A wise teacher was taking a stroll through the forest with a young pupil and stopped before a tiny tree.
“Pull up that sapling,” the teacher instructed his pupil, pointing to a sprout just coming up from the earth. The youngster pulled it up easily with his fingers. “Now, pull up that one,” said the teacher, indicating a more established sapling that had grown to about knee high to the boy. With little effort, the lad yanked and the tree came up, roots and all. “And now this one,” said the teacher, nodding toward a more well-developed evergreen that was as tall as the young pupil. With great effort, throwing all his weight and strength into the task, using sticks and stone he found to pry up the stubborn roots, the boy finally got the tree loose.
“Now,” the wise one said, “I’d like you to pull this one up.” The young boy followed the teacher’s gaze, which fell upon a mighty oak so tall the boy could scarcely see the top. Knowing the great struggle he’d just had pulling up the much smaller tree, he simply told his teacher, “I am sorry, but I can’t.”
“My son, you have just demonstrated the power that habits will have over your life!” the teacher exclaimed. “The older they are, the bigger they get, the deeper the roots grow, and the harder they are to uproot. Some get so big, with roots so deep, you might hesitate to even try.”
Creatures of Habit
Aristotle wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Merriam-Webster defines habit this way: “an acquired mode of behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary.”
There’s a story about a man riding a horse, galloping quickly. It appears that he’s going somewhere very important. A man standing along the roadside shouts, “Where are you going?” The rider replies, “I don’t know. Ask the horse!” This is the story of most people’s lives; they’re riding the horse of their habits, with no idea where they’re headed. It’s time to take control of the reins and move your life in the direction of where you really want to go.
If you’ve been living on autopilot and allowing your habits to run you, I want you to understand why. And I want you to let yourself off the hook. After all, you’re in good company. Psychological studies reveal that 95 percent of everything we feel, think, do and achieve is a result of a learned habit! We’re born with instincts, of course, but no habits at all. We develop them over time. Beginning in childhood, we learned a series of conditioned responses that led us to react automatically (as in, without thinking) to most situations.
In your day-to-day life, living “automatically” has its definite positives. If you had to consciously think about every step of each ordinary task—making breakfast, driving the kids to school, getting to work, and so on—your life would grind to a halt. You probably brush your teeth twice a day on autopilot. There’s no big philosophical debate; you just do it. You strap on your seatbelt the minute your butt hits the seat. No second thoughts. Our habits and routines allow us to use minimal conscious energy for everyday tasks. They help keep us sane and enable us to handle most situations reasonably well. And because we don’t have to think about the mundane, we can focus our mental energy on more creative and enriching thoughts. Habits can be helpful—as long as they’re good habits, that is.
If you eat healthfully, you’ve likely built healthy habits around the food you buy and what you order at restaurants. If you’re fit, it’s probably because you work out regularly. If you’re successful in a sales job, it’s probably because your habits of mental preparation and positive self-talk enable you to stay optimistic in the face of rejection.
I’ve met and worked with many great achievers, CEOs and “superstars,” and I can tell you they all share one common trait: They all have good habits. That’s not to say they don’t have bad habits—they do. But not many. A daily routine built on good habits is the difference that separates the most successful amongst us from everyone else. And doesn’t that make sense? From what we’ve already discussed, you know successful people aren’t necessarily more intelligent or more talented than anyone else. But their habits take them in the direction of becoming more informed, more knowledgeable, more competent, better-skilled and better-prepared.
My dad used Larry Bird as an example to teach me about habits when I was a kid. “Larry Legend” is known as one of the greatest professional basketball players, but he wasn’t known for being the most athletically talented player. Nobody would have described Larry as “graceful” on the basketball court. Yet, despite his limited natural athletic ability, he led the Boston Celtics to three world championships and remains one of the best players of all time. How did he do it?
