Motivating and getting your staff to be as good as, or better than you, is an ongoing challenge. And, although I am not the perfect boss, I have certainly learned some truths over the past 15 years with both my own employees and through consulting on the inner workings of high producing financial services firms. In financial services, the employees often deal directly with clients and prospective clients. Their interactions are critical to the success of the organization. Here are 2 myths and one absolute for creating a better more aligned staff:

Pay them at or above industry standard and they will be great employees: MYTH

Empower them to make decisions and they will be focused on proactively serving as if it were their own company: MYTH

These two above will always be myths and will NEVER work unless they… BELIEVE in you and the firm: ABSOLUTE

Employees that are charged with interacting with prospects or clients need to believe in the mission and direction of the firm and, moreover, they really need to like the people they are working for. If they don’t, it is physically impossible to give what others who do believe will be able to give and accomplish.

However, simply sharing the mission and having employees memorize it doesn’t get them to believe it. One firm I worked with thought the solution was to have their 20 employees chant the mission every Monday morning (they were trying to emulate Walmart). The actual impact of this ritual resulted in the staff rejecting the mission and calling in sick on Monday’s.

So, how do you get your employees to “believe” in what you are doing? Here are 3 fairly simple strategies that I’ve seen work at productive, well-aligned firms:

1.    Hold a weekly staff meeting or weekly one-on-one meeting with key employees to communicate tasks, find ways to work better, and get to know each other’s work habits. Communicate what’s happening at the firm.

2.    Always share the “why” that you are doing something or are asking them to do something. It may take a few extra minutes, but it will give meaning to the work that your staff is doing.

3.    Listen to your staff and act on some of their suggestions. This is an obvious sign of respect.

Conversely, if there is an employee that does not meet your expectations after repeated efforts to have them align with the mission of the firm  – you must move on. Waiting only prolongs the inevitable, and there are many good people out there looking for jobs today. Don’t sacrifice your client service because of mediocre employees that you have control over replacing.

Ultimately, you can’t get your staff to work hard if they don’t want to. You can’t empower your staff to make decisions if they don’t like working for you. And they won’t do much if they don’t see something in it for them. That something may not be money – but fulfillment in the work they spend their lives doing – for you.