ARTICLE 7
MOTIVATING PEOPLE
When motivating people....................

LITTLE THINGS MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE

(based on the book HOW TO CHOOSE)

published in COSTCO CONNECTION, Fresh Views column

Why not make a New Year's Resolution: make a big difference by focusing on the little things

The little things that managers do at 9.00 a.m. on a Monday morning can make a big difference and have a critical impact on the long term success or failure of their business. So why not make a New Year's Resolution and focus on those all important little things?

These little things are the behavioural choices we make every day and which have such a critical impact on other people. For example whether a manager smiles, frowns, glares, shuts the door, answers e-mails, makes calls on the cellphone, reads the newspaper, comes in late, comes in early, walks the patch, talks to Farid as opposed to Farina or simply rushes into the first meeting of the day - will transmit important behavioural signals which radiate throughout the organisation with varying degrees of positive and negative impact.

"Every little thing a manager does has a critical impact on the business"

It is well known that business success is built on relationships. These relationships network out to embrace suppliers, shareholders, managers as well as employees, customers and the community at large. Such relationships are conditional upon a manager's choice of 'little things' or what I term as 'microbehaviours' in my new book 'HOW TO CHOOSE'. A typical manager makes thousands of these micro-choices each day and these aggregate to create positive or negative patterns of influence on customers and employees alike.

Thus one 'little thing' such as a 'cutting remark' can make a big difference on a relationship with a customer, employee or supplier.

The challenge therefore, and one to make in your New Year's Resolution is to become aware of all the little things you do and the impact they have on other people. Having created this conscious awareness the next step is to ask yourself: "Is there better way?" "Could I have made a better choice in each little thing I do?" For example "Should I welcome a customer at the door, as opposed to wait for the customer to approach me at the desk?" "Should I choose to spend five minutes going around chatting to customers waiting to be served, as opposed to doing what I normally do: concentrating on my paperwork?" "Should I go out of my way to look for the good things employees do (and then praise them) as opposed to focus on what they do wrong (and criticise them)?"

Research for my new book indicates that this myriad of small choices (or the little things we do) can have a dramatic impact for better or for worse on our business, whatever it is.

Dr David Freemantle is an international expert on leadership, motivation and customer relations. He is renowned around the world for his inspirational and thought-provoking seminars.

He is the author of fourteen best-selling books including the recently published HOW TO CHOOSE (Why our greatest successes are a reflection of our small every day choices) - Prentice Hall, Business.

He can be contact by e-mail at: team@superboss.co.uk Or check out his web-site at www.superboss.co.uk

Article Copyright © Dr David Freemantle