INFLUENCE

How to Get Employees Excited

to Do Their Work
by Kelly Decker and Ben Decker
MAY 18, 2015

What keeps you up at night as a manager? Are you worried about hitting your numbers? How
to boost the results of lower performers? What about how to keep top performers motivated?

We often believe that the most effective way to respond to these concerns is to directly tell
our employees what to do. Directing a team is certainly one way to achieve your goals. But
while its tried, its also tired. Several trends suggest that its no longer enough to lead by

authority. Theres an ever-increasing trust gap between leaders and employees (we are twice
as likely to trust someone just like us than we are a CEO), endless distractions make it
harder to separate the signal from the noise, and more than 67% of employees arent engaged
at work. All of this has left people thirsting for inspiration, which means managers have to
rethink how they communicate with their teams.

No one wants another checklist task that they have to complete. We want to be called to
something greater. So instead of informing and directing your direct reports, aspire to inspire.
When you focus on persuading them, youll be able to turn even a corporate initiative or new
product launch into a cause that becomes their own. Theyll want to step up and own their
results.

The challenge is how to shift someones response from I have to to I want to. After
pulling together the tips weve shared with thousands of leaders from Fortune 500
companies, nonprofits, and startups, we developed what we call the Communicators
Roadmap.

The vertical axis measures emotional connection. This is your barometer of trust, and its
comprised of the rapport you build with others, your likability, warmth, reliability, and
empathy. You can strengthen this connection by showing warmth and care. Personal stories,
especially those that reveal vulnerability, can also help others relate to you. As social
psychologist Amy Cuddy explains, Warmth is the conduit of influence: It facilitates trust and
the communication and absorption of ideas.

On the horizontal axis, we have content. A self-centered message, on the left side of the
spectrum, is not necessarily selfish, but its all about youyour expertise, your wisdom, your
opinions, and your agenda. The right side is all about how the message relates to the other
person. These are not mere facts, figures, or frameworks; they are human-scale, concrete, and
actionable. If your message is not relevant to someone, it wont be persuasive.

Looking at the four quadrants, most of us default to Inform and Direct as a way to get things
done. Sometimes that works but its not a long-term solution for retaining top talent,
growing your team, or raising the bar.

We worked with a client at a financial services company who had a direct report, lets call him
Bill, who was not well liked. Bill was a good performer, he was effective on a stage, he got
paid wellbut his colleagues didnt like him. No matter how hard his manager tried to direct
him, Bill, you need to do a better job and connect with others, he wouldnt make any
progress. Bill didnt care if his colleagues liked him or not.

After many dead ends, Bills manager shifted her approach. She said to him, I see a future for
you here at our company, and I want whats best for you. Empathizing that Bill had such
great potential, she made an emotional appeal to Bills long-term goal to join the management
team. She continued, Peer relationships at that level are critical to work through others and
its just not possible if you are not trusted and cant connect well with your colleagues.

This shift in message (toward Audience-Centered content), inspired by her confidence in him
(through Emotional Connection), changed Bills perspective. Building relationships with his
colleagues was no longer something he had to do; it was something he wanted to do as part of
his own goals and objectives. There was a new personal level of accountability.

In another example, a client had grown substantially through a series of acquisitions over the
span of three years. Every manager suddenly had a lot more on his or her plate, including
keeping teams engaged, motivated, and performing, rather than feeling bitter about the
changes.

The corporate communications team had already been churning out emails highlighting new
expense procedures, sales process changes, escalation flows, etc., but this wouldnt engage
employees. When a message comes from above, it has to be adapted at every level; otherwise,
its just a directive. What made the great managers stand out was their ability to tailor the
new vision to each level of direct reports. When they shifted the message to be audiencecenteredby explaining why each team should personally care about the changesthey were
able to motivate a positive, self-propelling response from team members. They became part
of the cause.

Inspiration is not something to be left for the annual company kickoff. There are
opportunities every day: when you want to empower a team member to take ownership of a
project, when you want your feedback about someones performance to stick, when youre
communicating change, etc. Being a leader who persuades others through inspiration starts
with connection. Greater empathy and relevance leads to growth, increased motivation,

faster action, and real results. Use the Communicators Roadmap before your next meeting
with your direct report to create an experience that will shift his response from Sure, I can do
that to Count me in!

Kelly Decker and Ben Decker are leading experts in the field of business communication.
Together, they run Decker Communications, a global firm that trains and coaches tens of
thousands of executives a year. Their new book, Communicate to Influence: How to Inspire
Your Audience to Action, shares real-world stories and tips from the C-Suite that apply to us
all.

This article is about INFLUENCE

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Related Topics:

LEADING TEAMS

MOTIVATING PEOPLE

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8 COMMENTS

EDGAR GOMES

6 days ago

The Communicators Roadmap and Taylor to the situation and goal. I think we got something here. That will
help a lot...
00

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