It was Larry’s habits—his relentless dedication to practice and to improve his game. Bird was one of the most consistent free-throw shooters in the history of the NBA. Growing up, his habit was to practice five hundred free-throw shots every morning before school. With that kind of discipline, Larry made the most of his God-given talents and kicked the butts of some of the most “gifted” players on the court.
Like Larry Bird, you can condition your automatic and unconscious response to be those of a developed champion. This chapter is about choosing to make up for what you lack in innate ability with discipline, hard work and good habits. It’s about becoming a creature of champion habits.
With enough practice and repetition, any behavior, good or bad, becomes automatic over time. That means that even though we developed most of our habits unconsciously (by modeling our parents, responding to environmental or cultural associations, or creating coping mechanisms), we can consciously decide to change them. It stands to reason that since you learned every habit you have, you can also unlearn the ones that aren’t serving you well.
In a world filled with busyness and stress I find that too often leaders can act like hard-charging, fast-driving bus drivers that have a vision and goal within their sights and they’ll run over anyone–even their own employees–to reach their destination. I know this well because early in my business career I was that kind of leader and I have had to work hard to change my approach.
I realized that any hard-charging leader can create success in the short term, but it would take a positive leader with a people and process-driven approach to build a successful organization for the long term. As John Maxwell said, “If you are all alone at the top, you are not a leader. You are a hiker.”
No one creates success alone. To win in business, you must win with people. Running over people will only get you so far. To create true and lasting success you must nurture and invest in your people. Here are three essential ways to do this.
1. Care about them – The main question every employee in every organization is asking is, “Do you care about me; can I trust you?” Employees want to know if you care about them. If you do, they will be more likely to stay on the bus and work with you. Employees are more engaged at work and will work at their highest potential when their manager cares about them.
2. Develop a relationship with them – Author Andy Stanley once said, “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” Far too many managers and leaders share rules with their people, but they don’t have a relationship with them. So what happens? The people rebel, and they disengage from their jobs and the mission of the team. I’ve had many managers approach me and tell me that my books helped them realize they needed to focus less on rules and invest more in their work relationships. The result was a dramatic increase in team performance and productivity. To develop a relationship with your employees, you need to build trust, listen to them, make time for them, recognize them and mentor them.
3. Appreciate them – The main reason people leave their jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated. For example, Doug Conant, the CEO of Campbell Soup, has written more than 16,000 thank-you notes to employees in the past seven years and created a very positive business in the process. It’s as easy as saying (or writing) “Thank you.”
It’s a simple truth: When you care about your employees and the people you work with, they are more likely to stay on the bus and work harder, with more loyalty and greater positive energy. In turn, they are more likely to share their positive energy with your customers, thus enhancing service and the bottom line. The greatest customer service strategy has nothing to do with customer service, but it has everything to do with how you treat your employees. If you model great service, they will provide great service.
Remember, leadership is not just about what you do, but what you can inspire, encourage and empower others to do. Instead of running over the people in your team/organization, invite them on the bus with you and engage them to help you create an amazing and successful ride.
Manager: a person who has control or direction of a business, or of a part, division, or phase of it. Coach: a person who gives instruction or advice to elevate the performance of an individual or student.
Businessmen and women are looking for leaders who demonstrate an enthusiastic and genuine belief in others and who strengthen their will to succeed. Look at the two definitions above and think about which of those people is going to get the results needed in business today. Coaching is all about focusing on the talent of the person, and not so much about the production of the job description given when hired. Yes, businesses hire a manager to control the output of sales in order to control the outcome or production of business. However, if the focus is on enhancing the talents of hired staff, I believe the outcome will be greatly improved. Coaches focus on supplying the means to achieve, not on the fear of employees losing their jobs. It is the title of “coach” that helps to express optimism for the future with a firm walk in life.
A coach must keep hope alive from within the person. They must always strengthen their players’ belief that life’s struggles will produce a more promising future. This evolves into an intimate and supportive relationship, a relationship based not on pure authority, but on mutual participation that results in an inner renewal. The coach sees the good in you, and it is his or her job to bring the good out and place you in a position where your talent matches the task so success is almost a given. It is when you put people in positions of your needs that you are thinking like a manager, not a coach. Your job isn’t to put people in a position of your need; it is to put them in a position where they will succeed.
