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Ben Lumley is a Motivational Speaker and Trainer from the UK who writes about personal development at 6aliens.com. Why not connect with him on Twitter @6aliens or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to his RSS Feed?

There was a time when workers just went to work to work. When the driven and devoted were promoted into higher positions of responsibility and no one cared about the effectiveness of the team as a whole.

Those times are changing though. Businesses, whether large or small, are starting to recognise the importance of empowering their staff in order to bring about better results. In today’s target driven world, the results that your business gets can make or break you and the future you have planned.

50 years ago there was less competition. When you needed to increase your results you simply added more people to a shift to increase the number of units. When a worker wasn’t producing the results needed, you dragged them in to the office, told them to work harder or find another way of paying the bills.

The development of the person and the team is so important in business today that those companies (there are still a lot around), which don’t empower their staff will eventually start to see cracks appearing.

Control

There is an ethos in teams that in order to get ahead, you need to have one person controlling the ship and issuing the orders. Many leaders feel that simply delegating a task is the essence of control. “I’ve told you to do this – you need to do it.” This is a false control however.

By empowering your team to take control you can produce results that go off the chart. Tim Ferriss, gives 99% control to all of the distributors that ship his energy product (the single thing that allows him to go off experiencing the world). This giving of control to others greatly improves the results he gets. The players in his team are allowed to make decisions for themselves based on conditions that he has set in place, which subsequently increases their productivity and feeling of wellbeing and in turn increase the number of units he sells and ships.

Focus

When a member of the team doesn’t feel that they are developing within the business human nature will take over and they’ll find it somewhere else. If a business isn’t positively encouraging their staff to grow and develop; their focus will shift into other areas of life when growth can occur.

Some people within the business may find this development elsewhere like in a new job, while others will simply find something else to distract them. If a business is developing their staff consistently, then individuals will feel fulfilled and subsequently more focussed at work.

Every job I’ve ever left, I’ve left because I felt I’d run out of options and opportunities, so I went off to find them somewhere. If you’re not empowering your team to grow and develop within the business, you can bet they will also do the same. Money just isn’t a big enough reason to stay in a job anymore.

Productivity

If you give a person the opportunity to learn a new skill of their choosing, anywhere in life, you can bet they’ll want to instantly put it in to practice. If those opportunities come in the work place, team members become more motivated to produce results.

People who are motivated to improve will find ways to be more productive because they will want to do more of what they love and find better ways to do it. If in business you’re not providing the opportunities for this, then it’s no wonder your staff become demotivated and unproductive.

You need to provide these opportunities that will motivate your team and will increase their desire to become more productive.

Are you allowing your team to grow and develop?

Are you focussing on the person who works for you or the results you getting?

If not, why not?