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Money Matters: The power of believing in your team

By Peter Ord - Special to the Daily Herald | Dec 24, 2022

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When I first began my startup in 2017, I was working a stable job making good money and doing some incredible things with the company. I knew, however, there was more I needed to do: a drive to improve something in the industry, a recognition that I had something amazing I could deliver.

That determination led me to leave the safe environment of the job I had then, and to strike out on my own by starting my own business. Not everyone believed in me or my vision at the time, and many people tried to discourage me from taking the risk. Thankfully, I had learned to believe in myself because I constantly surrounded myself with others who believed in me. Recognizing that with their support I could do something amazing, I made the leap and started my business.

You cannot underestimate the power of someone who believes in you. It might be the coach who saw your potential on the field and put you on the starting line. It might be a teacher that pushed you to apply for your dream college. Or it might be a mentor who encouraged you to start your own business. We have all experienced the incredible motivation that comes when someone believes in us. I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have people that believed in me when I was first starting out, and I also wouldn’t have been able to achieve five incredible years of success if I didn’t believe that my employees are the best-qualified, most dedicated and most innovative individuals for the job.

Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be enough of us believers in the workplace. Two out of three workers say that they do not feel engaged in their work. This often comes down to employers not believing in their employees, and that can negatively affect the entire company culture. Just like students behave differently when teachers believe in them, employees behave differently when employers believe in them. These behavior changes, in turn, drive better outcomes — for the employees’ well-being, for the organization and for customers.

Let’s explore three transformative ways believing in your team can create a happier culture in your organization and lead to your employees enjoying their work more, your team becoming more successful and your hires consistently providing positive customer experiences for those you serve. 

Your team enjoys work more

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Peter Ord

We spend most of our waking hours on the job, so it’s essential that we get some joy out of work. Leaders who believe in their employees can help build up these feelings of job satisfaction. When a leader believes in their team, the team becomes more likely to have a positive, can-do attitude about work. One recent study found that happy employees are 13% more productive on average.

Moreover, when work gets tough, employees who enjoy their jobs are much more likely to work harder and longer to get the job done. They’re also more likely to find creative solutions to problems and maintain a positive attitude through it all.

Your team is more likely to succeed

People rise to the occasion when others believe in them. It’s a fact that’s been confirmed by science. Here’s how one study was done: A group of students was told by their teacher that they were “bloomers” based on an intelligence test; these students subsequently outperformed the rest of their class on standardized testing. The twist? The “bloomers” never actually scored higher on the original intelligence test. The only difference is that the “bloomers” were told that their teacher believed in them.

On an intuitive level, we see the power of belief play out every day: Whether it’s a sports team winning a championship, a nonprofit hitting a fundraising goal or an underperforming employee rising to the occasion, people succeed when others believe in them.

In business, the same phenomenon plays out: Leaders who believe their employees are exceptional tend to get exceptional results. By contrast, leaders who believe their employees are average tend to get average results.

Your team is more likely to provide a positive customer experience

All teams provide a form of customer service as part of their jobs, either directly to customers or to their colleagues. Sometimes this customer experience is good, sometimes it’s bad and sometimes it’s awful. 

I believe that a positive customer experience starts with employers who believe in their employees. During the pandemic, 52% of employees said that COVID-19-related disruptions made them question the purpose of their day-to-day job. In times of crisis, it is the responsibility of leadership to steer the ship in a positive and confident way, believing in each individual employee’s skills and communicating that belief to every member of the team.

When employees know that someone believes in them, they instinctively search for and find the higher-level purpose and value behind their work. In other words, they understand how the experience they provide customers every day makes a tangible difference for other human beings. Consequently, they’re much more likely to care about the quality of the experience. Instead of just going through the motions, employees who have the backing of those who believe in them consistently deliver an incredible customer experience because they understand they matter and, in turn, their customers matter.

The best way to show teams that you believe in them is to show them through your actions. Celebrate their wins, recognize and reward their performance and share their success stories with others. This is the winning formula to help your team get more enjoyment from their jobs, be better set up to succeed and provide consistently top-notch customer experiences to your clients. 

Creating this culture of confidence begins at the top. Make it your mission to ensure each member of your team knows how much you believe in them. When someone believes in you, anything is possible!

Peter Ord is the founder of GUIDEcx, a client implementation and onboarding project platform based in Lehi.

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