Have you ever watched a toddler try to run after something she wants? Her little legs typically can’t keep up with her desire to “get there already.” She’ll be moving at break-neck speed and before you know it, she’s on her knees, dazed and confused, wondering how she went from having her feet on the ground, to having her feet by her ears.

I was a pretty rough and tumble kid myself. My mom still jokes that my baby shoes are so battered and torn, it’s a wonder the little feet they carried are still functioning. I attribute this wear and tear to two things: loving life and wanting to eat up every moment I could and wanting to do everything as fast as possible.

I reflect on that kid a lot now as an older and wiser professional. I try so hard to tell myself to “slow down” for fear of scraping my proverbial knees. And yet, I still feel myself being pulled into the race – trying to be the first, the best, the winner.

In the professional culture we live in today, it is hard NOT to move quickly. This is especially true when working remotely because of the internal pressure we tend to put on ourselves. We feel as if we need to continuously prove our value when we’re physically unseen.

In order to keep up with and outshine the competition, we rush to complete our goals, often while multitasking. On top of rushing through our day-to-day tasks, we find ourselves rushing to our work, rushing in and out of meetings, and rushing to get knock out our tasks to meet deadlines. Our professional “knees” are taking quite a beating.

So, what’s the problem? 

Faster is better right? Not necessarily. In fact, while so many of us are moving at lightning speed these days, we are also finding ourselves suffering because of it.

Think about this – how do you feel when you are told to “move faster” or “it needs to be done yesterday.” If these words cause you anxiety, rest assured it’s a natural human response. Our bodies are reminding us of the many falls we’ve taken when moving too fast.

The reality is, impatience and time urgency can cause stress. It activates our sympathetic nervous system, which is our more primitive “survival” system. When we hurry, it can feel like we’re being chased by a cheetah.

If we stay in this state for too long, it can lead to chronic stress which is proven to have negative health effects and does nothing for improving performance in the long term.

In a former life, I spent over a decade at a global retail organization – If you want to find an industry where speed is rewarded, retail is the place to look. Did you know your local checkout clerk is taught to “race the clock” with how many items they can scan in a minute?

After an eight-hour day of trying to “out scan” your fellow employees, work can become downright exhausting, and the words “pick up the pace”? Well, they can make you want to throw that kumquat you are trying like heck to remember the name of, at the person barking those words, which of course, is not helpful or advised.

Much like the worn-out clerk, too much rushing can push teams and organizations to a similar breaking point. We spend so much time competing for speed, we lose sight of the “why” behind the work and also each other.

For the sake of our culture, our relationships, and our physical and mental well-being, we need to learn to slow down. 

An important question to ask ourselves is, where are we trying to go? And perhaps more importantly, how do we get there in one piece?

Efficiency vs. Urgency

For the sake of managing performance, it’s important to distinguish between two concepts: urgency and efficiency. Urgency requires haste and is defined by the speed in which we get things done. It puts the quality of our work at risk and perpetuates feelings of stress. Efficiency, on the other hand, allows us to maintain our energy and doesn’t involve rushing. Efficiency requires that we intentionally “slow down to speed up.”

This involves maximizing our resources in order to complete projects or tasks in the most accurate and effective way. It’s having the necessary conversations to manage our resources and our time without the cattle prod or the skinned knees.

Having the right conversations and knowing how to train your employees how to have them is a non-negotiable component of efficiency. It can save individuals, teams and organizations time, money, and a whole lot of personal stress, while increasing productivity, improving performance, and getting us to the results we want.

Don’t believe me?

According to Deloitte, one sign of positive change in performance management is a rise in employee-driven communication rather than one-way feedback. Increasing the quantity and quality of conversations through training is becoming a key to both team and manager success.

To truly drive value, the experts are telling us we need to be teaching employees how to start having ongoing high-quality and supportive conversations between each other and their teams.

So, how do you slow down enough to be able to teach employees how to have the necessary conversations with their teams? Here are some valuable pointers to help improve the efficiency of your employees:

1. Teach them to stop multitasking.

RESEARCH SHOWS that monotaskers are generally more productive than multitaskers, and mono-tasking results in fewer mistakes. On top of that, multitasking can have a significant impact on trust and relationships in the workplace.

