The Power of Ordinary Practices

Published: September 20, 2006
Author: Michael Roberts

Teresa M. Amabile's research centers on how the work environment can influence the motivation, creativity, and performance of individuals and teams. A recent study focused on the influence of team leaders on these factors. Professor Amabile and New Business publisher Mike Roberts recently discussed her research.

New Business: Teresa, tell us about the general context of your research.

Teresa Amabile: With all the focus entrepreneurs and business executives place on strategy, they can lose sight of the people "in the trenches" who actually have to implement the strategy—the knowledge workers who are carrying out the work of the organization. In my research we look at how entrepreneurs and executives can think about the day-by-day management of those people in the trenches, since they determine, to a large extent, whether the strategy is going to work.

I believe that a focus on creativity is absolutely essential for current business success. I define creativity as producing novel, workable ideas and solutions to problems; innovation is implementing those ideas within an organizational context. You need novel and useful ideas at all stages of a process, from early idea generation up through successful implementation. I maintain that creativity is possible and desirable in all forms of work, no matter what people are doing. In particular, knowledge workers require creativity.

NB: Are there any popular misperceptions about creativity that you've identified?

Amabile: There are two myths in defining creativity. One is the genius myth—that creativity is tied to genius. To the contrary, I've found that although some people have extreme levels of talent, everyone with normal human capacities is capable of producing creative work under the right circumstances. The second is the trade-off myth. I have found over and over again that, for complex work in organizations, there is no trade-off between creativity and productivity, efficiency, or work quality.

NB: How does your research explore the factors that influence team creativity and performance?

Amabile: I had top management in seven companies identify teams working full-time on projects that demanded creativity. We ended up studying 238 professionals in 26 project teams in 7 companies in 3 different industries. They were highly educated—a vast majority with college degrees. Each team had a leader who worked directly on the project with the team. We collected daily diaries in order to understand everyone's day-by-day subjective experiences. We analyzed the connection between the daily events that people reported, their reactions to those events, and the effect of those reactions on their performance, including their creativity as a central aspect of performance.

NB: What did you find?

Amabile: There are three main points in the big picture. One, people have incredibly rich, intense, daily inner work lives; emotions, motivations, and perceptions about their work environment permeate their daily experience at work. Second, these feelings powerfully affect people's day-to-day performance. And third, those feelings, which are so important for performance, are powerfully influenced by particular daily events.
My guess is that a lot of leaders have very little sense of the impact that they have.

An example of the influence of these feelings on performance is my finding that if people are in a good mood on a given day, they're more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day. There seems to be a cognitive process that gets set up when people are feeling good that leads to more flexible, fluent, and original thinking, and there's actually a carryover, an incubation effect, to the next day.

NB: How do the leaders, the managers, affect this?

Amabile: The team leader's behavior is critical. I found that there are five leader behaviors that have a positive influence on people's feelings, and the daily diary method allowed us to identify these behaviors at a very granular level. One of these is supporting people emotionally. The second is monitoring people's work in a particularly positive way, and that has to do with giving them positive feedback on their work or giving them information that they need to do their work better. The third behavior is just plain recognizing people for good performance, particularly in public settings. The fourth is consulting with people on the team—that is, asking for their views, respecting their opinions, and acting on their needs and their wishes to the extent that it's possible. And the fifth category was a grab bag of things. But the most important aspect here was collaborating—that the team leader rolled up his or her sleeves and actually spent time collaborating with somebody on the work.

NB: And the negative behaviors?

Amabile: We found three leader behaviors that had negative impact. One was the under- or overspecification of assignments. Much of this has to do with giving people either too little guidance or too much guidance by overconstraining the assignment. The second one is monitoring in a negative form—that is, checking on assigned work too often or not often enough. Or, checking on it for too long, like hanging around and going too much into the details of what people are doing, and giving unconstructive feedback. The third negative has to do with problem solving—either avoiding solving problems that crop up in the team or the project, or creating problems.

NB: What is a vital lesson that leaders can take away from this?

