Teach Your Business to Employees — A Growth Hack Business Strategy

“Just focus on doing this work — Remove the burrs, put the bolt on the screw. Don’t think about anything else. Remember, the company expects you to just do the job assigned to you” My manager told me when I asked him about the product’s applications. It was a long time ago.

Photograph: Ben Leuner/AMC/AMC via theguardian.com

Jack Stack, CEO, SRC, says, “Several companies set up the job and call it a job. What you end up with are workers who think a job is just a job. Over a period, most of them become unhappy with their jobs and unhappy with themselves. This is the reason why we have productivity problems.”

PURPOSE — Jack adds, “As a leader, I don’t want people to just do a job. I want them to have a purpose in what the hell they’re doing. I want them to be going somewhere. I want them to be excited about getting up in the morning, to look forward to what they’re going to do that day. To do that, you have to get people to dream. You have to show them that there really are pots at the end of the rainbow, and you can get your pot if you want it and are willing to work for it. Business is a tool for achieving their highest dreams. Obviously, there is some dreams business can’t help with. But it can help most people to achieve some success in life. It can give people hope.”

So, what’s the solution?

Show Them The Bigger PIcture — To help people have a purpose, every employee should know how his/her actions influence the business outcomes, how it affects another person’s progress, how it touches various departments, and so on.

Jack Stack claims, “In our organization, we teach everyone about our business. We train them. We try to take ignorance out of the workplace and force people to get involved, not with threats and intimidation but with education.”

Studies show that employee engagement and productivity tend to increase when employees understand how their role fits into the bigger picture.

Let’s imagine possible benefits from teaching every employee about the business —

• Understanding business strategy helps an employee know the reasons behind the company’s every request to him/her. His/her involvement in the work would grow.
• Understanding the core values of the business helps a person in making the right decisions.
• Knowledge of core competencies of the business drives an employee to focus on the right and relevant activities. It will strengthen the business’s core competency, widening the distance from the next competitor.
• Employees can reject activities that don’t align with strategic goals. In that way, they are helping the company save time and avoid loss of revenue.
• An employee will change the way he/she works when he learns the competitive realities of the market and the low margins the company is fighting for survival.
• When every employee understands the market competition, the customer requirements, and how their product fits in, he/she will become a brand evangelist. His/her behavior can impart the positive value of the brand in the consumer’s mind. Businesses attain rapid growth when employees of the company act as brand ambassadors. It helps in building loyal customers.
• If every employee is knowledgeable, he/she can react quickly to the changes in the market. In some cases, they can predict the changes and alter the course. It means that the whole organization becomes flexible in meeting customers’ changing needs.
• With knowledge, employees' ideas of how to improve the business become much more meaningful and relevant.
• When the employee sees his contribution, he will soon think and act like an owner. Owners, real owners, always go above and beyond their work. They will think about every problem from multiple perspectives and look for a long-term solution. They’ll always have one eye in the future.
• Teaching employees to understand the big picture takes ignorance out of the workplace. It entices people to get involved. The knowledge gap between workers and managers vanishes.
• An employee with business knowledge knows that it’s not only about how he or his department fits into the big picture but also about how others influence the whole business. It will force him to think from the shoes of others. Later, he will look for opportunities to help others. It leads to the overall success of the company. Sharing the big picture of business allows everyone to get together and work toward the same goals, building a coherent business.

The broader the picture you give people, the fewer obstacles they see in their path.People need big goals. If they have big goals, they blow right by the little obstacles. But those obstacles will become mountains if you don’t get people beyond the day-to-day issues — Jack Stack.

So, as a leader, for motivating your employees, teach them all about your business, be transparent, show them the big picture, and reveal how they contribute. Moreover, markets keep changing — customers keep changing — technology keeps changing — customer’s needs keep changing — So, to constantly meet those changes, the employees have to keep learning all the time. As a leader, create an environment in which people learn all the time.

Jack Stack says, “If people don’t know about the business, they won’t understand their contribution, and they won’t do the right things, and they will blame you when the company fails.”