Consider what happens when someone messages or calls you to discuss an “important matter” and you are in the middle of that report you should have had to your boss 30 minutes ago. You are feeling rushed, pressed for time, you are clearly stressed. That said, the colleague in front of you seems to be gravely concerned and his matter seems just as urgent.

So, you do what you think is best – try to tend to both items at the same time. The trouble is, you are distracted by your report. You aren’t fully listening and the message you are sending to your colleague is “your matter isn’t important enough for me to stop what I’m doing and really focus on you.”

This does not mean you need to drop everything when someone wants to chat. But you need to consider how you are showing up and the example you’re setting for your employee.

What if your response to your employee was, “This matter sounds important. Give me 20 minutes to finish this report so I can give you and this conversation the attention it needs.” Or “what are you doing at 11 a.m.? Let’s meet then and give ourselves the time and the attention this needs.”

To change multitasking habits and build the monotasking muscle for ourselves and to teach our employees how to do the same, we need to encourage eliminating distractions to focus attention on one thing at a time. We must protect the time needed to do that task or have that conversation, block time on our calendar, close all other screens, put our phone on mute.  Relationships, performance, and the overall well-being of ourselves and our employees will be better for it.

2. Encourage time for positive feedback.

David Rock, founder of the Neuroleadership Institute says “positive feedback is a signal to the brain to do more of something. When we acknowledge, we highlight the behaviors we want to see more of, and at the same time, we build the other person’s confidence and certainty around what they are doing well.”

And yet, think about it. Most of us rush through or skim over the positive stuff. We say things like “great job!” or “way to go!” and “time to set our sights on what’s next!”

If recognition of others is rushed, or occurs as infrequently as annual performance conversations, employees are lacking a powerful performance tool. Providing specific, positive feedback has been scientifically proven to lead to success. It should be given freely and regularly by everyone in an organization.

Who deserves your recognition today?

3. Promote curiosity, and really listening. 

At Fierce, we start all of our one-on-one conversations with the same question: Given everything on your plate, what is the most important thing you and I should be talking about today? And then… we allow the time and space for the person to reflect and respond.  As Henry David Thoreau once said, “The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought and attended to my answer.”

Healthy work relationships require time and space for conversations to happen and for all parties to actively listen. Employees must go beyond day-to-day transactional interactions and have real conversations.

When it comes to increasing efficiency, encouraging employees to slow down to have skillful conversation is essential. The world is constantly changing around us, and it is pivotal that employees feel comfortable checking in with their team and the strategies that are currently in motion.

The Fierce approach is to explore more deeply what is happening. If you sense something is not going as planned or you are noticing something under the surface with your employees, it is imperative to slow down, have the conversation, and get curious about what is really going on and teach them how to do the same.

What comes to mind when you think of autonomy?

You might imagine your team engaging in solo work that they know how to do and you don’t need to check-in with them about.

While there is truth to this idea of autonomy, there’s a lot more to it. Autonomy at its core is about ownership, accountability, trust relative to our work, and having a sense of control over how we use our time.

In a larger context, autonomy creates a sense of empowerment. The ability to pursue our preferences helps support our sense of autonomy, so how we create it in our own lives tends to vary from person to person.

Part of being an effective leader is exploring how the areas of performance and engagement can be strengthened — and autonomy is a major player in accomplishing that goal.

This is easier said than done of course when you have a global workforce spread out over time zones and continents. The desire to micro-manage and be in all the details in order to have your own sense of control is real but it’s not effective and it’s costing you productivity, and it’s costing you the engagement of your team.

To dive into the idea of why we need to give autonomy and what we’re talking about when we say that word, we have to consider human motivation — when we feel inspired, we feel motivated, which leads us to fully engage in our work and perform at our best.

Daniel Pink, the author of Drive, pinpointed three elements necessary for generating the deepest levels of motivation within ourselves: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. In his words, “Control leads to compliance — autonomy leads to engagement.”

This is really important. Let’s look at some data that supports just how much autonomy matters in the workplace…

Researchers from the UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM revealed that if you have flexible working hours or the ability to work at your own pace (ahem, autonomy), you’re likely to have higher job satisfaction and higher overall well-being than other professionals who don’t.

In other words, we need it to achieve satisfaction in our careers. The study also revealed that 90% of people in managerial positions reported high levels of autonomy, while over half of all low-skilled employees reported having no autonomy at all.

