“Where your talents cross the needs of the world therein lays your vocation.” Aristotle
“Hire people to do things that are fun for them and work for you.” John Assaraf
“If you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.” Marc Anthony
“When people have talent and are passionate about their work, they require virtually no supervision.” Stephen R. Covey
One of the keys to raising engagement in your team is to raise the passion and enthusiasm of each team member. Nothing works quite as well as aligning what people love to do with what the team needs done. Sounds simple yet, most of us work with our focus on the tasks and the results, not on the means. Has your job description ever landed you a project that you dread? Have you ever found yourself working on something that isn’t on your ‘To Do’ list, yet you can’t help yourself? No wonder Gallup continues to find only 30% of the workforce is fully engaged.
To properly align people takes analysis as well as perception. Matching tasks to talents and then fine tuning talents to passion and enthusiasm is more than a project management schedule. Yet this front end work yields tremendous benefits on the end product. As Brian Tracy points out, every minute spent planning produces a ten minute savings in execution.
Here are two steps to help you get started:
1) Review your existing team and list their talents and skills on a scale of 1 to 5.
2) Review what you perceive they are passionate about doing on a scale of 1 to 5.
That will give you a clue as to how to align your team in a way that as Marcus Buckingham suggests, builds on their strengths. The bonus: You will reduce your supervision time and raise morale at the same time. And who wouldn’t love that?