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Are Your Employees Seeing the Bigger Picture?

While touring the NASA space centre in 1962, John F. Kennedy walked past a man holding a broom. Without realising that it was the janitor, the President approached the man and said, “Hi, I’m Jack Kennedy . What do you do here?”

The janitor replied, “Well Mr. President, I’m helping put a man on the moon.”

Although I do question the plausibility of this story (what’s a janitor doing carrying a broom in the middle of a visit from the most important VIP in the country, and shouldn’t the cleaning have been done before said visit?), the message from it is clear: He understood his role within NASA, and took pride in his small but meaningful contribution to the bigger goal.

Here’s a challenge: Find an employee who is on the lowest salary rung in your company (e.g. a cleaning personnel, production operator or office clerk) and ask him or her the same question JFK asked the janitor. Chances are you won’t get the same ‘big picture’ answer the President got.

First off, are employees aware of your company’s SPECIFIC contribution to the world? Are YOU aware?

If you manufacture steel pipes, I’m not asking about how you supply those pipes to infrastructure development. Get specific. Find out WHICH buildings use your pipes. If you produce cloth for wholesale, see if you can find out what types of clothing get made out of your material and the brands that use them.

Invest in a few LCD TV’s (if you haven’t already) and place them in walkways and the canteen. Other than screening the company vision, mission and the latest photos from the Annual Family Day, show your workers the end product of their work. I’m sure the lady who spends 12 hours of her day soldering wires to a conductor would be thrilled to see first hand how her mundane job ends up diagnosing a child in the hospital. And what about the technician who keeps the automated wire coiler running? Wouldn’t he be more involved at work if he knew those wires are powering schools that educate children who are the same age as his daughter?

Showing your employees the bigger picture is a wonderful way to engage and connect with them. This gives them an INTRINSIC reason to get out of bed every morning, an additional motivation other than the usual EXTRINSIC motivation of needing to feed their families. By showing them the bigger picture, you can trigger an emotional investment that they will now have with your organisation.

Chances are, there is already such a video or presentation with sales and marketing, shown to potential clients, customers and investors. Why not show it to those who matter the most, your employees, especially the ones whose contributions are easily overlooked or dismissed? Because let’s face it, none of your janitors, operators or clerks listed down those occupations as their main ambition growing up. You’re going to need as many tools as possible to motivate and engage them in their work, besides relying on the usual financial incentives and bonuses. The bigger picture may just be the tool to drive your organisation to greater success in 2017.

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