Management is also not the only level with an organization that deserves autonomy. Leadership needs to support and promote empowerment and freedom of choice across all levels within their organization.

Published in the journal, PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY BULLETIN, “gaining autonomy quenches the desire for power,” and people would rather work in a non-managerial, autonomous position that grants self-empowerment than take a promotion offering power over others.

People are seeking control over their own lives and appear to have little desire to control the lives of others. This should serve as a wake-up call to leadership — the possibility of a promotion may not be a top motivator for employees, but they may be seeking one if they think it will grant them more autonomy.

This can manifest in many various ways in different cultures. however, the desire for autonomy is a human desire. Below are four tips to provide autonomy to your global workforce in order to better set them up for success:

1. Respect time boundaries.

Recently, my team had a month wherein our results were nowhere we wanted them to be. After traveling globally, I came back to HQ and saw how the month was going to end and I had a moment of sheer panic – so I sprung a surprise strategy session on their calendars for the next morning ready to dig in.

What’s the problem with this? I did not take my team’s schedule into consideration at all. They had their days planed, their week planned and because I am their boss and I knew I could, I said, drop your plans and do what I want.

Don’t get me wrong, there might be crisis situations that call for this, but after reflecting I realized this is something I do often.

Having a sense of individual power over how time at work is arranged can increase autonomy. When you respect your own time and the time of others—set boundaries and respect that even if something is urgent for you as the leader, you still need to check-in with your team and respect that they might also have urgent matters that are as important as yours.

One piece that I realized with my meeting was that I was not even prepared for it. I hadn’t reflected enough to make the time impactful.

With pre-scheduled meetings, make sure to set an intention and provide attendees with an agenda beforehand in addition to asking for meeting consent before scheduling. Ask yourself where you are wanting collaboration from your team so you can cut to the chase in meetings and focus on the most important issue(s) at hand.

If you have a global team that spans different cultures, you do want to spend time learning how meetings in that culture are run within that culture. This will provide inclusivity and build trust with your team.

2. Provide trust and flexibility.

The reality is that trust and flexibility are easy to give others when things are going well. It’s when you are in difficult times as a team that we tend to want to micro-manage. Two questions I always ask myself when leading others and the results are off are:

• Are they doing everything we have agreed on?
• If it’s a performance issue, have I shared my feedback/area of concern?

The thing to remember is that trust is built through consistent identity and it’s earned on both sides. If you don’t trust your team there is an underlying issue you are not tackling, it’s that simple.

Don’t put this off and instead hover over your team and their performance – tackle your toughest challenge and have the conversation.

3. Delegate to develop.

Delegating to develop your team will increase autonomy by empowering them to make decisions. Not only does this communicate your own trust in their ability, but it also provides them with an opportunity to strengthen their own self-trust. Effective delegation will allow employees to develop personally and professionally and provides them with opportunities to take action in new ways.

4. Have conversations about the current level of autonomy in your organization.

If you’re a leader and you want to develop autonomy within your global team, then you need to ask for feedback on how they currently feel and think. You can start by asking your team:

• Do you feel a sense of ownership and choice when it comes to your work?
• Do you feel empowered in your schedule, and comfortable with the pace at which you’re able to work?
• Do you feel there’s a mutual sense of trust between colleagues?

If the answer is no to any of these questions, a conversation can open up the possibility for more autonomy. Explore how they’re feeling about the current level of autonomy and discuss what changes can be made together that could improve it.

If you’re an individual contributor and feel that your current work environment isn’t supportive of autonomy, don’t let it slide. Have a conversation with your manager or supervisor. Approaching someone in a leadership role about your desire for more autonomy can be daunting, but the cost of not having the conversation is too great.

Supporting autonomy for the people we work with is an important part of strengthening our relationships, and the state of our relationships largely impacts business ROI. Download our whitepaper THE ROI OF SKILLFUL CONVERSATION: RELATIONSHIP ADVICE FOR MEASURABLE BUSINESS RESULTS for more insights.

As a leader, you’ve ideally built a relationship with each of your team members. You’ve likely swapped stories about your families, collaborated on successful work projects, and built the emotional capital necessary to have a successful team.

However, being a leader means that sometimes you are confronted with the challenge of how to best handle delicate situations, such as addressing a performance issue among your team.

Even great teams, for one reason or another, don’t perform to the expected standard. You may try to avoid the situation and hope it goes away on its own. The reality, though, is that the problem does exist, and the longer it goes on without being talked about, the worse it will get.

On a company level, the performance of each individual team impacts the organization’s overall production and revenue goals. As a leader, you are accountable for your team’s performance, and it’s critical to take direct action to prevent even bigger problems down the road.

Below are 4 actionable steps to help your team move past their performance issue and achieve success.

Step #1: Make sure the right people are in the room.

Depending on the issue at hand, you’ll need to determine who is accountable for the outcome and make sure the right people have been invited to the table.

Don’t, for example, host a team meeting if your issue is about one individual team member. Most importantly, you don’t want to put this person on the spot in front of others, and likewise, you shouldn’t use team meetings to make sweeping statements about the team if it is actually an individual issue. Honor your team’s time by addressing issues that are relevant to the team as a whole and save individual conversations for later.

Step #2: Present the issue to your team.

When you gather your team together and acknowledge openly that there is an issue, it’s like flipping on a light switch in a dark room. By providing feedback and creating awareness, you’re letting your team in on important information that they need to know in order to make improvements and course correct.

It’s equally important as a leader to avoid making assumptions about the root cause of the issue or jumping to conclusions about what should be done in order to resolve it. Instead, keep it high level—for example, inform them that the team is not meeting their monthly quota, or bring up the fact that a deadline was missed on an important team project.

Step #3: Open up the dialogue.

After you call out the issue, allow each employee’s perspectives to be heard.Your goal is to facilitate this conversation by listening and helping your team solve the current challenges.

In the FIERCE TEAM PROGRAM, we teach how to conduct a Beach Ball meeting. We call it a Beach Ball meeting because we view each employee on a team as a stripe of color, where each stripe represents a different perspective.

This type of meeting allows you, the leader, to create a setting where you come to the table with your team and address an issue collaboratively. This is a great way to tackle a subject like team performance, because it removes the punitive feeling that is associated with this topic and encourages the team to come to a solution together.

Enter this conversation with curiosity, and make sure all perspectives are heard. Be open to discovering completely new and valuable information, including new awareness about other issues that you didn’t even know existed. Don’t immediately dismiss an excuse or complaint—it likely contains a nugget of truth that can help better inform a solution.

To move things in a positive direction and keep the conversation on track, ask:

Given everything we’ve discussed, what can we do to achieve our team’s goals? What will help us move forward?

Step #4: Create an action plan.

The final step is to create an action plan. Ask your team:

Knowing what you know now, what is everyone committing to do over the next week, month, and year?

Get specific! Assign responsibilities and schedule a time for everyone to reconnect on progress.

If one meeting isn’t enough to tackle the issue and you don’t have time to get to this critical step, schedule the next meeting right then so it doesn’t get placed on the back burner. It’s also possible that some of your team members might have individual issues that don’t apply to the team as a whole. Address their concerns by setting up a time to meet with them one-on-one and create specific next steps for them.

Addressing an issue like performance is a hard, yet necessary, component of leadership. In the end, addressing an issue in an open and honest manner strengthens the relationship and sets your team, as well as your company, up for the greatest amount of success.

When was the last time you stopped everything you were doing and sat in your own presence with zero — yes ZERO — interruptions?

In our busy, fast-paced society, it’s easy to forget we’re human beings and not robots taking on every and all tasks no matter the situation.

We have late nights pulling last-minute budget proposals together, we’re constantly responding to those urgent email requests from our CIO over the weekend instead of spending time with family, and we answer client phone calls at any hour of the day regardless of what is going on in our lives.

That’s a lot of work and very little time for YOU — and it’s a persistent problem for most Americans.

Compared to 38 other countries, the United States comes in at number 30 for work-life balance, according to Family Living Today.

Of employed adults surveyed, 33 percent say they work on the weekends and holidays, nearly 12 percent say they work 50 or more hours per week, and 57 percent say technology has ruined the modern-day family dinner.

You’d think all of this extra work would mean we’ve got the most productive, accomplished workers in the world, and yet that couldn’t be farther from reality.

In the same survey, 60 percent of employees say because of this poor work-life balance culture, they’ve experienced poor morale at the office, while 36 percent say it has caused poorer productivity and 41 say they have seen higher turnover and burnout within their organizations.

