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Helping Employees Engage Themselves
How to encourage employees to engage themselves in what they do!There is a problem with employee engagement. And I am not talking about the reports decrying the low levels of employee engagement in business globally. The problem is deeper and more profound. It is that the whole premise of employee engagement is based on a flawed assumption.The Flawed AssumptionVirtually all the reports, publications and articles are based on the flawed assumption that it is the business’ responsibility to engage its
Three Trust-Building Behaviours
There are three ways to build trust both for yourself and with your team: Create transparency this is telling the truth in a way that people can verify and validate for themselves. Keep your commitments failing to complete commitments will deplete the levels of trust others have in you. This occurs when you overpromise and under-deliver. Extend trust to your team this is one of the best ways to build trust. Yet many leaders withhold trust because they trust only
The Power of Three
It is only in recent years that businesses have started to assess the cost of employee turnover. For many years it has not been an area of priority, simply because it wasn’t being measured and what isn’t measured isn’t valued. So what are some of the costs associated with employee turnover? Lowered productivity – you will find that either the work of the individual who has left is now not being done or, if it has been allocated to one
Five Strategies for Growing Successfully
Not all growth is good growth, five tips to help you ensure that growth is good Do you want to grow your business? If so, do you know how you are going to grow the business? And are you aware of the difference between good growth and bad growth? People often want to grow for growth’s own sake. This is more about taking on risk than taking on growth. Strategy 1: Control Your Growth You need to manage growth, not
Four Questions to Debrief and Learn
Four key questions by which to learn from your experiences! We often get so involved in doing the work, that we rarely make the time to review how we are doing in a structured and creative manner that allows us to extend our curiosity into what has happened, and to learn why. In short, we rarely take the time to debrief and when we do so, we generally do it poorly. Debriefings can help you accelerate projects, innovate new approaches
Empowering Your Employees to Empower Themselves
How to create an environment that empowers people. As a manager or leader, do you let your people assume more responsibility when they are able? Do you know when that is, or do you keep telling yourself that they aren't ready yet?In my travels from organization to organization, I talk with thousands of people every year who want to be treated as "partners" rather than as employees. They want information to flow up as well as down. But, oftentimes, leaders
Peter Drucker on Marketing
Long ago Peter Drucker, the father of business consulting, made a very profound observation that has been lost in the sands of time: "Because the purpose of business is to create a customer, the business enterprise has two - and only two - basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results; all the rest are costs. Marketing is the distinguishing, unique function of the business." Today, when top management is surveyed, their priorities in order are finance, sales,
Physics & Productivity
How to use Newton’s three laws of motion to become more productive In our physic classes as children, we all learned Sir Isaac Newton’s Three Laws of Motion. Universal in their application they can also be used as an interesting analogy for increasing your productivity, simplifying your work, and improving your life. Newton’s First Law of Productivity First Law of Motion: An object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity unless acted upon by an external
Hiring Dedicated People
In 2015 SouthWest Airlines received a job application every two seconds, but it was very selective. It received over 287,000 resumes from which it interviewed 102,112 candidates, and hired only 6,582 people. Why has SouthWest Airlines gone to such an extreme to recruit so few people, less than 2% of all applicants? The key to the hiring process is to hire the people whose values mirror yours, and who will be engaged from day one. SouthWest Airlines don’t hire for skills,