Is this the most important gift you could give employees?
To me gifts are special things for which I am grateful. It has nothing to do with physical items or monetary value. Gifts are things that I feel have enriched my life. Do you think the same way? I don’t think we are strange because we think this way. I have met many people in my life that have expressed the same sentiment. Have you?
Think about your workplace for a moment. Do the employees communicate positively with one another? Are they gladly working together? Do they care about each other and your business? Are they finding the greater sense of purpose and meaning they so desire? Are the results of your business exceeding your expectations?
You worried? You’re not alone. Continue reading
The Cure for Horrible Employees and Bosses
In a Harvard Business Review article, The Cure for Horrible Bosses by Rosabeth M. Kanter she talks about the dark comedy film Horrible Bosses and how you can neutralize a bad boss. She states as many as half of American workers feel low levels of employee engagement stem from poor management.
To explain how to overcome the affects of a bad boss she talks about a character Pierre that was placed into a low performing subsidiary as a COO. In the organization, the CEO was an imperialistic and antagonistic boss that immediately resented Pierre’s presence. After a bout of depression, Pierre then sets out to build relationships in the organization. The relationships that Pierre creates over the next several weeks eventually renders the toxic CEO powerless. Continue reading
Are your Parents are to Blame for Low Employee Engagement?
For the longest time the Cleaver’s, in the popular 1950′s television show “Leave it to Beaver” was represented as the ideal American family.
June and Ward (Cleaver) were conscience parents that viewed their responsibility for instilling values to their boys (Wally and Beaver) as an duty to the world. They did’t use force or intimidate to teach the boys lessons but used verbal communication and leading by example as the methods.
June Cleaver had a very calm demeanor while she protected the boys from bad influences like Eddie Haskell. Ward Cleaver consistently supervised the behavior and moral education of the boys with a quiet dignity full of understanding.
Do You Recognize the ‘unmet need’ to Engage Employees and Yourself
What happens when your needs aren’t met? Can you recognize this in yourself? What about in others? A valuable outcome of the Systematic Leadership process inherent in the Beyond Morale program is the ability to better understand what your needs are and the needs of others. Why is this important? Continue reading
Why Would You Wait to Improve Employee Engagement?
We all know what is feels like to be a member of a great team. Even if you only experienced it for a short time, you know how fantastic it feels to have strong relationships at work, be stress free, confident, fulfilled, optimistic, and full of gratitude to be a member of a winner. When you feel like you are part of a great team your employee engagement is high. Continue reading
Our Greatest Asset is our People…but do you Know Why?
Saying your people are your greatest asset is a very nice marketing statement. But would your integrity be questioned because there is no sustainable application to make it happen. The truth is, people aren’t your greatest asset, unless they’re provided guidance on how to build stronger relationships at work. When relationships at work are strong employees perform better as individuals and in teams.
Decades of research prove that individuals and teams that get along dramatically outperform those who don’t in almost every important business metric. In fact, the single most cited reason (80%) why people leave their job is because of poor relationships at work. Individuals who have stronger relationships at work substantially outperform individuals who don’t, they’re more productive, more profitable, more innovative, have less accidents, contribute more…and on and on.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness at Work
By far the most remembered sentence in the Declaration of Independence is the one that starts the second paragraph.
“We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”
Immediately after the construction of the Declaration and since, the segment which states “all Men are created equal,” has been part of hundreds of speeches, protests, boycotts and even wars. Continue reading
Developing Leaders that Operate from their Souls, not Ego
Is anything right with leadership today? I am totally overwhelmed by the number of people talking about the leadership crisis that we are currently experiencing. This is a global conversation that’s going on in both the public and private sector. The long-term forecast is it’s going to get much worse before it gets better, because of the actions that have brought us to the economic and socially responsible upheavals that cover our daily headlines.
“I need to go get my beating,” Employee Morale is Low
Sometimes we must seek to find humor in pain. For many of us it’s the only way to maintain our mental composure. It’s a mental protection system. You probably can stop and picture when you have done this yourself. We even have habitual phrases we use for situations like: “I meant to do that,” or “That’s going to leave a mark,” or “It’s not the fall but the sudden stop that hurts.” In all of those phrases you can almost see the pain. Oh, I am cringing as I write this.
Yesterday we received an email that was very funny and also reflected a lot of pain. It was obvious the sender was trying to use humor to replace the pain and salvage some sanity. I am going to show it to you in a moment but I want to give you some context to best put it in perspective.
Top 4 Reasons Why MBAs are the Worst Leaders
Have you ever been surprised when people react to something you said or did? Have you ever said something funny (at least you thought so) only to have nobody laugh? Sure, we all have. Well, I sure was surprised by the many comments and tweets to my post Why MBAs are the Worst Leaders. It was way more than what I expected. I suspect this post will garner even greater attention and tweets.
The response was so diverse and opinionated that I began to ask myself, is there a common thread to make sense of all of this emotional energy? Not sure if it means anything but most of the reaction was from people agreeing that employee engagement and leadership skills were poor in MBAs. Many people took the time to write first-hand stories of their experiences. Continue reading
7 Keys to Employee Engagement
The Top 100
Averting the Leadership Crisis
Why 360s Don’t Work
Employee Engagement Pocket Cards