Scary, right?

The obvious solution to rebalancing life and work is to make it a more even playing field. There are countless ways businesses can go about this, including encouraging fun in the workplace, as well as assessing workloads and employee capacity, but one way that employees have been begging from companies is sabbaticals.

Now, before you jump at the idea of allowing your employees to up and leave the company for a few months and think I’m crazy for suggesting this will lead you to higher profits and productivity, let’s look at some statistics:

• 75 percent of employed Americans say they would like to take an extended break
• 53 percent say they’d like the opportunity of an extended break to escape the stress of their work life
• 43 percent say they believe that taking a sabbatical would make them more employable
• 37 percent say they feel a sabbatical would make them more confident at work

Sabbaticals are clearly a highly sought-after perk in the workplace to foster a better work-life balance.

Yet, there’s a disconnect in organizations providing this solution — according to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 13 percent of companies offer an unpaid sabbatical, while only 5 percent of companies offer paid sabbaticals.

So, what gives? What is standing in the way?

Let’s look at the common fears surrounding this offer, and then we’ll tell you reasons to overcome them.

Reduced Productivity: Often, employers wonder how they will cover someone’s responsibilities if they are out of the office for an extended amount of time. If you haven’t built a strong bench and delegated effectively, then productivity will most likely suffer. Which leads right into our next fear…

Cost: A day off with pay is one of the costliest benefits an employer can provide. Not only are you continuing benefits and pay (for companies offering paid sabbaticals), but you may also incur expenses to hire temporary workers and/or deal with the effects of a downturn in productivity.

They Won’t Come Back: Many employers fear that their employees simply won’t return to their jobs if given time and space to evaluate their current situation. This is the most commonly cited reason employers withhold this perk.

Now, let’s look at the flip side – the top 5 reasons why sabbaticals can be a KEY benefit to not only your employees but also your company’s bottom line.

1. Increased Productivity Interestingly enough, our first reason why sabbaticals are a great benefit for companies is actually one of the common fears of not offering the perk we called out above.Instead of focusing on the fear of how you will cover someone’s responsibilities when they are out of the office, think about this: Employees returning from sabbatical are often recharged and re-invigorated. Having a steady stream of personnel coming in with renewed vigor and enthusiasm for their jobs and their company spells increased productivity.
2. Team Development Sabbaticals offer a prime opportunity for employers to develop their bench if they haven’t been doing so already.If you are leading your team effectively, any employee should be able to walk away from their job having the personnel ready and able to assume responsibility.It’s not only an essential key to leadership development, but it also provides the other team members with the valuable experience of learning about the business by filling in the gaps.If leveraged properly, this is on-the-job training at its best and there is no loss of productivity.
3. Fresh Perspective Some companies recognize the value in new perspectives. By cleverly devising policies around inviting new-hires to as many strategic meetings within their first six months on the job as possible, organizations get their ideas and feedback before they become part of the more limited group think. Offering long-time employees sabbatical can reintroduce this much-needed fresh perspective providing a “best of both worlds” scenario where someone intimately familiar with your company can provide ideas typically only gained from highly paid consultants.
4. Retention With the cost of replacing a manager averaging 150 percent of their salary (not to mention time and institutional knowledge lost), turnover can be HUGE to an organization’s bottom line.In the end, it’s a fairly simple equation: The cost of keeping someone happy is a heck of a lot less than replacing them. Given that sabbaticals are so coveted, this is a no-brainer.
   
5. Recruiting Who doesn’t want to work for a company who clearly shows they care about their employees’ happiness?Often, added benefits and perks provide the choice point between a sought-after recruit choosing your company or the competition. Remember that statistic from earlier — 13 percent of companies offer an unpaid sabbatical, while only 5 percent of companies offer paid sabbaticals.Employees will be attracted to your company if you show you are willing to go above and beyond to provide them the perks (like paid sabbaticals) they desire.All in all, providing sabbaticals is a great idea for employers looking to develop, retain, and recruit the best employees while creating a culture rich in energy, appreciation, and productivity.

Is your organization actively fostering happiness amongst its employees? Better yet, does it even matter if employees are happy or not? Spoiler alert — it definitely does.