Amabile: I believe it's important for leaders to understand the power of ordinary practices. Seemingly ordinary, trivial, mundane, day-by-day things that leaders do and say can have an enormous impact. My guess is that a lot of leaders have very little sense of the impact that they have. That's particularly true of the negative behaviors. I don't think that the ineffective team leaders we studied meant to anger or deflate the people who were working for them. They were trying to do a good job of leading their teams, but lacked an effective model for how to behave.

So, I would say sweat the small stuff, not only when you're dealing with your business strategy, but with the people whom you're trying to lead. I would encourage leaders, when they're about to have an interaction with somebody, to ask themselves: Might this thing I'm about to do or say become this person's "event of the day"? Will it have a positive or a negative effect on their feelings and on their performance today?
Electronic Diaries

For the research described in this article, Professor Amabile collected daily electronic diaries to try to understand the day-by-day subjective experiences of the workers, and how they were affected by the actions of their team leaders. Here are some samples from those diaries.
Leader behavior categories positively related to perceived leader support


Supporting-Positive had a significant positive relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Keeping team members informed about stressful issues
Jake called to pass along news of a pending organization change which has more positive implications than most of the rumors. I appreciated his call from vacation to let me know of this glimmer of bright light in the sea of uncertainty.

Absence of an expected negative or alteration of a negative pattern
[The product development] team finally agreed [to] postponing the [product] launch [in today's] conference call. […] This is good news, as we have […] been trying to convince them for the last few weeks that they were asking the impossible. [This is the first] time I have seen [the team leader] taking a stand. She has gone up considerably in my estimations!!

Monitoring-Positive had a significant positive relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Maintaining regular contact with and providing general guidance to subordinates
Received a call from Aaron [the team leader] who is in Italy. Just checking up on things and giving an encouraging word on progress and that we are doing the right things.

Recognizing-Positive had a significant positive relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support

Recognizing good performance in public
In a team meeting, Gene [the team leader] recognized me for work I did—this felt good and is a motivating factor for me.

Asking for team members' ideas and opinions
Seth [the team leader] asked for my opinion on a problem that he is facing. This, to me, is an encouraging sign of his enhanced trust in my technical ability.
Leader behavior categories negatively related to perceived leader support


Clarifying Roles and Objectives-Negative had a marginally significant negative relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Not providing enough clarity about an assignment
Greg [the team leader] assigned a project to me with nothing at all to go on and told me to get information on it. I didn't know where to start or even what he was talking about. Greg is soooo busy he couldn't explain anything about it to me.

Monitoring-Negative had a significant negative relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Checking on the status of assigned work too often
[My team leader] mentioned this morning that he wanted to review my presentation w/me sometime today—again—he needs to be in control!!

Providing nonconstructive negative feedback on work done
Frank's [the team leader's] e-mail to the team that the quality of the experiment documentation was ''poor'' upsets me a bit. Not sure who he directed his message to. I felt we, as a team, could've used a little more constructive criticism from him instead of being treated like a bunch of kids.

Problem Solving-Negative had a significant negative relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.
Creating problems I [agree] with [my team leader on] her issues but [we're] too far into the work to stop at this very instant. Stopping right now will send a bad message to [the vendor to whom we are outsourcing manufacturing], will delay momentum, and has no constructive value to progress (we are past the point of no return for this phase). Her issue is that the team did not get full alignment on the decision to sign [this vendor] on, and the team was not organized in planning the project. [I agree,] but to stop everything right now is counterproductive.

Reprinted with permission from "Sweat the Small Stuff," New Business Spring 2006.

The Power of Ordinary Practices

Published: September 20, 2006
Author: Michael Roberts

Teresa M. Amabile's research centers on how the work environment can influence the motivation, creativity, and performance of individuals and teams. A recent study focused on the influence of team leaders on these factors. Professor Amabile and New Business publisher Mike Roberts recently discussed her research.

New Business: Teresa, tell us about the general context of your research.

