Last week I shared strategies for making your New Year’s resolutions a reality this year. In case you missed that article, you can read it here. This week, I’ve decided to give you a little insight into what we’ve done here at ETE REMAN to get ourselves off to a great start in 2012.
I hired Matt Booth – an engaging speaker, entrepreneur, and columnist who encourages people to chase their dreams – to work with my team last week here in Milwaukee. Matt delivered a great presentation and then facilitated a workshop in which we created goals, wrote them down, and identified the steps necessary to making them a reality. Matt’s philosophy is simple, but not simplistic: “Success is making progress toward predetermined goals.”
Check out a few minutes from Matt’s session right below.

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Here are (a few) of my goals from Matt’s session:

• Write my book.
• 199. (Yep, that’s a weight-related goal. Time to get back under 200 lbs.)
• Join YPO.
• Carry my goals in my pocket and review weekly.
• Meet with each of my employees monthly to review their goals.

I’m a firm believer in working hard to foster employee engagement, and one of the best ways to do that is to help connect your employees’ life goals with specific work tasks. In other words, if you can show an employee how his job furthers a personal goal or dream, you’ll drive engagement, productivity, and positive attitude at work. Even if you cannot connect the dots, the simple act of discussing life goals with an employee helps to connect YOU to that employee on a deeper level. And, you may just discover that you are able to help an employee achieve his goals (maybe you’ve quit smoking or run a marathon or bought a house yourself and you can provide advice or support).

Let’s make it specific. Say you’ve got an employee that wants to attend night school to earn a degree of some sorts (undergrad, associate, MBA, whatever). There are many ways you can help make that happen:

1. You could adjust your employee’s schedule to allow him to get to class on time.
2. You could create a flextime schedule that allows your employee to take off of work during exams or projects.
3. You could pay for the school (or a portion of it).
4. You could offer your business as the basis for a project (this works especially well if your employee is taking management or business courses). The class will love the opportunity and you’ll love the insight you gain as a result.
5. You could write a letter of recommendation to the school to support your employee’s application.

That’s just a start. You might want to even ask something like, “Hey Bob, you told me you want to go back to school and I think that’s great. How I can I help you the most?” I’m sure Bob will tell you exactly what he needs to get started. If you help Bob, Bob will work his tail off for you.

I’ll bet by now you’re thinking, “Wait! If I help Bob go back to school, he’s going to leave me when he graduates!” or, “Just wait until Bob finishes school and then expects me to pay him more.” Those are common reactions. But those reactions are also shortsighted. I’d rather have an engaged, happy employee work his tail off for me for a few years than a complacent (or negative) employee stroke the clock for his entire life. How about you?

If you want loyal customers, you have to have loyal employees first. Rather than expecting or demanding employee loyalty, why not try earning it? If you dedicate yourself to your people, your people will dedicate themselves to you. Help them in their lives and they’ll help you in your business.

One final tip: if you ask your employees to create and write their goals down, you better be prepared for somebody to ask to see yours. I recommend (thanks to Matt) that you carry those goals with you everywhere and review them from time to time to be sure that you’re on the right path.

So, sparky, what’s in your wallet?

Bonus points (and a free REMAN U t-shirt) to anyone who is willing to post a goal in the comments below.