The Clifton Review 

The Clifton Review is a tri-weekly column that examines the question of the Clifton project along with the evolution of the war between two billionaires. We covered the start of this war with articles describing the battle over easement rights, the mysterious burning of a home, the blocks to rebuilding, and countless questionable court filings.

While the 2018 series salutes fashion mogul Peter Nygård’s Golden Jubilee detailing his rags to riches story, his incredible business success over these past fifty years and an inside look at how he did it, The Clifton Review will also continue to address current affairs as they relate to the good of The Bahamas.

The Right Frame Of Mind for Business Effectiveness

By P.J. Malone

Unfortunately, setting the right foundation for individuals you employ is an important step that is often overlooked by too many business leaders especially given how essential it is to lining up employees with business goals.

You have to communicate what your company is all about, where the company is trying to go and what the company is trying to achieve.

Certainly most companies put employees through an orientation process. But, if we look at it critically, we’ll admit that, more often than not, it is limited to providing info about employee jobs and how to use those machines or systems related to them performing their jobs.

There are several reasons why setting the right foundation makes good business sense:

1. Setting the right foundation is key to being able to align your employees with your business purpose, strategies and objectives. Success will not happen without aligning your employees with what you are trying to achieve. 

Remember the example of the financial services company where receptionists were not aware of new financial services products and therefore turned customers away when they inquired? This is a costly mistake that you most definitely want to avoid.

2. Setting the right foundation to align your employees with your business direction makes it exponentially more possible to achieve your business goals.

1. Setting the right foundation has the added benefit of keeping employees more motivated. An associate from fashion mogul Peter Nygard’s company once expressed that she liked the weekly updates they get because it made her feel a part of the company, and she liked that they cared enough to keep employees updated.

In order to set the foundation in a way that is effective, you have to pretend for a moment that your employees are your business partners. 

Why? Because you look to business partners to help you achieve your business goals. And if you think about it, that’s what employees do, in essence.

If you had a business partner that you looked to to help you achieve your business goals, you would tell them everything about the company so that they could be effective in helping you. You truly wouldn’t expect a partner to be effective without them knowing what the company is all about, what you are trying to achieve, and what strategies you want to implement.

So, if you truly want your employees to work toward your business objectives and help you achieve your business goals, pretend that employees are your business partners whom you need to tell everything to.

Seeing your employees as business partners has other benefits as well.

1. It tends to motivate employees to work harder: People like to feeling needed. A common discovery is that when you give employees responsibilities at work, they tend to step up to the plate and work to meet those responsibilities, generally speaking.
2. It makes it easier to line up everyone to work toward your business objectives and goals and makes it more likely for you to achieve them.
3. It makes your job a lot easier if employees are working with you and not against you, which can sometimes happen unintentionally.

Once you develop this mindset, then setting the foundation is a natural evolution.

We will continue this discussion in our upcoming article.