Today I am wondering if the business people in my community are paying any attention to their circumstances? Do they have the pulse of their organizations?

I meet with several businesses each day and I have noticed that the staff’s I see have a lot in common. They see to be sucked of life. They look beat up and defeated. And I wonder how is the manager responsible for what the staff feels like?

I remember a book by William Byham called “Zapp!” I am sure there are hundreds of books just like this one but I was given this book in the early 90’s and it has been a great resource over the years as I consider management of a staff.

The premise of the book was how one person saw the gloom hanging over his operation and how it effected productivity, and instead of just going with the flow changed how work was done and empowered and Elightened his staff. This new-found empowerment brought satisfaction and challenge that brought the company back to a productive asset status.

There are several items from this book which are easy to grasp but here are a couple of items for you to consider today.

To fulling Zapp! and employee and help them become a productive happy employee a couple of items need to occur.

1. Direction – give them a goals, a key result area for your company that they can affect, a measurement which is obtainable and show them how them working on achieving their small portion helps the company move in the right direction. 
2. Knowledge- Train them up. How many times have I seen management bring in a new person and give them the one day crash course then leave them to either figure it out or hand them over to an employee which is probably over worked to finish the task.  Teach thoroughly, constantly and share the goals of the training and how it will help them achieve and the company if the training is successful.
3. Resources Make sure the tools and materials are in order and will be able to help them succeed. Have you ever been late in getting a project sent only to have the copy machine or fax machine fail? Never fails that organizations save expense on items that are meant to save time and increase production, then when they start failing just use a band-aid to cure the problem. I have seen sales staffs lose complete trust in their company over tools that don’t work efficiently.
4. Support – (approval, coaching, feedback, encouragement, listening.) These are not traits which are sometimes items for an employer. These are the full-time things. Employees want your approval, they want to be listened too and coached with feedback which will help them be successful.

No brainer right? Tale a look at your organization today. What percentage of your staff would you say would give you an A in every category?

Maybe the way out of this national crisis is by starting in our own office culture.