Capture Their Hearts

“We rent people’s hands and their backs, but they volunteer their hearts, their minds,
and their imaginations.” – from Ray Attiyah

Author Ray Attiyah makes a great point in his blog post on employee engagement. You pay your employees to do a job. Whether they pour their heart and soul into it has a lot to do with the type of environment you create and how you treat your people.

You capture hearts, minds, and imaginations by:

• Creating an excitement in your work
• Keeping the vision relevant and out front
• Showing (not just saying) that you care
• Giving your team credit for the wins
• Taking responsibility yourself for the losses
• Serving and sacrificing (especially when it’s inconvenient)
• Walking the talk
• Sharing your success
• Communicating openly and honestly
• Using mistakes as teaching opportunities

On the other hand, you only get their hands and backs by:

• Consistently complaining or being sarcastic
• Constantly changing the focus and moving the goals
• Lacking empathy
• Taking credit for the wins
• Blaming your teammates for the losses
• Taking privileges
• Talking the talk
• Keeping the fruits of your success to yourself
• Hoarding information
• Talking down to them when mistakes are made

Employees in the latter environment will eagerly jump ship for any opportunity that looks remotely better to their current situation. Employees in the first environment will stand by you through good times and bad. Are you capturing your employees hearts?