Melinda Henning is a speaking coach and speaker specializing in Speaking with Conviction in high-stakes presentations and Doing Business By Phone.

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