Gallup reports that between 55 and 80 percent of employees believe it’s normal to see work as something to be endured, not enjoyed, while according to Forbes, happy employees are up to 20 percent more productive than unhappy employees.

Imagine one of your employees jamming out on a guitar, lifting weights at the gym, or reading a textbook.

You may not make an immediate connection between these behaviors and revenue or results, but can these types of activities influence your bottom line? You bet they can, and it all comes down to encouraging personal development.

Imagine your employees coming into work each day feeling more rested, more accomplished, and that their employer truly cares about them. When employees know you care about their growth, they respond. It builds trust, commitment, and a host of other benefits that impact the bottom line.

Let’s break it down. Here are some big benefits your organization stands to gain by supporting employee personal development:

Retention. The average length of time employees spend at an organization is 4.6 years, while millennials stay with companies even less at an average rate of 3.2 years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That kind of turnover gets expensive quickly.

Employees want to be part of an organization that facilitates their growth, and if it doesn’t, they’re likely to leave and take their talents elsewhere. A Better Buys survey found that retention rates are 34 percent higher for employees with access to development opportunities.

Engagement. When people feel their circumstances align with their values (such as growth), they are happier and more engaged because they feel valued and inspired by a sense of meaning. Tom Path, author of “Are You Fully Charged” says “the odds of being completely engaged in your job increases by 250 percent if you work on meaningful projects each day.”

Pursuing interests and goals related to learning, regardless of what they are, is individually nurturing and often builds skills that are translatable to the workplace. That employee jamming out on a guitar from earlier? Think about the stress they will blow off (and not bring to the office) while playing an instrument that they are passionate about, or the discipline and time management skills they’ll take back to the workplace from mastering their instrument.

Culture. Personal development supports a growth mindset and growth-oriented culture, not to mention creativity and innovation. Here are Fierce, we strongly believe you are the culture and it does not exist outside of you — as people develop and grow, your workplace culture will, too.

So, how can you provide development opportunities to your employees?

1. Offer personal development funds

Personal development funds allow employees to spend an allotted amount of money on any type of activity they choose. This could include anything from a music class to a pottery class or even a gym membership.

2. Allow flex time

If an employee is taking on-campuses courses or pursuing an interest that falls inside normal work hours, consider offering flex time. Flex time requires employees to work a set number of hours but during days and times that function with their pursuits outside of work. Accountability is needed here —give trust and hold your employees “able.”

3. Offer tuition reimbursement

Tuition reimbursement is an exciting incentive for employees who are interested in ongoing formal education. Higher education, especially in the United States, can be an astronomical out of pocket expense. Tuition reimbursement offers incentive for employees to bring new knowledge and skills to the workplace when they know they will be at least partially reimbursed for their investment of time and money.

4. Provide learning opportunities

Offer opportunities to educate employees on the latest advancements in training, technology, and industry. In addition to offering leadership development and training, stay up-to-date on unique opportunities such as local learning events and online courses. Offer to cover entry or sign-up fees if possible.

5. Offer participant-driven learning

Support autonomy and personal development by giving employees choices when it comes to what they’re learning and how they’re learning. Take different learning styles into consideration and provide options that allow employees to work at their own pace and in whatever manner will help them retain the information they learn.

6. Ask!

Have a conversation with employees individually. Ask them how they want to develop and what would help them feel more supported and satisfied. There’s no better way to provide personal development opportunities that will make a real impact at your organization than by asking employees directly what would make them happier workers.

It’s incredibly important to let your employees know that you not only support their personal growth, but you follow through by offering real opportunities.

Have you ever caught yourself asserting, “that wasn’t my intention” during an innocent-now-turned intense conversation that took you completely off guard?

Intention can be a tricky concept, especially when it comes to characterizing and promoting values in the workplace. So, you can imagine how difficult it can be for organizations to create values for their employees to exemplify in order to create a happy, healthy inclusive culture at the office. The intention may be good, but if there are no defined expectations for behaviors to encourage these values, they are utterly pointless.

Take “respect” as a value example: Many of our clients share this value. However, to one employee, respect might mean telling someone the absolute hard facts that come to mind for a particular strategy, also known as tell them how it is — be a straight shooter — it is to their benefit. On the flip side, to another employee, respect might mean allowing someone the space and ability to figure out the solution for themselves: don’t be overbearing — be a supporter, coach more — it is to their benefit.

