A Metaphor Imagine that you’re competing in a marathon. You’ve been diligently preparing for it for a long time. You’ve trained. You’ve recruited the people that you felt you needed to help you perform at the highest standard possible, and now you’re in that race. But like almost everyone else in this competition, you’re behind. There…
Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention. – Jim Rohn Dale Carnegie Training recently released new findings on employee engagement (http://bit.ly/12GBqXI) and the results proved to be quite intriguing. The first and most dramatic finding shows that if an employee is dissatisfied with their immediate supervisor, there…
Consider the following two versions of feedback given by a boss, in response to an employee leaving errors in an important report for the Board: “I’ve gone over your report and found you didn’t include the sidebar paragraph that explains Figure 6 on page 18. Please add it in right away and get the revised…
Recently I spent two days teaching front-line managers in an installation service company how to have effective conversations around job performance. The training included an approach that was new to the managers and thus involved for them a new way of thinking. Instead of telling, they were to do a lot more asking of questions…
I don’t know about you but it pains me to see so many people in organizations not contributing near to what they are capable of. Many of course, for any multitude of reasons, just don’t want to, thank you very much. They are satisfied with average, with just enough. That’s a topic for another time.…
How often have you heard that our favorite topic is ourself? This is certainly true but a few people go overboard. We call them egocentric. At a neurotic level, they become narcissistic. This comes from the Greek character Narcissus who fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water and remained there,…
It’s okay to let those you lead outshine you, for if they shine brightly enough, they reflect positively on you. – Billy Hornsby Last year MarketTools, Inc. conducted a survey on employee satisfaction. The results revealed that most employees may not feel appreciated. Nearly 50 percent of employees surveyed have considered leaving their jobs. And…
How many of your employees are simply not engaged any more? Are there some who seem to just be going through the motions of their job? Yeah, they show up every day. They do the essential tasks. They don’t miss deadlines or cause any major screw ups. But something is clearly missing. The spark has…
Admit it; you’ve had managers you wanted to see succeed and you’ve likely worked for others that you didn’t respect or trust. And you’ve had occasions where you threw everything you had at your job and other times where you dialed it back to idle. Managers and supervisors often think that the wages or salary…
If you are getting too many emails, it’s likely you are a manager. Depending on your corporate or company culture, it’s easy to get 100 or 200 emails a day – all expecting your precious attention. There are less leaders than two years ago, so more people report to you or feel the need to…
In our new social economy, your networth with your network is the only currency that matters. In this short video clip, find out how to stop networking and start netWORTHing™ to grow your access and influence with your network to help you do your job faster, better and easier!
In his short, wonderful book, Helping, Edgar Schein presents us, whether we are a professional coach or a manager playing a coaching role, with three ways to respond to a request for coaching/mentoring help (or, for that matter, advice with a problem on the job). We can be: an expert resource who provides information or…
It’s been a smart idea for years. When good employees leave your organization for greener pastures and the departure is amicable, why not keep in contact? You never know, some may find that that grass isn’t, in fact, greener and that your firm was a pretty good place to work after all. A recent WSJ…
In a recent survey titled, why do people give up on your company? it was noted that 68% quit because of an attitude of indifference toward the client by the owner, manager or employee. This indifference comes about because we tend to forget that to stay employed and succeed in our business or organization we…
Back in the 90’s the Royal Bank of Canada had a series of TV commercials touting the theme, “Building a Better Bank, One Customer at a Time.” The message, as I recall, was that RBC treats each customer as a unique individual and strives to win them over, one-at-a-time. I frequently refer to this ad…
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…
After nearly five years since my last flight as a private pilot, it felt great to get out flying again with an instructor. It was amazing how much past knowledge came back so quickly. That shows the power of repetition from the original flight training nearly 10 years ago! And speaking of repetition… it seems…
There have been several times when I was swamped with hundreds of resumes for a single job posting – how does one screen down to the best applicants without taking days and days of effort? 1) Define your most unique, critical requirements in the job Do you require certain unique characteristics that are essential for…
With business demands and the amount of information increasing, it is tempting for managers to hunker down and spend most of their attention on tasks – dealing with customer/supplier issues, operational issues, answering email, endless meetings and the never ending to-do list.
The vast majority of bosses don’t intentionally want to make employees miserable – usually it happens completely by accident! Whether it is an act of ‘commission’ or an act of ‘omission’, the results can be destructive. A front line supervisor, manager or team leader can make things better or worse, both with what they DO…