Employee Management - Instill (and sustain) a culture of excellence

HomePrograms & Solutionsback to HomeOnline Programsback to Programs & SolutionsLeadershipback to Online ProgramsChanging Employee Behaviorback to Leadership

4 quick ways you can instill (and sustain) a culture of excellence in your workplace

Hiring is not the only way to change the culture of a team or workplace. Employee management, including deploying the right behavioral strategies, can bring rapid and lasting success.

The most effective employee behavior management techniques are informed by a deep understanding of employee motivation and psychology. They have effects beyond the level of an individual. Make the right choices with strategic employee management and you will impact the culture and performance of your team, department, or entire workplace.

A few agile, powerful techniques will get you started creating a culture of excellence. You can do this with just a few minutes’ daily practice.

Learn to operate all 4 levers from the MAPS model

Really understanding the MAPS model – motivation, abilities, psychological capital and social environment – will help you develop guidelines for better employee management.

If your leadership style is naturally visionary, you must recognize your own boundary between productive and destructive narcissism. It is all part of creating the right social environment for your employee behavior management strategy.

There is more to employee motivation than “extrinsic” motivators like salary and benefits. Assessing employees as individuals builds a picture of each one’s intrinsic motivations too.

Understand key influences on intrinsic motivation

An intrinsic need for autonomy, mastery and connection combines to differing degrees in everyone. Increase autonomy by involving team members in goal setting, brainstorming ideas together, and giving them agency to select the right time to embark on change. Feelings of mastery are nurtured through praise and maintaining a focus on an employee’s strengths, rather than their weaknesses.

Connection is enhanced by being involved, rather than simply instructed. Numerous psychological studies confirm giving people choice in all kinds of contexts improves outcomes.

In your change management process, allow employees to exercise some degree of choice over the way forward. It may be as simple as asking them the question directly – offering a genuine choice and then listening to the answer.

Support your employees’ psychological capital

Building up employees’ inner resources will enable them to adapt to your change management process – and to sustain change in the long run.

Their psychological capital can be strengthened by fostering a workplace culture of self-confidence, optimism, willpower, and resilience. In your role as leader, using basic interpersonal traits like respect, patience, and politeness will have a measurable impact on whether any directive sticks in the longer term.

Understanding choice architecture – including whom you should nudge, and when – embeds a culture of self-development. When performance is framed positively, even setbacks become opportunities to rebound and change management is easier.

A supportive environment does much of the heavy lifting for you when it comes to employee management.

Enroll in an online course

Online programs like IMD’s Changing Employee Behavior are uniquely equipped to help you with culture-focused employee performance management and career development in general.

You can take an online course from anywhere. Coaching with a global perspective comes directly to you from experts in employee motivation, change management, and more. At IMD, the Changing Employee Behavior Course is delivered by the authors of the benchmark book on this increasingly important topic.

[FORM IS MISSING]