All great coaches find ways to change up the game plan in order to get tried and true results. Different competitions, changing up strategies, having employee input ideas from the field – all these things help to get your team engaged in the company’s goals and have some friendly competition to bolster energy for production. A manager without a coaching strategy might simply post the goals of the company for the quarter and give no input as to how to achieve those goals. This kind of manager is relying on the talents of the sales staff, but not enhancing or improving upon past performance. Yes, the coaching up manager is going to have to be creative.
Business owners should be looking for that quality in a coach for their team. Coaches, study your competition. There are strategies out there that are proven in the marketplace and should be followed, just like the skills to make a three point jumper shot at the buzzer. Perfect practice makes perfect. Follow your team on the road to help them to continue following proven principles your company has set. But by all means, have some fun with some friendly competition.
During these uncertain and changing times, those who take the title of Coach lead with a positive, confident, can-do approach to life and business, something that is so needed with the people I see each week. The feedback I receive from investing hundreds of hours each year with people is that they want a leader with a coaching focus, not a managing agenda. These people want to believe that we all are part of a journey, and this is not just a job or a task.
They seem to gravitate toward people with a can–do attitude, not those who always seem to have a reason why something can’t be done. It is when the pressure is on that the title Coach becomes so important. A manager thinks one way and a coach thinks another. A coach says, “I asked you to be on this team because I believe in who you are as a person, not just as a player.” The good coach sees what is good on the inside and brings it out. A manager sees what is on the outside and pushes it in. I hope this month’s e-Zine will find you coaching up for success.
In this article, I will address the importance of choosing a positive attitude if you’ve chosen sales as a career. Notice I used the word “choosing” rather than the word “having” as it relates to attitude, to make the point that a positive attitude is a choice and not something that is beyond your control. The quote about attitude by Charles Swindoll sums it up nicely: “I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me and 90 percent of how I react to it.” What a powerful statement. It puts the ownership and responsibility of how we react to the world on us. This may feel like an awful lot of responsibility, but at the same time, it gives us control over our own circumstances and therefore offers a feeling of empowerment to make a difference in our own lives.
Attitude is a key element for anyone who has chosen sales as a career. If you are a sales professional, you know that having a positive attitude makes a world of difference in your success. In a profession that is conducive to rejection, you must have a positive attitude to be able to deal with the sometimes negative circumstances that occur simply as a result of being a salesperson.
How many times have you lost a sale and then immediately began thinking about what you could have done differently to win the business? The telling factor in your long-term success as a sales professional is your ability to learn from each “lost deal” and correct those mistakes the next time, which is all part of choosing a positive attitude.
It’s amazing how far a positive attitude can take you in the world of sales. Attitude is a huge part of what makes up your reputation, and often one of the first things people will notice when meeting you for the first time. It’s easy to have a positive attitude when things are going well; the difficulty comes in remaining positive when things don’t go the way you’d hoped.
Because attitude is a mind-set that reveals itself in behaviors, often acting positive even when you don’t feel positive will change the way you feel over time, which means you can change your attitude if you so desire.
Finally, to put a positive spin on the sometimes negative or losing circumstances that occur in sales, just think to yourself, “Yeah, losing stinks, but if it didn’t happen every once in a while, I wouldn’t appreciate winning!” or, as Jimmy Dean once said, “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sales to always reach my destination.” OK, OK, his quote used the word sails, not sales, but you get the point.
It is spring, a time for renewal and a fresh start. We invest time in spring cleaning around the house, plant flowers, wash off the lawn chairs in preparation for BBQ’s and fun times ahead. It is also the perfect time to do the same with your business. Consider this a season of renewal. Take a step back and look at your business, what needs to be cleaned out and spruced up? Do you need to invest in your website? Do you have a clear goal of what you want to accomplish this season? What role do you want your employees to take during your business’ renewal? New Year’s Day is not the only opportunity to get motivated and set goals.