Teresa Amabile: With all the focus entrepreneurs and business executives place on strategy, they can lose sight of the people "in the trenches" who actually have to implement the strategy—the knowledge workers who are carrying out the work of the organization. In my research we look at how entrepreneurs and executives can think about the day-by-day management of those people in the trenches, since they determine, to a large extent, whether the strategy is going to work.

I believe that a focus on creativity is absolutely essential for current business success. I define creativity as producing novel, workable ideas and solutions to problems; innovation is implementing those ideas within an organizational context. You need novel and useful ideas at all stages of a process, from early idea generation up through successful implementation. I maintain that creativity is possible and desirable in all forms of work, no matter what people are doing. In particular, knowledge workers require creativity.

NB: Are there any popular misperceptions about creativity that you've identified?

Amabile: There are two myths in defining creativity. One is the genius myth—that creativity is tied to genius. To the contrary, I've found that although some people have extreme levels of talent, everyone with normal human capacities is capable of producing creative work under the right circumstances. The second is the trade-off myth. I have found over and over again that, for complex work in organizations, there is no trade-off between creativity and productivity, efficiency, or work quality.

NB: How does your research explore the factors that influence team creativity and performance?

Amabile: I had top management in seven companies identify teams working full-time on projects that demanded creativity. We ended up studying 238 professionals in 26 project teams in 7 companies in 3 different industries. They were highly educated—a vast majority with college degrees. Each team had a leader who worked directly on the project with the team. We collected daily diaries in order to understand everyone's day-by-day subjective experiences. We analyzed the connection between the daily events that people reported, their reactions to those events, and the effect of those reactions on their performance, including their creativity as a central aspect of performance.

NB: What did you find?

Amabile: There are three main points in the big picture. One, people have incredibly rich, intense, daily inner work lives; emotions, motivations, and perceptions about their work environment permeate their daily experience at work. Second, these feelings powerfully affect people's day-to-day performance. And third, those feelings, which are so important for performance, are powerfully influenced by particular daily events.
My guess is that a lot of leaders have very little sense of the impact that they have.

An example of the influence of these feelings on performance is my finding that if people are in a good mood on a given day, they're more likely to have creative ideas that day, as well as the next day, even if we take into account their mood that next day. There seems to be a cognitive process that gets set up when people are feeling good that leads to more flexible, fluent, and original thinking, and there's actually a carryover, an incubation effect, to the next day.

NB: How do the leaders, the managers, affect this?

Amabile: The team leader's behavior is critical. I found that there are five leader behaviors that have a positive influence on people's feelings, and the daily diary method allowed us to identify these behaviors at a very granular level. One of these is supporting people emotionally. The second is monitoring people's work in a particularly positive way, and that has to do with giving them positive feedback on their work or giving them information that they need to do their work better. The third behavior is just plain recognizing people for good performance, particularly in public settings. The fourth is consulting with people on the team—that is, asking for their views, respecting their opinions, and acting on their needs and their wishes to the extent that it's possible. And the fifth category was a grab bag of things. But the most important aspect here was collaborating—that the team leader rolled up his or her sleeves and actually spent time collaborating with somebody on the work.

NB: And the negative behaviors?

Amabile: We found three leader behaviors that had negative impact. One was the under- or overspecification of assignments. Much of this has to do with giving people either too little guidance or too much guidance by overconstraining the assignment. The second one is monitoring in a negative form—that is, checking on assigned work too often or not often enough. Or, checking on it for too long, like hanging around and going too much into the details of what people are doing, and giving unconstructive feedback. The third negative has to do with problem solving—either avoiding solving problems that crop up in the team or the project, or creating problems.

NB: What is a vital lesson that leaders can take away from this?

Amabile: I believe it's important for leaders to understand the power of ordinary practices. Seemingly ordinary, trivial, mundane, day-by-day things that leaders do and say can have an enormous impact. My guess is that a lot of leaders have very little sense of the impact that they have. That's particularly true of the negative behaviors. I don't think that the ineffective team leaders we studied meant to anger or deflate the people who were working for them. They were trying to do a good job of leading their teams, but lacked an effective model for how to behave.

