The ROTA principle
You need to be different from the pack!
Do something that nine out of ten of your competitors don't.
Put your people first.
When you put your people first, they will deliver great value to customers and shareholders, and to their community. You'll have a prosperous, responsible and ethical company.
What does putting people first actually mean?
Using the ROTA principle in all work relationships.
ROTA means meeting people's needs for:
Lack of respect for a person signals you are unimportant. In a high-performance workplace everyone needs to be and feel important. Successful companies know this. McDonald's has a policy of treating everyone with the greatest respect. Unipart's company motto is ‘Expect Respect’. Google treats people as though they were the only asset. Managers everywhere can show respect in a myriad of small ways to people they supervise:
- Always saying ‘good morning’
- Giving them your full attention
- Listening carefully to what they say
- Never telling them off in public
- Giving honest feedback
- Always fulfilling promises
Vineet Nayar¹ puts it very well: ‘openness ensures that every stakeholder knows the company's vision and understands exactly how his of her contribution can assist the organisation in meeting its goals’. It also demonstrates management's trust in the people and can foster healthy internal competition.
1 ‘Employees First’ 2010, Harvard Business Press
Nothing gets in the way of human relationships more than lack of trust. According to David Maister² there are four different sorts of trust, all of which it is important to develop.
- Credibility (words): I can trust what he/she tells me...
- Reliability (actions): I can trust him/her to do...
- Intimacy (emotions): I feel comfortable discussing this with him/her...
- Self-orientation (motives): I can trust him/her to care about my interests...
2 ‘The Trusted Advisor’ 2002, Free Press
Self-determination is an innate psychological need of all people and is the essence of intrinsic motivation. It is a combination of competence and autonomy. However much training an individual receives, he/she will not be able to make a full contribution to a high-performance workplace if autonomy is lacking. The opposite of autonomy, micro-management, also signals lack of trust.
Respect, openness, trust and autonomy are the four pillars that support a high-performance workplace. These four pillars should inform all your interactions with people in your company, and the interactions between all your people up, down and across the hierarchy.
We can help you implement this: for a free initial consultation, click here.
ROTA-UK