Businesses have been cutting back and reducing their marketing budgets so much that they are not going to be ready to take part in the economic renewal. When is this finally going to happen? Now, there are signs everywhere. Restaurants have wait times, people are buying kids spring clothes and businesses that have worked wisely have actually expanded. As with the early signs of spring, you will miss the signs of the renewal if you don’t look for them.
Companies that continue to provide good service, new servics and keep their names out there have a greater change for growth. Give your customers a reason to take a second look. If we all think about Hallmark stores, we know that each season we go into their stores for a birthday or Easter card we know that seasonal marketing is everywhere capturing our eye to bring into their stores. The only thing that does not change is the good service we come to expect with each visit.
We all have experienced challenges during this economy but we must look forward to come out of it. We know that there is a day when we will finally be in a good place forgetting exactly when things all began to be positive once again. It is funny how we can remember when things began to go bad but not so much so when things began to be positive again. Working together with others we can keep ourselves focused on our own motivational programs with small rewards along the way.
Motivational tips for you and your employees:
1) Have a grip party for a 1/2 hour. Discuss light weight problems this economy has caused your company, have each participant find one funny solution and move on.
2) Hold a meeting outside in the beautiful spring weather to inspire a discussion about how you will renew your business. Ask each person to provide at least 3 solutions but how deeper discussion for a follow up meeting.
3) Thank your customers with added services and pleasant changes to your store or website.
4) Survey your customers for their opinions on how you could serve them better, why they do business with you and how you can motivate them to do more business with you.
5) Look to your competition, visit their stores and websites what is it that you found to be attractive about their business. Note the positive differences between you and them.
6) Read, research and rediscover your industry. What has changed since you went into business? Can you develop a niche in your industry?
7) Provide reward programs using platforms that focus on providing capitvating incentives that attract customers again and again.
Whether you are thinking about customer retention or buiding your business, use the freshness of the season to start you off in the right direction.
Attracting proactive people isn’t easy, but it’s well worth the effort.
Every entrepreneur wants a talented, ambitious team. But finding, hiring and managing standout employees can be quite a challenge.
When Kevin Schaff started Thought Equity Motion six years ago, the idea was to sell pre-produced commercials made from stock video.
As the business evolved, however, it became clear that the emerging market opportunity was actually in licensing online video. Schaff, 35, decided to refocus the company on becoming the world’s largest repository of real time search, preview and online delivery for motion-based content. The industry “was fragmented,” says Schaff, who is also the company’s CEO. “We wanted to pull it all together.”
Today, Denver-based Thought Equity Motion works with content partners and clients including Paramount, National Geographic, the NCAA, Saturday Night Live, 30 Rock, and Mad Men. “You can’t watch T.V. for 30 minutes and not see our product,” Schaff says. The company’s sales exceed $15 million a year.
Does he ever wish he could hit the fast forward button during job interviews to see which applicants would be the best employees? “Oh yeah,” he says. “People are by far the most expensive mistake we make.”
Entrepreneurs Still Struggle With Hiring
Small businesses need ambitious employees who can take initiative to get the job done. And small employers now have an opportunity to upgrade their workforce since the number of available job candidates has grown.
There’s evidence that small employers are putting more emphasis on soft skills: 50 percent of small business owners in an October Intuit Payroll survey say they would rather hire a flexible “people person” or a “jack of all trades” instead of a highly-specialized “creative genius” or “math whiz.”
The recession also has employees rethinking what they want in a job. An August CareerBuilder report found nearly 60 percent of workers surveyed were interested to work for a small business, and 20 percent of workers laid off from fulltime jobs over the last year had found jobs at small businesses.
These numbers are compelling for two reasons, says Jason Ferrara, CareerBuilder’s vice president of corporate marketing. First, they show the relevance of small businesses in a poor economy. Second, they say something about job seekers. “Not everyone wants to work for a large, multi-national company,” Ferrara says.
