Posted on 10 January 2012.
I ran across a recent posting from the Gallup Management Journal that made a point have I never thought about before:
“Raised through a childhood in which each new year brought novel opportunities, playing at ever more difficult levels of sports, growing physically, educated in a system of cleanly delineated grades — freshman, sophomore, junior, senior — many employees find themselves several years into their career wondering what happened to the momentum they used to enjoy. Being both conditioned and naturally wired to look forward to differences between seventh and eighth grade or high school and college, many workers are disappointed to discover there will be no dramatic difference between their experience as a 25-year-old employee and their experience as a 26-year-old employee.”
The full article talks about the plethora of studies that show what a powerful motivator is personal and professional growth, learning, and rising to a tough-but-attainable challenge.
So many people, in their jobs, no longer feel any sense of increasing their capacity and moving on to more challenging tasks. Each day is the same, each year essentially a clone of the last one. Clearly, one cause of this is structural. Some jobs, especially in manufacturing and straight forward service functions, are repetitive and have had any meaningful discretion engineered out of them.
But, in the vast number of jobs, this is not the case. Here it is incumbent upon managers to periodically ask what their employees have learned and how they have grown over the last year. Better still, however, let’s get out in front of the curve. At least once a year–perhaps at performance review time–ask each of your staff members,
“What do would like to learn/know/be able to do 12 months from today that you don’t know or can’t do today?”
I believe the best bosses are catalysts for the never-ending growth of every employee in their charge.
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Posted in Employee Engagement
Posted on 14 September 2011.
When front line supervisors and managers are asked to share some of the characteristics of the best manager or supervisor they had ever worked for, they will include “supportive” on that list. One participant was even more emphatic – his best boss was focused on “helping” not “harping”.
A boss who is constantly critical and focuses on problems without being willing to provide support and suggestions is not helping. In fact they may be demotivating the team. The resulting decline of morale and attitude will hamper long term performance.
Can you be too helpful?
Being helpful and supportive does not mean sheltering your team from challenges and set backs. Some leaders take back tasks at the first sign that an individual is struggling instead of taking the role of coach. As a coach you job is to empathize with the struggles, ask questions to help the person discover a solution and encourage them to persevere. You can also share suggestions and how you dealt with a similar challenge in the past.
Is there a time for “harping”?
In our book Employees Not Doing What You Expect by Irwin and I describe one of the reasons employees don’t meet expectations is because of mixed signals from the boss. The manager or supervisor might describe his or her expectations and then never follow-up. Employees get the message that it really can’t be that important. In this case it can be helpful for the manager to follow-up to demonstrate the importance of the task. This kind of constructive “harping” sends the signal to employees that the standard of performance is higher. An effective leader follows up on what she says and applies positive and negative consequences when expectations are met or not met.
Action tips to being a helpful manager or supervisor
- Clarify your expectations so that your employees can meet them.
- Help employees find solutions for themselves.
- Allow employees to learn from mistakes.
- Backup the decisions of employees and coach them privately.
- Coach by sharing personal stories, asking questions and challenging assumptions.
As a leader, focus on how you can support the people who work for you to achieve the expectations you have set. You might even be the manager or supervisor they think of when asked “Who is the best boss you have ever worked for?”
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Posted in Employee Engagement
Posted on 18 August 2011.
Could laziness be the most powerful motivator of all? And if it is, how can you use this to your advantage?
As a people watcher have you ever noticed that the majority of people gravitate to the easiest way of accomplishing a task?
Instead of being aggravated as a manager or supervisor, perhaps you should tap into this reality.
Make it Easy to Do What You Want
In any amusement or theme park you will notice that a garbage can is within 20 feet of you no matter where you are. This seems inefficient because employees have to change an awful lot of garbage bags every day. And yet by providing easy to access garbage cans, people are less likely to litter. What the theme park manager knows is that the average person holding an empty drink cup might set it down instead of putting it in the garbage, unless it is easy to do so.
Constant nagging means there could be an easier way
One of the symptoms that you might need to simplify a process is when you have to constantly remind people to do what you want. Not only is the nagging annoying to the manager, it is also annoying to the employees. An examination of the process might reveal an opportunity to streamline steps, provide a checklist or provide pictures or samples in place of words.
Doing it right the first time
A friend of mine who I consider to be an IT guru says that laziness causes him to write better computer code. How so? When he writes a program that works well he won’t get lots of phone calls asking him to fix bugs and change the code. It just works!
The lazy leader
Okay, it probably sounds insulting to suggest that the leader could be more effective with a slight dose of laziness. While the majority of managers are overwhelmed and frazzled, a small minority are calm and effective. The secret of the few is to be more effective at clarifying expectations, delegating responsibility to others and then giving them the authority to act. These managers free up time to pursue other opportunities or even kick back and enjoy their success. The employees appreciate the challenge and empowerment.
Putting Ideas into Action
- Make it easy for people to do what you want (and conversely more difficult to do what you don’t want)
- Reflect on how to simplify a system or create visual reminders instead of constantly nagging people to do what needs to get done.
- Clarify your expectations of employees, challenge them, empower them and get out of their way.
- Enjoy the extra time and smile to yourself knowing that you have discovered how to make life easier for yourself and others.
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Leadership Development
Posted on 11 July 2011.
I recently attended a presentation by Shannon Deegan, Google’s Director of People.
Now, a lot has been written about this company and how it is up there in the stratosphere of “best places to work,” as decreed by Fortune magazine and others. Not surprisingly, Google received around 2 million resumés last year and filled 5000 positions. And growth? They have grown from zero to 25,000 employees in just eight years.
