Well, it’s been a very busy month here at SRA, with the launch of the latest four Authority Guides at Waterstones, High Street Kensington and their exciting decision to not only stock the books in their business section but to give them their own display table. The Authority Guides have arrived!
To celebrate the new arrivals we have a very special Easter offer for you. As a member of The Authority Club you are always entitled to a 10% discount on all the Guides but for the next week from today you can get 25% off – and free postage of course. See below for the coupon code and link to the online store.
If you were able to come and join us at the launch you will know that one of the new books, The Authority Guide to Engaging Your People, is by Dr Sue Mitchell, and my interview with her is the feature of this month’s Authority. Sue is a true expert and has many interesting things to say about how we can build much better businesses and happier workplaces simply by thinking more about the way we engage with those we work with.
I hope you enjoy the chat that we had as much as we did!
Wishing you all a very Happy Easter!
Sue Richardson
Editor of The Authority
Sue Mitchell’s Top Tips for Engaging Your People…
Whatever kind of business or organisation you have, no matter what industry, sector, or products or services you deliver, it depends on people in order to excel. Yet one of the biggest challenges reported by managers and leaders is around how they can lead their team, especially when they are being asked to do more with less.
The best way to do this is to engage your people by creating a healthy workplace where people love their work and are inspired and proud to work in your organisation. Organisations with high engagement have up to four times higher profitability than those with low engagement, and higher performance, productivity, customer satisfaction, staff satisfaction and staff retention. Organisations with high engagement thrive sustainably for the long term.
Here are four top tips for you to engage your people and improve how your team works together.
- Share a compelling vision and mission, which inspires and makes work meaningful and purposeful.
- Create a healthy environment and make it easier for them to do their work.
- Create a positive workplace culture. Many organisations believe there is no place for emotion at work but the best organisations realise it is essential to evoke positive emotion to grow engagement and wellbeing for a sustainable high performance.
- Engage yourself and develop your own leadership ability which is often closely entwined with your personal development.
Get practical tools and tips on how to do this from my book The Authority Guide to Engaging your People, and register on the associated web page www.engagingyourpeople.com to access additional resources.
This month we’d like to Fiona Hudson-Kelly, author of Survival of the Smartest (SRA Books, 2016) and founder of Smart Assessor for her recommendations.
I made everyone at Smart Assessor read Purple Cow by Seth Godin (Penguin, 2005) before we launched and it completely changed the way we went about building and marketing our product. More recently my focus has been on scaling up the business, which is a particular challenge. Creating a sense of urgency is my greatest challenge because people get comfortable when you are doing ok, so the two books that have helped me most are A Sense of Urgency, by John Kotter (Harvard Business Press, 2008) and Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber (St Martin’s Press, 2006). One of the most inspiring books I have read recently, away from my work and MBA studies, is Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl (Rider, 2004). This is an amazing book because it helps you define and make sense of your purpose in life – deciding on what is the big thing you are meant to do. Fiona Hudson-Kelly
£9.99
The Authority Guide to Engaging Your People