The good news? Small employers have a very large, interested applicant pool at their fingertips. The bad news? Small business hiring is up only 1.9 percent so far this year while salaries are down 6.5 percent, according to data from online small business payroll company SurePayroll. Many small businesses have trimmed workweeks to avoid layoffs–something that’s not always a great selling point with the most sought-after applicants. “What we’re seeing right now is a very strong level of underemployment,” says SurePayroll President Michael Alter.
Ferrara still sees small employers struggling to define their “employment brand,” or the company’s purpose and the type of workers it needs, while grappling with a resume deluge. When small companies do pinpoint the very best applicants, they can fall short in selling them on future opportunities for advancement. “Large companies do a better job at this,” Ferrara says. “As an entrepreneur, you’re more concerned about communicating the financial [aspects] of the company.”
Attracting the Best and Brightest
Kara Goldin, founder and CEO of Hint, a San Francisco company that produces a line of naturally sweetened water products, says finding referrals is the ticket to attracting the best people in the recession. “If there’s a reference from somebody in the beverage industry who has worked with this person–or even a grocery chain that has worked with this person–it definitely helps,” says Goldin, whose company generates more than $1 million in sales annually.
Applicants have approached Hint with a great resume in hand, but Goldin, 42, still wants to know they’ve done their research. She remembers being impressed when Hint current head of sales contacted the company to say it was on his short list of desirable employers, and went on to explain why. “He’s terrific, and he could have gone to a lot of [companies],” she says. “He was really selling us on why he loved the product, and what he said made a ton of sense to us.”
Thought Equity has pulled its employees into the recruitment process by paying them a bonus for referring talented applicants who get hired. Encouraging employees to recruit their new coworkers has been very effective, says Schaff, who estimates 90 percent of the company’s new hires are coming to the company via referral.
The company still receives about 100 resumes every day–mainly from younger applicants. Jobs in technology and development can still be very tough to fill. The company must also constantly re-recruit its best employees as competitors try to upgrade their workforces. “Good people are always being recruited, and you always have to focus on making sure that you can retain them,” Schaff says.
Ultimately, attracting talented, self-directed employees requires great positioning, great messaging and a great understanding of what they want in a job. Financial incentives don’t hurt, either: Hint offers its 25 employees equity in the company, something Goldin sees as a big motivator for the most talented, ambitious employees.
Alter predicts Main Street’s recovery will be slow as small business owners get their existing employees back up to full employment plus overtime before they start hiring new people. Still, he’s encouraged that small business wages have been declining at a shallower pace in recent months. “This tells me that we’re hitting bottom, and as we start to hit bottom we will recover,” he says. “I just don’t see a big, robust recovery.”
Strong recovery or not, Goldin plans to increase Hint’s headcount in 2010. “As we open with stores across the country, we’ll definitely need salespeople to manage those accounts,” she says.
Exceptional talent is out there, provided entrepreneurs can sell them on the opportunity and turn them loose on the job. Says Ferrara: “You should be hiring people who are smarter than you.”
Chris Penttila is a freelance journalist whose work has also appeared in The Costco Connection, Oregon Business magazine, QSR Magazine, TheStreet.com and other publications. She lives in the Chapel Hill, NC, area and covers workplace issues on her blog, Workplacediva.blogspot.com.
Throughout history, most of the great achievements and incredible comebacks have been the result of an individual whose motivation to persevere was influenced by a coach or mentor. In science, art, politics, sports and business, there is a common thread of having been coached among those who achieve greatness. A coach doesn’t need to be a professional consultant or counselor. He or she could be someone within your organization or industry, or it could be someone from your personal life whom you respect or admire.
A study was undertaken on the Hawaiian island of Kauai by two researchers named Emily Werner and Ruth Smith. This study, which followed more than 450 people from childhood through their adult lives, was an attempt to learn why some people are motivated to overcome severe disadvantages while others from the same background seem to have been overwhelmed by their problems. This research continued for an incredible length of time: 40 years, to be exact.