So, I would say sweat the small stuff, not only when you're dealing with your business strategy, but with the people whom you're trying to lead. I would encourage leaders, when they're about to have an interaction with somebody, to ask themselves: Might this thing I'm about to do or say become this person's "event of the day"? Will it have a positive or a negative effect on their feelings and on their performance today?
Electronic Diaries

For the research described in this article, Professor Amabile collected daily electronic diaries to try to understand the day-by-day subjective experiences of the workers, and how they were affected by the actions of their team leaders. Here are some samples from those diaries.
Leader behavior categories positively related to perceived leader support


Supporting-Positive had a significant positive relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Keeping team members informed about stressful issues
Jake called to pass along news of a pending organization change which has more positive implications than most of the rumors. I appreciated his call from vacation to let me know of this glimmer of bright light in the sea of uncertainty.

Absence of an expected negative or alteration of a negative pattern
[The product development] team finally agreed [to] postponing the [product] launch [in today's] conference call. […] This is good news, as we have […] been trying to convince them for the last few weeks that they were asking the impossible. [This is the first] time I have seen [the team leader] taking a stand. She has gone up considerably in my estimations!!

Monitoring-Positive had a significant positive relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Maintaining regular contact with and providing general guidance to subordinates
Received a call from Aaron [the team leader] who is in Italy. Just checking up on things and giving an encouraging word on progress and that we are doing the right things.

Recognizing-Positive had a significant positive relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support

Recognizing good performance in public
In a team meeting, Gene [the team leader] recognized me for work I did—this felt good and is a motivating factor for me.

Asking for team members' ideas and opinions
Seth [the team leader] asked for my opinion on a problem that he is facing. This, to me, is an encouraging sign of his enhanced trust in my technical ability.
Leader behavior categories negatively related to perceived leader support


Clarifying Roles and Objectives-Negative had a marginally significant negative relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Not providing enough clarity about an assignment
Greg [the team leader] assigned a project to me with nothing at all to go on and told me to get information on it. I didn't know where to start or even what he was talking about. Greg is soooo busy he couldn't explain anything about it to me.

Monitoring-Negative had a significant negative relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.

Checking on the status of assigned work too often
[My team leader] mentioned this morning that he wanted to review my presentation w/me sometime today—again—he needs to be in control!!

Providing nonconstructive negative feedback on work done
Frank's [the team leader's] e-mail to the team that the quality of the experiment documentation was ''poor'' upsets me a bit. Not sure who he directed his message to. I felt we, as a team, could've used a little more constructive criticism from him instead of being treated like a bunch of kids.

Problem Solving-Negative had a significant negative relationship with subordinate ratings of leader support.
Creating problems I [agree] with [my team leader on] her issues but [we're] too far into the work to stop at this very instant. Stopping right now will send a bad message to [the vendor to whom we are outsourcing manufacturing], will delay momentum, and has no constructive value to progress (we are past the point of no return for this phase). Her issue is that the team did not get full alignment on the decision to sign [this vendor] on, and the team was not organized in planning the project. [I agree,] but to stop everything right now is counterproductive.

Reprinted with permission from "Sweat the Small Stuff," New Business Spring 2006.

A Toolkit for Customer Innovation

Authors: Stefan Thomke and Eric Von Hippel


"Listen carefully to what your customers want and then respond with new products that meet or exceed their needs." That mantra has dominated many a business, and it has undoubtedly led to great products and has even shaped entire industries. But slavishly obeying that conventional wisdom can also threaten a company's ability to compete.

The difficulty is that fully understanding customers' needs is often a costly and inexact process. Even when customers know precisely what they want, they often cannot transfer that information to manufacturers clearly or completely. Today, as the pace of change in many markets accelerates and as some industries move toward serving "markets of one," the cost of understanding and responding to customers' needs can easily spiral out of control.

