To run any successful business there are a number of ingredients that you need in order to create a successful working environment.  Ideally, you want your organisation to be both great for people whilst ensuring optimum productivity.

In this post, we outline the three ingredients that we think will make your business a place where people want to work and want to stay.

Purpose, Autonomy and Mastery

Purpose

An important part of running a successful business is to create a sense of purpose for everyone.

In a YouGov survey, it was found that 84% of those who worked in an organisation that had a shared sense of purpose were more likely to feel engaged.

The point of shared purpose is for everyone in the business to work towards a common goal. It’s important, for this reason, to attract and recruit people who are aligned with that purpose and passionately want to support and deliver it.

A great example of a clear, well-communicated purpose is Google. Their mission statement reads “To organise the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”.

Your business purpose is something that everyone in the business, from Directors to your contractors, can strive to work towards. Helping them to understand the big picture and the key part they play in it. Without a clear purpose, it is like handing someone a piece of the jigsaw without the jigsaw lid.

Autonomy  

In the words of Daniel Pink, a popular business author: ‘Control leads to compliance; autonomy leads to engagement’. These are words that should resonate in the head of every business manager or director.

Autonomy creates a sense of freedom among employees whilst sticking to the brand’s outlines and guidelines. Giving employees freedom over creative and business decisions engages them and allows them to care about the business and achieving its objectives.

There is neuro-scientific research that suggests employees become far less effective when they are managed from the top down. Management of projects is still key. But allowing a creative flair to shine through from employees is the key to creating and orchestrating a profitable business plan.

Mastery

Mastery in itself is a very general word and could mean mastery in numerous different senses of the word. However, when it comes to running a successful business, mastery of personal skills and business skills is essential.

Allow your people to understand themselves. Offering personal learning and development time is a great way to ensure that everyone is constantly building their own knowledge and broadening their skill set. Know yourself first before you can truly understand others.

Encouraging your people to become masters personally and professionally will allow them to become more successful, sometimes without realising it. Letting your employees work to their strengths, skills and talents is a sure-fire way to increase success and efficiency within the business.

Overall, the features of P.A.M mean investing in your people on a personal and professional level. Allowing them to work together as a team to achieve something they are all focused on. Providing them with opportunities to build on their own skill set to achieve mastery.

It takes dedication and delegation from a business manager’s point of view. However, ultimately, introducing these things into a business will generate increased and sustained success.

PJW’s training courses cover a range of topics to help your business succeed, from performance management to conflict resolution.