According to the research, one of the most interesting qualities of these motivated individuals is their ability to recognize potential sources of support in other people, to look beyond the walls of their homes to find relatives, friends, teachers or other role models who can provide help. This very important finding illustrates the benefits of forming mentor relationships to encourage achievement.
Choosing a coach or mentor is like having an additional correctional device to keep you on target. An analogy of this premise comes from aerospace technology. Years ago, the military used inertial guidance systems on missiles. Unfortunately, once the course of an inertially guided missile is set, it proceeds along that path with no capability for adjustments. It’s like a bullet fired from a rifle. Even when the aim is good at the outset, if the target moves unexpectedly once the projectile is in flight, the shot is going to miss. And if there’s one thing you can count on in life, it’s that the target is going to be moving! In the Gulf War of 1992, the Patriot missile that defended Israel and Saudi Arabia was introduced. Unlike previous defenses, this system had an advanced self-adjusting navigation system that continuously monitored the missile’s trajectory as well as the path of its swiftly moving target. The Patriot was able to make whatever corrections were necessary, regardless of changes in the position or speed of its objective.
A highly motivated person uses a coach or mentor in the same way when he or she has targeted a worthwhile goal. A coach or mentor can assist you in making adjustments and navigating through difficult times.
Finding coaches and mentors is an important mission, and you will no doubt have several over the course of your life. It is critical that you choose them wisely. Your mentor is someone to whom you’ll be committing a great deal of time and attention, and who ideally will take a very focused interest in you as well.
A lot of people think leaders are born and not made. I disagree. I think you can become a better leader. I’m not a cook, but I’ve held many leadership positions. I thought this recipe for a leader sounded pretty good:
Have all ingredients at body temperature. Sift intelligence, ambition, and understanding together. Mix cooperation, initiative, and open-mindedness until dissolved. Add gradually ability, tactfulness and responsibility. Stir in positive attitude and judgment. Beat in patience until smooth. Blend all ingredients well. Sprinkle liberally with cheerfulness and bake in oven of determination. When absorbed thoroughly, cool and spread with kindness and common sense.
If that seems like a long list of ingredients, well, it is. But good leadership won’t happen if any of those items are missing.
I love to study leaders and the different ways they lead. If there ever was a need for great leadership in a company, that time is now. Taking an organization through a good economy is tough enough; when the going gets rough, the real leaders shine. Consider the challenges that faced these leaders.
The military presents many opportunities to observe leaders in action. For example, President and General Dwight Eisenhower used a simple device to illustrate the art of leadership. Laying an ordinary piece of string on a table, he’d illustrate how you could easily pull it in any direction. “However, try and push it,” he cautioned, “and it won’t go anywhere. It’s just that way when it comes to leading people.”
The Duke of Wellington, the British military leader who defeated Napoleon at Waterloo, was a great commander but a difficult man to serve under. He was a perfectionist and very demanding, who complimented his subordinates only on rare occasions. In retirement, Wellington was asked by a visitor what he would do differently if he had his life to live over again. The old Duke thought for a moment and then said, “I’d give people I worked with more praise.”
The famous general and Macedonian king Alexander the Great led by example. As he led an army across the desert, a soldier came up to him, knelt down, and offered him a helmet filled with precious water. “Is there enough there for 10,000 men?” asked Alexander. When the soldier shook his head, Alexander poured the water out on the desert sands, refusing to take even a sip.
My friend Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman of Carlson, wrote in her book How We Lead Matters, “The fact is that being a leader in any field requires discipline, effort, and yes, sacrifice. It can be all-consuming. And during that time, life may not have much balance. It’s been said, ‘If you can’t ride two horses at the same time, you should get out of the circus.’ A circus is not at all a bad analogy for the swirl of demands placed on leaders at the top.”
Leaders are not always popular. Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote in his book, My American Journey, “I learned … you cannot let the mission suffer, or make the majority pay to spare the feelings of an individual. I kept a saying under the glass of my desk at the Pentagon that made the point succinctly if inelegantly: ‘Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off.’”