The kicker here is both interpretations can be considered “right.” The real question companies should be asking themselves is, what does your culture expect? There is a need to define how your employees behave in everyday situations if they are to demonstrate the company’s most critical values.

It sounds so simple, yet it is often overlooked, and it is incredibly important to answer this question if you want an intentional, cohesive culture.

Let’s dig into four critical pieces that are needed to align behaviors with values and create better intention:

Survey Your Employees

The first step is to specifically ask how employees demonstrate your company’s values.

Whether you insert questions into a current employee engagement survey or create a new survey for this purpose, it’s very important to take the pulse on the current definitions and actions in your organization to get a direct peek into employees’ thoughts and views. For instance, with our Fierce value of “innovating with intention,” we would ask: How do you as an employee innovate with intention? What specific behaviors are shown?

After collecting responses, do an analysis to see whether the behaviors demonstrated are truly serving the organization’s goals and objectives. These survey results can be shared with the executive team and other champions in the organization.

While this may feel like a very “soft” exercise, it’s important to establish a “behavior baseline” and genuinely assess what training and engagement are needed. The leadership engagement is critical in ensuring that everyone has the same expectations for how people should act, or else you are back to square one again.

Train the Specific Skills

Effective, compelling training creates complete clarity around how one should behave or act in a situation. To tie behaviors to values, the training should have a “common language” component where everyone in the organization can use the same basic skill sets and frameworks, regardless of levels. If the values need to be exhibited throughout every level of the organization, the behaviors trained need to be as well.

Whether you hire a vendor who specializes in training or you build training from within, there are two common pitfalls to avoid: too much theory and not enough connecting with people’s emotions. Rather than passive learning, participants need engaging experiential learning in order for training to be fully effective.

The main goal is to remove the mystery of how values look and show up within your organization. I strongly suggest steering clear of highly theorized content that is not immediately actionable. Realize that training is an opportunity to make your values come to life in a manner that is accessible for everyone and improves every employee’s ability to do their job and connect to their company culture.

Furthermore, it’s paramount to connect with people’s emotions. It is one of the only ways that real behavior change happens. In Harvard Business Review’s How Company Culture Shapes Employee Motivation, after surveying 20,000 workers around the world and conducting experiments, they found that why people work determines how well they work. Training MUST connect to people’s why that drives them to come into work each day.

Build Feedback Capacity

The skills to give, receive, and ask for feedback are some of the most sought-after leadership skills in today’s business world. These skills are tied to new performance management, employee engagement, manager effectiveness, and the list goes on and on and on. For your values to continually align and stay on course, employees at every level must be able to share feedback.

Feedback keeps us headed in the right direction — for our careers and for our companies. Whether we are driving or flying, we rarely get to a destination in a completely straight line. We need to go through continuous course corrections to arrive at our destination.

Ensure that your managers and leaders have the skill to use feedback as a critical tool, so they can share when fellow employees and the organization are swaying. As an organization, do not make this exercise a one-time endeavor — continually take a pulse to learn and stay in tune with any shifts that may be happening in your culture.

Be Present

I was recently talking with a retail executive, and she shared with me that her team stepped away from their phones and computers for a whole strategy session. Everyone noted that they were present with one another in a new way.

One of the comments was, “I actually felt like I was paying attention to what I needed to, instead of the 10 distractions that come up every hour.”

On an individual level, it’s critical to be awake and aware of what’s taking place within your organization. Be present by being attentive. How are employees feeling? What is the current emotional climate? Are there opportunities to act out values that are being overlooked?

I’m sure you can relate to the feeling of distractions pulling you away from being present during meetings and throughout your day. Every day, whether we want to admit it or not, we pay a price for not being awake to this. Our actions and inactions have impact on our culture, plain and simple.

We have too much at stake to be in multiple places at once. Don’t look at Facebook and don’t check your emails during a call. Don’t text someone else when someone is talking to you. These actions may seem trivial, yet they are signals that reveal we may not be living our intention and carrying out our values in each moment. We’re all guilty of doing these things from time to time, but the more we notice it and adjust our actions, the more we can reduce the impact.

While building an intentional culture may feel like an ethereal task, these steps can bring the company culture you desire to life. It takes hard work and perseverance, but it is absolutely worth it!