In the course of studying product innovation across many industries, we have discovered that a number of companies have adopted an intriguing approach, which at first seems counterintuitive. Essentially, these companies have abandoned their efforts to understand exactly what products their customers want and have instead equipped them with tools to design and develop their own products, ranging from minor modifications to major new innovations. The user-friendly tools, often integrated into a package we call a "tool kit for customer innovation," deploy new technologies like computer simulation and rapid prototyping to make product development faster and less expensive.

A variety of industries use this approach. Bush Boake Allen (BBA), a global supplier of specialty flavors to companies like Nestlé, has built a tool kit that enables its customers to develop their own flavors, which BBA then manufactures. In the materials field, GE provides customers with Web-based tools for designing better plastic products. In software, a number of companies let people add custom-designed modules to their standard products and then commercialize the best of those components. Open-source software allows users to design, build, distribute, and support their own programs—no manufacturer required. Indeed, the trend toward customers as innovators has the power to completely transform industries. In the semiconductor business, it has led to a custom-chip market that has grown to more than $15 billion.
The business challenges of implementing a tool kit can be daunting
— Stefan Thomke and Eric von Hippel

Tapping into customer innovation can certainly generate tremendous value, but capturing that value is hardly a simple or straightforward process. Not only must companies develop the right tool kit, they must also revamp their business models as well as their management mind-sets. When companies relinquish a fundamental task—such as designing a new product—to customers, the two parties must redefine their relationship, and this change can be risky. With custom computer chips, for instance, companies traditionally captured value by both designing and manufacturing innovative products. Now, with customers taking over more of the design task, companies must focus more intently on providing the best custom manufacturing. In other words, the location where value is both created and captured changes, and companies must reconfigure their business models accordingly. In this article, we offer some basic principles and lessons for industries undergoing such a transformation.
A costly problem, a radical solution

In a nutshell, product development is often difficult because the "need" information (what the customer wants) resides with the customer, and the "solution" information (how to satisfy those needs) lies with the manufacturer. Traditionally, the onus has been on manufacturers to collect the need information through various means, including market research and information gathered from the field. The process can be costly and time-consuming because customer needs are often complex, subtle, and fast changing. Frequently, customers don't fully understand their needs until they try out prototypes to explore exactly what does, and doesn't, work (referred to as "learning by doing").

Not surprisingly, traditional product development is a drawn-out process of trial and error, often ping-ponging between manufacturer and customer. First, the manufacturer develops a prototype based on information from customers that is incomplete and only partially correct. The customer then tries out the product, finds flaws, and requests corrections. The cycle repeats until a satisfactory solution is reached, often requiring many costly and time-consuming iterations.

To appreciate the extent of the difficulty, consider product development at BBA (now International Flavors and Fragrances). In this industry, specialty flavors are created to bolster and enhance the taste of nearly all processed foods because manufacturing techniques weaken the real flavors. The development of those added flavors requires a high degree of customization and expertise, and the practice remains more an art than a science.

A traditional product development project at BBA might progress in the following way: A customer requests a meaty flavor for a soy product, and the sample must be delivered within a week. BBA marketing professionals and flavorists jump into action, and the sample is shipped in six days. A frustrating three weeks ensue until the client responds with, "It's good, but we need it less smoky and more gutsy." The client knows precisely what that means, but BBA flavorists find the request difficult to interpret. The result is more frenzied activity as BBA struggles to adjust the flavor in a couple days. Depending on the product, BBA and the client could go back and forth for several more iterations. This represents a huge problem because clients often expect BBA to get the flavor right the first time, or within two or three iterations.

To make matters worse, BBA bears most of the development risk. The company collects revenue only after both the client and consumers are fully satisfied. R&D expenses could be just $1,000 for tweaking an existing flavor, but they could go as high as $300,000 for an entirely new family of flavors that require not only chemists and flavorists but also sales, marketing, regulatory, and quality control expertise. On average, the client eventually accepts only 15% of all new flavors for full market evaluation, and only 5% to 10% make their way to the marketplace. Meanwhile, margins in the flavor industry have been falling because of increased competition and cost pressures from customers.

