The Busy Leader's Handbook

22Know What the What Is for Others (and Communicate Your Own What)

What’s your what? Knowing the answer to this question, and making sure others know it, is the key to creating great relationships. Everyone—whether they’re a leader, coworker, employee, or customer—has their own “what.” Learning what a person’s what is takes time and effort but the results are worth it. This is true in all relationships, personal and professional, and the sooner you realize this the better off everyone will be.

First things first: what do we mean when we talk about the what in a workplace context? Basically, a person’s what is what really matters to them; what motivates or drives them.

Take an employee, for example. When you know your employee’s what, you have a much better chance of understanding their behavior and maximizing their performance. Every employee has one thing (or maybe a few things) that mean more to them than anything else. Knowing what these things are will help you know how to connect with and influence them. Acknowledging and paying attention to these preferences let them know you care.

Knowing each employee’s what can also help companies retain their top talent. The what might be how, where, and when an employee prefers to work. It might be how they want to be recognized, what kind of training and development they want, how they like to communicate, how they want to receive feedback, what they are passionate about, and what it takes to get them engaged. It might be their ...