Ken Blanchard once told me, “The key to successful leadership today is influence, not authority.”
“A business leader has to keep their organization focused on the mission,” says Meg Whitman, former CEO of Ebay. “That sounds easy, but it can be tremendously challenging in today’s competitive and ever-changing business environment. A leader also has to motivate potential partners to join.”
Leadership guru Warren Bennis spent several years researching leaders for his book “Why Leaders Can’t Lead.” He traveled around the country spending time with 90 of the most effective and successful leaders in the nation—60 from corporations and 30 from the public sector. His goal was to find these leaders’ common traits. At first, he had trouble pinpointing any common traits, for the leaders were more diverse than he had expected.
But he later wrote: “I was finally able to come to conclusions, of which perhaps the most important is the distinction between leaders and managers. Leaders are people who do the right thing; managers are people who do things right. Both roles are crucial, but they differ profoundly. I often observe people in top positions doing the wrong thing well.”
Mackay’s Moral: Good leaders inspire others with confidence in them. Great leaders inspire them with confidence in themsel
Everyone loves to eat but not everyone loves to cook or should. Cooking is a fine art of heart and soul. We can learn quiet a bit about a cook who painstaking prepares the table, the meal, creates a welcoming warm ambience for their quests. What main course is selected, is there a variety of vegetables colorfully displayed on the table, is the dessert fresh fruit or a wonderful airy pastry.
Good cooks evolve from lots of practice but a chef is an expert who uses their passion to create an amazing experience. Chefs use developed skills and instincts to use the right ingredients, knives and pans to help them deliver a masterpiece. The right knives to smooth, serrated and cut, a good chef knows exactly when to use the right tools, whether they are for slicing, cutting or spreading frosting on a cake.
Good managers develop skills much like a great chef. They learn to lead, inspire, motivate employees and create positive results. They know when and why to use each style. Managers gain an understanding about which skills they should use for various types of employees and situations. They learn that it is crucial to keep all their plates spinning in the air representing different responsibilities and challenges.
Great leaders must consistently find a new ways to motivate employees. Finding new and exciting motivation really is a trail and error experiment. What works for some may not work for others and what worked last year may no longer be that interesting. Managers look to the Internet for ideas and success stories to help them put together new incentive contests. Customer Service Week is just around the corner so, managers scramble for contests and prizes that will not break the bank. This year the trend is to provide the participant’s choice of incentive. No hassle of trying to make one incentive fit all. Managers and business owners also look to the Motivation Show in Chicago for the latest trends and ideas for the coming year. One thing to keep in mind is the use of an Incentives Broker who will scan the market for new incentives and do all the comparison shopping for you. Usually their is no upfront costs because their commission is built into their incentives.
Before it used to be that an admired leader was like a great painting: no one could define it, but everyone knew it was special when they saw it. Empathy, self-awareness and the ability to lead by continuing development of their staff is what separated a good leader from the rest.
How do you know when to use one style of management over another? Use what we know from Emotional Intelligence:
Ask your employees using open ended questions for broader responses
Observe your employees reaction to yours and your peer’s management styles
Challenge yourself over and over again looking for the right type of management styles. Keeping a diary of successes and failures
Ask a mentor and pay attention to what works for you and other departments
Experiment and take the plunge with new ideas. Test ideas on small groups before you launch your new project
Management up what are others in upper management doing in your division and others, is their a common theme?
As a manager, your top objective is to instill confidence in your company, your department and in your department’s services.
Recognition–not money–is the real motivator in a down economy.
Business owners need to ensure that their employees are productive and eager to do the best job possible–this is especially true during today’s challenging economic times. Yet every industry and every organization has people who simply do not produce work in the quality that they are capable of providing. That can create costly problems for a manager.
Leaders often miss the mark when trying to ramp up employee productivity. Let’s debunk some motivational myths.