In response, BBA's CEO Julian Boyden and VP of Technology John Wright investigated the option of shifting more innovation activities to customers. The company developed an Internet-based tool containing a large database of flavor profiles. A customer can select and manipulate that information on a computer screen and send his new design directly to an automated machine (perhaps located at the customer site) that will manufacture a sample within minutes. After tasting the sample, the customer can make any adjustments that are needed. If the flavor is too salty, for instance, he can easily tweak that parameter on the profile and have the machine immediately produce another sample.

It is important to note that outsourcing product development to customers does not eliminate learning by doing—nor should it. What it does is make traditional product development better and faster—for two reasons. First, a company can bypass the expensive and error-prone effort to understand customer needs in detail. Second, the trial-and-error cycles that inevitably occur during product development can progress much more quickly because the iterations will be performed solely by the customer.

But developing the right tool kit for customers is hardly a simple matter. Specifically, tool kits must provide four important capabilities. First and most important, they must enable people to complete a series of design cycles followed by learning by doing. Computer simulation, for example, allows customers to quickly try out ideas and design alternatives without having to manufacture the actual products. When the simulation technology lacks the desired accuracy, it can be supplemented with rapid prototyping methods. Second, tool kits must be user-friendly. They should not require customers to learn an entirely new design language. (Flavorists, for example, think in terms of formulations and chemical compounds, whereas customers think of tastes such as smoky, sweet, fresh, and so on.) Third, they must contain libraries of useful components and modules that have been pretested and debugged. These save customers from having to reinvent the wheel. Instead, people can focus their efforts on the truly novel elements of their design. Fourth, tool kits must contain information about the capabilities and limitations of the production process that will be used to manufacture the product. This will ensure that a customer's design will in fact be producible.

See Related Articles
Customers as Innovators

Five Steps for Turning Customers into Innovators:

Develop a user-friendly tool kit for customers. The tool kit must enable customers to run repeated trial-and-error experiments and tests rapidly and efficiently. The technology should let customers work in a familiar design language, making it cheaper for customers to adopt your tool kit. The tool kit should include a library of standard design modules so customers can create complex custom designs rapidly. The technology should be adapted to your production processes so that customer designs can be sent directly to your manufacturing operations without extensive tailoring.

Increase the flexibility of your production processes. Your manufacturing operations should be retooled for fast, low-cost production of specialized designs developed by customers.

Carefully select the first customers to use the tool kit. The best prospects are customers that have a strong need for developing custom products quickly and frequently, have skilled engineers on staff, and have little experience with traditional customization services. These customers will likely stick with you when you are working out the system's bugs.

Evolve your tool kit continually and rapidly to satisfy your leading-edge customers. Customers at the forefront of technology will always push for improvements in your tool kit. Investments in such advancements will likely pay off, because many of your customers will need tomorrow what leading-edge customers desire today.

Adapt your business practices accordingly. Outsourcing product development to customers will require you to revamp your business models to profit from the shift. The change might, for instance, make it economically feasible for you to work with smaller, low-volume customers. Tool kits will fundamentally change your relationship with customers. Intense person-to-person contact during product development will, for example, be replaced by computer-to-computer interactions. Prepare for these changes by implementing incentives to reduce resistance from your employees.

A Leadership Development Checklist

by Jeffrey M. Cohn, Rakesh Khurana, and Laura Reeves

To grow great leaders, companies should do the following:

Launch a formal, high-level succession-planning conference for senior executives facilitated by corporate HR and outside experts; outline the leadership development process; and cascade it through the company.

Create leadership development programs that fill holes in your company's talent portfolio to ensure a deep bench for critical positions in the firm.

Let HR create tools and facilitate their use, but require the business units to own the leadership development activities.

Have the board oversee all leadership development initiatives, and insist on continual communication by CEOs and other senior managers on their commitment to leadership development.

Reshuffle rising stars throughout the company, taking care that A players are exchanged for other A players.

Make sure that your leadership development program is aligned with your strategy, reinforces your company's brand, and has support from your employees.

