Help Your Team Members Understand the “Why” Behind the “What”

So you’ve got extremely talented people on your team. You’re confident in their skills and experience and you have them aligned with appropriate tasks where they should really excel.

But your results aren’t matching your expectations. What now?

When this happens, there is sometimes a disconnect between your level of passion and engagement and that of your team’s. Your productivity and effectiveness don’t match theirs.

As a leader, a big part of your job is helping your team understand the “why” behind the “what.”

You are responsible for helping them understand why what they are doing is so important and meaningful to the company and the contribution it will make. And you also help them understand what it is your team needs to specifically do to contribute.

If you can clearly communicate the link between what your team does to what the company needs, you’ll give them a greater sense of purpose and meaning, showing them that what they do really matters.

Many well-intended leaders make the mistake of “telling” the team how things need to be done. When this happens, you lose a great opportunity to engage your team. This is called “no involvement, no commitment.”

By including your team in determining how to go about accomplishing the goal, you dramatically increase their level of engagement.

Resist being a micromanager; trust your team to come up with ideas. Allow them to flex their creativity.

Will there be some missteps and failures? Most likely. Will you have some missteps and failures as a manager? Of course. But that's how you all learn together and raise everyone’s level of engagement.

Get your team involved and you’ll see the commitment and investment you need to achieve better and better results. Productivity and effectiveness on your team will soar, and your results will match your expectations.


In a perfect world, your team would magically show up to work fully committed to their goals—one of the keys to accomplishing anything as a team. But, since that's not an option in the real world, download our guide to get your team on board and moving in the right direction.

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