Linda Richardson, author of Sales Coaching: Making the Leap from Sales Manager to Sales Coach, wrote an interesting perspective on zones that proves relevance to employees across an enterprise….The value in understanding the cultural zone of your employees yields increased employee retention which directly correlates to a more profitable company. Let’s dig deeper.
4 Cultural Zones
- Dead Zone – Employees are not actively interested in improving, lack interest in the future, and are disengaged
- Comfort Zone – Employees want to be effective, reproduce the success of the past, and tend to have blinders on with regards to new approaches
- Panic Zone – Employees are in a period of “reactive adjustment’, at a loss for how to change old systems, and can’t learn well
- Stretch Zone – Employees are actively involved, committed to developing, and are open to learning about to be more successful
Most employees work and live in predominantly one zone, although it’s possible to switch from zone to zone for a short time. Effective managers can read these zones and manage employees into a stretch zone, resulting in increased productivity, consistent growth, and greater employee retention. When a company isn’t constantly managing employee turnover, the focus becomes profitability and growth.
How is your company reading and managing the zone?