1.Money motivates. Of course, if you pay some enough money, they will do almost any job. And when you give bonuses to reward past behavior, the recipients are usually very happy (unless they were expecting a larger bonus). The staff does a better job following the glow that accompanies added money.
However, studies find this happiness is short-lived. Within six months, individuals have difficulty recalling that bonus and it does not seem to have the same impact it did within the first few weeks or months of receiving it. That’s because money, in and of itself, will not continuously motivate individuals.
It’s the recognition and status that are the true motivators for the increased output. Take for example, the high tech salesperson who sold more product than anyone else in the department. The boss rewards that employee with a bonus. Everyone knows who the bonus recipient is, and she is proud of her accomplishments–the high earner gains recognition from colleagues and clients. Recognition and status are two key sources of motivation. So while money can serve to motivate, its effects are often short term at best.
What should you do? Set up situations that allow the employee to feel a sense of accomplishment. Employees respond most to opportunities for achievement, recognition, growth, job enrichment and job enlargement.
2. Just keep them happy. Employers often go to great lengths to keep their employees happy–some offer game rooms; others have phones with free long-distance access. The theory here is that if we can keep the employees happy during their break time, it will translate into increased motivation and productivity. Unfortunately, this is not very effective.
Employees actually enjoy their break times, look forward to them, and may even linger during them. But the satisfaction found during the break times does not necessarily translate into better or higher quality job performance.
3. Ignore Conflict. Few people, especially in the professional world, enjoy conflict. Most bosses and employees alike would rather “let something go” or “sweep it under the rug” than make an issue out of it. Too many managers are concerned about being liked that they don’t fulfill their responsibilities to catch problems quickly. Not addressing an employee’s problematic behavior doesn’t help any one.
4. Some people just aren’t motivated. This is a very common misconception. Everyone is motivated–but for different reasons. Walking through the offices, the manager may see someone playing computer games or sending personal email, this could be seen as the individual is not motivated because he’s not attending to the job tasks. But that may not be entirely correct. At that moment, the “aimless” employee is motivated, perhaps even highly motivated. But that motivation is not work directed, nor is it productive for the company.
The challenge here is for the leader to discover what actually motivates that employee and match up those elements with the worker’s job description. (This point also assumes that the employee is worth keeping.)
5. Smart employees don’t need to be motivated. Being “smart” carries an important cachet in American society. Everyone wants to have smart people working for them because these people are quick to learn, adapt and produce. Employers may erroneously believe that they don’t need to spend much time or attention on these staffers.
Unfortunately, intelligence and self-motivation do not necessarily go hand-in-hand. There are plenty of smart employees who haven’t been able to find out just what motivates them personally; they tend to get bored or frustrated easily. The result is a lack of interest and a lack of productivity.
So what does an employer do? A smart employer creates the atmosphere that allows and encourages the employee to be motivated. That employer also gets to know what his staff is interested in doing to advance company goals and what parts of the job description are interesting or exciting verses boring.
10 Quick Ways to Motivate
Praise the employee for a job well done–or even partially well done.
If an employee is bored, involve that individual in a discussion about ways to create a more satisfying career path, including promotions based on concrete outcomes.
State your clear expectations for task accomplishment.
Ensure that the job description involves a variety of tasks.
Ensure that the employee sees that what she’s doing impacts the whole process or task that others will also be part of.
Make sure that the employee feels that what he/she is doing is meaningful.
Provide feedback along the way, pointing out both positive and negative aspects.
Allow for an appropriate amount of autonomy for the employee based on previous and anticipated accomplishment.
Increase the depth and breadth of what the employee is currently doing.
Provide the employee with adequate opportunity to succeed.
David G. Javitch, Ph.D., is Entrepreneur.com’s “Employee Management” columnist and an organizational psychologist and president of Javitch Associates, an organizational consulting firm in Newton, Mass. With more than 20 years of experience working with executives in various industries, he’s an internationally recognized author, keynote speaker and consultant on key management and leadership issues.
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