How to Get Employee Buy-In to Productivity StandardsJust after we announced our new relationship with Zenger Folkman a reader sent me an e-mail inquiry that directly hit an issue Zenger Folkman has researched:

“Do you have any suggestions on how to promote and get buy in from employees regarding productivity standards? Any suggestions or resources you could give would be appreciated.”

Getting employee buy-in to productivity standards is a core leadership skill around building employee commitment. Joe Folkman has written an excellent white paper on Top 9 Leadership Behaviors that Drive Employee Commitment full of practical tips dealing directly with this vital leadership issue.

Joe’s paper draws from Zenger Folkman’s extensive research database on leadership competencies separating extraordinary, ordinary, and ineffective leaders:

Zenger Folkman Research Series
Given our exciting new relationship with Zenger Folkman (A New Era Begins: Our Strategic Partnership with Zenger Folkman) many of my upcoming blog posts will draw from their extensive leadership development research.

“By collecting the combined dataset of these leadership behaviors and the levels of employee satisfaction/commitment, it became possible to isolate the top leadership behaviors that were most influential in creating a satisfied employee who is highly committed. By identifying a few critical dimensions, leaders can more easily focus on the actions that will have the greatest impact on business results.

After examining the myriad of factors that influence employee satisfaction and commitment, one has consistently been shown to provide the most impact: the leadership effectiveness of employees’ immediate manager … the best leaders have employees at the 75th percentile of satisfaction/commitment while the worst leaders have employees at the 26th percentile.”

You can read Joe’s practical white paper here. It addresses this question and will help you to read, lead, and succeed!