3 Questions You Must Ask to Boost Employee Engagement to Build a More Positive, Productive and Profitable Organization One of the key ingredients necessary to build stronger customer and workplace relationships involves keeping your employees engaged, motivated and happy. If your employees aren’t happy; employee engagement, productivity, and customer satisfaction will be diminished. In my…
In my teambuilding workshops, one of the exercises I often do is to ask the participants the following questions, “What does good teamwork look like?” and “What do I need from my co-workers?; What do I need in terms of personal satisfaction?; and What do I need in reference to worthy work in order to…
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. – Babe Ruth A recent Gallup report revealed what many have believed about teamwork for quite some time. The…
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,…
One of the key ingredients necessary to build stronger customer and workplace relationships involves keeping your employees engaged, motivated and happy. If your employees aren’t happy; employee engagement, productivity, and customer satisfaction will be diminished. In my teambuilding workshops one of the first things we do is to find out what employees want. Below is…
Reading about Steve Jobs’ management style is like reading about exactly how you are not supposed to manage people. He openly and viciously criticized the work of employees and then would take some of those ideas and present them as his own. When he couldn’t persuade or seduce someone into doing what he wanted he…
The BBC’s Katty Kay and ABC’s Claire Shipman co-authored a book a couple of years back called Womenomics. In it they cite, among other things, a number of companies where the presence of women in among top leadership had a positive effect on the firm’s financial success. For example: Accounting firm Ernst & Young’s research…
Edgar Schein, a titan of the field of organizational development, says in his recent book, Helping, that there are four questions on the minds of new members of any team. While these concerns operate at a subconscious level, nevertheless, any team member must become comfortable with the answers before he or she can relax and…
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.
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…
Should a leader apologize when he or she makes a mistake, or is it a sign of weakness? In the front line leadership course we have two case studies on balancing friendship and leadership. This is a unique situation faced by supervisors and team leaders who have been promoted from within. One case study deals…
All teams must pay attention to their work: the task, the goal, the things to be done, the agenda items to be crammed into their meetings, the hurried decisions to be made by the group, the deadlines to be met, and so on.
If the title of this article makes you scratch your head, consider for a few minutes the concept that a strong team with a high degree of trust requires its members to challenge one another. Ian Thomas, a professional speaker from South Africa was using the illustration of a pride of lions and the lessons…
A few months ago, we had the wonderful pleasure of spending a day interviewing 11 people at Oak Ridge Hotel & Conference Center to try to uncover their secret – because they have gotten the formula right on employee motivation. Anyone who has ever stepped into their facility outside of Minneapolis can attest to the customer service mentality that every employee exhibits – from the front desk, to housekeeping, to the chefs, groundskeepers, and even in accounting.
There is a definite difference in how the majority of these employees “show up” at their job everyday and how they view and take care of their “guests”. They are truly a company that is doing something right. Here is a quick overview of some of the findings we found: