[Editor's Note: Dawn Lennon is one of EmployWise.com's expert authors. She is the author of the book Business Fitness: The Power to Succeed—Your Way and the Business Fitness blog. She spent over 20 years in senior manager positions in consumer programs, HR, customer service, and change management at a Fortune 500 energy company. She is currently president of her career and small business coaching/consulting practice, Big Picture Consulting. You can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Dawn has a Master’s degree from Lehigh University.]

Hiring employees is easier than keeping them engaged in their work. When employees don’t feel the company cares about them or its products/service make a difference, their performance starts to sink and many start to leave.

No business benefits from that pattern over time.

Guy Kawasaki, the famed marketing guru and former chief evangelist of Apple, just released his tenth book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.

He writes: “This book is for people who see life for what it can be rather than what it can’t. They are bringing to market a cause—that is, a product, service, organization, or idea—that can make the world a better place. They realize that in a world of mass media, social media, and advertising media, it takes more than instant, shallow, and temporary relationships to get the job done.”

Today, this likely describes most small business owners, partners, and hopefully their leadership. In most cases, it also describes your employees.

Taking the leap to enchantment

The term “enchantment” isn’t one we are accustomed to applying in business settings, until now at least. It sounds mystical, amorphous, and frankly not concrete enough for most leaders.

It does, though, take us to a new place that reflects the value of employees who are fully engaged in their work and what it means to them. It’s not enough anymore, Kawasaki reminds us, just to wave salary and benefits at employees, even when economic times are difficult. We have to provide work and a workplace that enables them to make a difference.

In his book, Kawasaki describes lots of things management can do to begin enchanting their employees. Here are two:

“Don’t Ask Employees to Do What You Wouldn’t Do…The point isn’t that you should make every task fun—that’s unrealistic. The point isn’t even that you should do the grimy jobs. The point is that when you empathize with employees and work right alongside them, that’s enchanting.”

“Celebrate Success…One win can overcome a hundred losses, so celebrating success is a powerful way to enchant employees.”

Kawasaki goes on to quote a list of positive effects from celebrating success found in Brenda Bence’s downloadable PDF, “Celebrate Team’s Success and Boost Business:”

• “It motivates your employees to work harder.
• It unifies the team around common goals.
• It uplifts employee’s mind-sets from ongoing tasks to a celebration.
• It communicates the kind of goals the organization values.
• It builds momentum by illustrating that progress is happening.
• It reminds them that they work for a winning organization.”

This stuff isn’t magic. It’s not even difficult. We just need to do it. Your employees are the brains, energy, and hands that you need to build and sustain a profitable business. They don’t need much to get enchanted, but they need something from you routinely.

It can just be an information update, an informal conversation about how their work is going, an opportunity to ask you a question, and a receptive outlet for sharing their ideas.

Your employees want to be heard and validated. They want you to paint a picture of how things are going and the value they are contributing.

It’s time to make the right changes to enchant the hearts, minds, and actions that are the pulse of your business. Guy Kawasaki’s book will help you build the climate you need and the success that will go with it.

You can check out the Enchantment book at Amazon here.

Photo by: Evershed LLP