Here are a few points, in no particular order, that stood out for me from Shannon’s speech:
- The company’s mission, created by the founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page, is not expected to change for at least a century. It reads, To organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
- They provide three meals a day, free in the company cafeteria. Contrary to popular (external) wisdom, said Deegan, it’s not to get people back to their work stations quickly. Rather, it is intended to foster an opportunity for collaboration, discussion and reflection.
- Employees are encouraged to post any idea internally, like “Wouldn’t it be great if we could…” Anyone can comment on the idea, support it, expand on it, shoot it down, etc. They can also offer to join in an ad hoc effort to see if it can be brought to fruition. Some pledge to devote their 20% of free focus time (a feature Google is famous for) on it.
- Managers are regarded primarily as resources who work for their team.
- At Google they truly celebrate mistakes. (although Sergey Brin has been quoted as saying, “If you’re going to fail, please fail quickly.”)
- The HR function should be staffed with 1/3 traditional HR practitioners, 1/3 with management consulting expertise, and 1/3 with world-class Ph.D’s and M.S. degrees.
- Their employee feedback survey has two primary outcomes: (1) Retention and (2) Innovation.
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Employee Retention
Posted on 13 June 2011.
Richard Florida is a provocative thinker around social and economic issues. He first became noticed from his book, The Rise of the Creative Class. In his latest book, The Great Reset, he shares data that the future growth of jobs will be in two areas: (1) knowledge, professional and creative jobs and (2) lower paying, more routine work in the service sector. Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation
Posted on 30 May 2011.
I actually came across this article from Forbes.com in 2009 but never got around to sharing it.
The piece tells about Douglas Conant, the new CEO of Campbell Soup Company, who came on board in 2001 and over the next eight years grew EPS by 5-10% every year. Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement
Posted on 20 May 2011.
How leaders can impact employee’s motivation using the 4-Drive Theory
The 4-Drive Theory of Employee Motivation states that there are four main drives that motivate employees, these are the drives to: Acquire & Achieve, to Bond & Belong, to be Challenged & Comprehend, and to Define & Defend. Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation, Employee Retention, Leadership Issues, Leadership Styles, Performance Management
Posted on 16 May 2011.
A client organization of mine has a culture that values measuring everything. This makes good business sense. It enables you to monitor, recalibrate and optimize your processes and results. Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Performance Management
Posted on 15 March 2011.
Employee engagement is all the rage these days. It’s commonly touted as the key to transforming an organization from good to great.
When a new organizational effectiveness ‘truth’ comes along there are two common responses.
Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Leadership Issues
Posted on 08 March 2011.
This question has been studied for decades and no direct relationship has been established. Despite what would seem to be a slam-dunk connection, happier workers don’t necessarily result in a bumped up bottom line.
A recent study by researchers at Cornell, however, has mapped a path between the two. It is not a direct route. There are three intervening variables: Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Employee Retention, Performance Management
Posted on 15 February 2011.
Our tumultuous economic climate is forcing many business owners to make many tough choices. But the bottom-line to remaining competitive is to stay committed to investing in your most important asset: your employees.
Studies show that only 30 percent of employees are actually engaged at work. Of course, no two employees come to work for the exact same reasons – while one may be driven to become your organization’s next CEO, the other might like that their role enables them to strike their ideal work-life balance. Continue Reading
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Posted in Culture, Employee Engagement, Teambuilding
Posted on 10 January 2011.
I came across a quote from Oprah Winfrey, interviewed in the Dec. 26/10 issue of Parade :
Everybody just wants to be heard…Do your eyes light up when I enter the room? Did you hear me and did what I say mean anything to you? That’s all they’re looking for. That’s what everybody is looking for.” Continue Reading
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Posted in Communication, Employee Engagement
Posted on 05 January 2011.
I have been touting the 4-Drive Model of Employee Motivation since I first read the 2008 Harvard Business Review article “Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model” by Nohria, , Groysberg, and Lee. You could say I’ve been a very BIG advocate for this model! It is a powerful theory on human motivation in general, and in particular, employee motivation. First presented in the 2002 book, “Driven: How Human Nature Shapes Our Choices” by Lawrence and Nohria, the model outlines four main drives of motivation. Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Employee Motivation, Employee Retention, Leadership Issues, Performance Management
Posted on 22 November 2010.
In the hurly burly of meeting deadlines, doing more with less, and achieving performance goals, it is easy to forget to keep up the dialogue with each of your staff about:
- How they are doing vis-à-vis their performance
- How they are doing vis-à-vis their well-being
- Their continuing development and growth Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Talent Development
Posted on 15 November 2010.
The research and consulting firm, BlessingWhite, is currently offering a complimentary 2 1/2 hour session, called “Impacting Engagement in 2011: The Leader’s Role,” in many major cities around the U.S. Here they reveal an advance peek at the results of their brand new global survey on employee engagement. Check out the time and location in the various cities. I attended the one in Washington, DC. It was well worth the time, in terms of both the information shared and the stimulating discussion that ensued. Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement
Posted on 01 November 2010.
Boston Consulting Group, in conjunction with an association of people management associations worldwide, completed a comprehensive on-line + live interviews study on how they are approaching strategic human capital development for the next decade. It’s called “Creating People Advantage 2010″ and worth downloading if you are concerned with the strategic element of human resources in your organization. Continue Reading
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Posted in Employee Engagement, Talent Development
