Make a more effective workforce by changing your employees’ behavior 

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Every company should be aware of the certain behavior process change that could be implemented in their workplaces. And the good thing is that it can be applied to large and small organizations. The process involves defining the values and making them distinctive characteristics of the organization. The ultimate goal of this is to develop your organization by combining your vision, mission, and values and making them the most important and crucial ideas.

No matter how we behave, it will affect others. The most important problem regarding behavior is that sometimes certain behavior can give a very good result, but at the same time very negatively affect the organization or the customer base.There are numerous examples of this in the news: all the way from banks abusing the rights of their clients, various companies copying their competitors, and even companies lying to their buyers. When the organizations are caught doing something like this, only then they realize the cost that their behavior had on the company.

For misrepresenting a feature of the cars to the public, an automobile manufacturer was required to pay $14.7 billion, and besides this, there is also the impact on the image of the company. And that is not irrelevant at all, the behavior of the company will probably turn off the potential consumers. The conclusion is that such behavior can be critical for some businesses.

It doesn’t matter if the company is local or global, it should prioritize avoiding this kind of situations. Behavior that could hurt the company can never be allowed. It would help you if you did an analysis of your top team in your company as to the type of behaviors they’re witnessing. Then you can try applying the process of four simple steps which are based on the core values.

Four steps:

  1. Define corporate/company values.
  2. Define pinpointed behaviors aligned with values.
  3. Change your behaviors.
  4. Facilitate change in others.

Defining the core values

The first step is defining the core values, the values that you think every employee should embrace. There are various combinations of these values, you should probably come up with your list for your workplace, but here are few values, as a guide:

Trustworthiness. The goal of every person’s behavior should be earning the trust of others. This will eventually make the company better functioning place. Stockholders, customers, and employees will all trust the company. To get someone’s trust, one has to get the job done and do it properly. But also, honesty and fairness should be central virtues; no one can be allowed to take advantage of others.

Service orientation. Companies should never, never, never forget that customers are the most important aspect of their businesses. Customer must be treated with courtesy. You always have to try and exceed customers expectations, by having an attitude of exceptional values for them. It is important for them to understand your intentions, and they will if you show that you care.

Quality consciousness. This means anticipating the expectations of the customer, what they want out of the service or the product they are obtaining. Then take that expectation and apply it to the product or the service, make it meet their needs and wishes. And most important, do this every time, as you need to be assured that specifications are met.

Respectfulness. Sheer respect is one of the most important things at the workplace. Everybody should show respect for all relationships and treat everyone without prejudice.

Learning. By this we mean being constantly open to new ideas, not being “know it all” guy in any situation, but show humility and always be in the learning mode. It means being able to innovate knowing all the risks, but not giving up.

This values can make a better relationship between employees, and between employees with customers. Alignment with this values can be of great use for the company.

These values can guide the conduct of the organization and have a great impact on the relationship with customers. Alignment with values can be your company’s ultimate competitive advantage.

Define main behaviors

Aligning with the values may be a vague term, and that is why defining these values is here. When you need to determine is someone behaving according to some of the virtues, all you need to do is just observe specific behaviors that illustrate certain value (i.e. trustworthiness). These “main” behaviors are specific and observable. Following the example, one behavior that could illustrate trustworthiness is “completing a project by the date promised.”

Change your behavior

This whole process is not some mind control process that will help bosses to control their employees; it includes everyone who works for the certain company. So what matters is also to try and improve your behavior. Everyone in the company can think about the behaviors and see which one he or she can improve. This step is rather difficult and will probably require discipline, perseverance, and resolution.

When you decide to change a behavior you are making a step in self-improving. But what matters is that while you are working on yourself, you get feedback. Feedback by a person that is observing you that could be anybody you trust, a family, a friend, a colleague. On the other hand, it is very hard to find someone that could do this in the workplace, so that leaves you with just yourself. You will notice your improvement when you see a positive change in the workplace.

Help others in changing themselves

The best method for doing this is setting and following your example. You need to show your colleagues what the desired behavior looks like and most probably your example will be their inspiration for improvement.

These four steps can be applied to any company that wants to align behaviors with values. Steps 1 and 2 have to be performed with the executive team, and step 3 should be done by each of the top people by themselves. Step four will show how much success one had in the previous one. The important thing is not to underestimate the power of example in companies because it has been proven that employees will follow the example of their leader.