- Have active ways to listen to your employees.
- Check often with employees to see if the information you are sharing with them is what they need and what they want.
- Share information about customer satisfaction with employees.
- Discuss financial performance with your employees and be sure everyone understands the importance of profitability and how they can contribute to profitability.
- Allow ad hoc teams among employees to form to address organizational problems and work with those teams to tackle the identified issues.
- Encourage employees to make suggestions for improvement whether those ideas are large or small.
- Take an idea from one employee and share it with other employees and teams and let everyone make a contribution to build upon that idea.
- Train!
- For long-term employees, find ways to keep their jobs interesting through new assignments and challenges.
- Conduct meetings around specific issues and brainstorm solutions.
Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability . They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences
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