Life beyond January 1

Every year, business leaders kick off January with a series of events including celebrations, recognising and rewarding employees, new goal setting, strategy formulation and alignment, motivational programs and plans to accomplish goals in the coming months.

Communication can be the first step to making real, meaningful changes - changes for improvement. And then managing the mindset of the employees throughout the year. Every single day is critical, hence maintaining a high energy level is crucial to business success.

Competition

Whether we like it or not, the new year will be more tough than 2012 in many aspects. Despite the looming world economic downturn, even if the local macro environment improves expanding our markets, each business will have more competition. You know how competition has intensified over the past two years with permanent peace dawning. Even if none of these works as barriers, meeting your stakeholders mounting expectations will pose incremental challenges.

If you raise your own expectations on top of the demanded expectations by others you will challenge yourself to get the best out of you for an improved bottom-line. So it is not doing the same we did this year but doing it differently for the same result. If we want more - we have to change at a higher degree.

Expectations

Clearly explain to each employee what is expected of him or her during the year. Remind them of why he or she has been given that specific role. Raise the level of expectation aligning with the challenge and goals. If your employees see you expect more out of them within realistic boundaries, they'll be encouraged to be committed.

On the other hand, if your employees know that the management doesn't think that they can perform at a high level, they won't be motivated to do any more than the least amount of work necessary to get their pay.

Set specific communication times and time lines. To run a successful business, the employer and employee must be on the same page, working towards a common goal. It's necessary to have open lines of communication.

Deciding how often to meet and review -- whether on a weekly or monthly basis - will streamline issues and questions and ensure that important items are addressed and timely decisions are taken.

Keep the spirits high

Motivation is the key to tap into the inner power of people. Motivation is two-fold - internal and external. Internal is self and external is by others. What is more fruitful and sustainable is one's own personal motivational forces. Creating an organisational environment within which employees can gain job satisfaction is the only way for inner motivation of employees.

For the employer this means optimum realisable quality results through people. Self-motivation is more long lasting and effective - it's a win-win for both the employee and employer.

Inspire self-motivated staff by trusting them to work on their own initiatives rather than leader-imposed initiatives. It's a mind game - and it all depends on how you manage the mindset of the employees as a leader.