Many business owners I speak with say they are frustrated by how much they have to do in their business, leaving no time to work on their business. One client described it as feeling like Atlas carrying the weight of his business on his shoulders.

Research by the HR Coach Institute shows that up to 48% of businesses are just busy being busy i.e. there’s lot’s of activity but it’s not driving the business in the direction of their goals. So how can business owners get back in control and have their business working for them?

Five tips for creating a high performance and engaged workplace.

Communicate your purpose and vision: Low performing businesses are very task focused. People just do the job in front of them. But in high performance cultures everyone one has a common understanding of what the business stands for and they all work towards that vision. Steve Jobs (past CEO, Apple) had this to say about Vision: “If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.”
Practical Tip. Get your team together to talk about your Vision. What got you started in the business in the first place? What difference do you want to make to your customers, your people, the industry, the world?

Focus on progress towards your goals: Low performing organisations have no benchmarks or measures of progress. People don’t have a sense of where they are going, only where they have been. High performing organisations have a clear sense of progress. They have plans, and priorities and they report on performance regularly. They use systems like balanced scorecards to give people visible measures of progress on the things that are important for the business. If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it.
Practical Tip. Start each week with a Work in Progress meeting to measure achievements and plan your goals for the week ahead.

Shift from passengers to drivers: When you are a passenger, you are just along for the ride, the driver makes all the decisions. Which is why so many business owners feel like they have to do everything, because they have created a culture of passengers. It’s all about ownership. And this means moving from where people see themselves as just a cog in the wheel to being in control of their work. If a person owns their job, they are accountable and take responsibility for the outcomes they achieve. In high performing organisations people report that they have a clear understanding of their role in the business and what they are responsible for.
Practical Tip: Make sure everyone has a clear job description, that defines their purpose and priorities and KPI’s to define their goals and performance measures.

Move from mushrooms to marigolds:  We all know that mushrooms are kept in the dark and marigolds thrive on sunlight. So if your culture is one where the business owner or team leader is the only one who knows what is going on then chances are people are not thriving. High performance cultures thrive on a diet of feedback. We’ve all heard the story that space missions are off-course 90% of the time, but what keeps them on track is the on board navigation systems and feedback from mission control. People in business are no different. It  is no surprise then that low performing organisations say feedback is infrequent or non-existent and lacks any structure.
Practical Tip: Give your staff regular formal and informal feedback about their performance and make sure you make time at least once a year to sit down for a formal review.

Create a culture of leadership and empowerment: High performing organisations rate a positive work environment as the number one predictor of engagement. And it all gets down to the attitude of the leader or business owner. If you are the one calling all the shots then what happens when you are not there? People in HPO’s say they have the authority, resources and support they need to do their job to the best of their ability. In LPO’s staff are still very reliant on the boss telling them what to do. “You have to enable and empower people to make decisions independent of you. As I’ve learned, each person on a team is an extension of your leadership; if they feel empowered by you they will magnify your power to lead.” Quote from Tom Ridge

This last quote says it all. If you want to go from being the hardest working person in your business to your business working for you then you need to empower your people.

This is an extract from a talk I gave recently at the YTM Successful Business Matters Expo titled “How to Create a High Performance Culture in your Workplace”. Findings are based on results from the HR Coach STAR Workplace engagement survey.

Warren Howard is a Workplace Engagement and Change Leadership Specialist | Executive Coach | Speaker | Trainer | Workshop Facilitator. He is a Licensed Member of the National HR Coach Network.