The Hallmarks of Enduring Success

Here are highlights of research on successful people done by Howard Stevenson and Laura Nash.

What do successful people have in common? They:

Seize opportunity as life presents it
Avoid regret
Enjoy the here and now


The four satisfactions of enduring success:
Achievement
Happiness
Significance
Legacy

When success proves elusive, look for:

A mismatch between your values, goals, beliefs and achievements
Too great a dependency on just one strength
Strengths that don't satisfy your emotional needs
Placing activities in the wrong domain

The Seven Things You Need to Know

by Michael E. Porter, Jay W. Lorsch, and Nitin Nohria

Most new chief executives are taken aback by the unexpected and unfamiliar new roles, the time and information limitations, and the altered professional relationships they run up against. Here are the common surprises new CEOs face, and here's how to tell when adjustments are necessary.

Surprise One: You Can't Run the Company
warning signs:
You are in too many meetings and involved in too many tactical discussions.
There are too many days when you feel as though you have lost control over your time.

Surprise Two: Giving Orders Is Very Costly
warning signs:
You have become the bottleneck.
Employees are overly inclined to consult you before they act.
People start using your name to endorse things, as in, "Frank says…"

Surprise Three: It Is Hard to Know What Is Really Going On
warning signs:
You keep hearing things that surprise you.
You learn about events after the fact.
You hear concerns and dissenting views through the grapevine rather than directly.

Surprise Four: You Are Always Sending a Message
warning signs:
Employees circulate stories about your behavior that magnify or distort reality.
People around you act in ways that indicate they're trying to anticipate your likes and dislikes.

Surprise Five: You Are Not the Boss
warning signs:
You don't know where you stand with board members.
Roles and responsibilities of the board members and of management are not clear.
The discussions in board meetings are limited mostly to reporting on results and management's decisions.

Surprise Six: Pleasing Shareholders Is Not the Goal
warning signs:
Executives and board members judge actions by their effect on stock price.
Analysts who don't understand the business push for decisions that risk the health of the company.
Management incentives are disproportionately tied to stock price.

Surprise Seven: You Are Still Only Human
warning signs:
You give interviews about you rather than about the company.
Your lifestyle is more lavish or privileged than that of other top executives in the company.
You have few if any activities not connected to the company.

PEEK INSIDE THE HEADS OF AMAZINGLY SUCCESSFUL LEADERS

Leadership Skills & Styles
By Michael Mercer, Ph.D.
Jul 11, 2006, 16:08



Would you like to know what really goes on inside the heads of astoundingly successful leaders? Here is your chance. Part of the research for my book Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change™ involved highly successful executives filling-out my Abilities & Behavior Forecaster™ pre-employment test.

Each of the executives I tested had planned and implemented organizational change resulting in $10-million - $1-billion in profit improvement. They hail from America’s best-run companies, including IBM, VF Corporation, Intuit, Ritz-Carlton, Outback Steakhouse, Campbell Soup, Excell Global Services, Robert Mondavi Corporation, and more. In other words, you will discover what the best-of-the-best leaders at top-notch companies really are like.

Optimism Fuels the Leader’s Success

Pessimism never won any battle.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

My research revealed the fact that absolutely fabulous leaders are incredibly optimistic people. These leaders consistently scored high on the Forecaster™ test’s Optimism scale.

This prompts the question: What is an optimist?

In a book and audio-book I co-authored, “Spontaneous Optimism®: Proven Strategies for Health, Prosperity & Happiness”, my co-author and I defined an optimist as someone who overwhelmingly
1. focuses on solutions, not problems
2. possesses a compelling vision for an exciting life
3. spends most of his or her time working on goals to achieve
the vision
4. persists
5. takes total self-responsibility for personal successes and failures

For example, Leonardo Inghilleri, senior vice president at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, emphatically told me:

"Optimism is absolutely significant. I’m an optimist in life -- both my professional and personal life. You have to be positive. Nothing positive is created through negative thinking."

"Starting when I was a teenager, I always have had a personal mission statement to help me in my life. It helps me know where I’m going even when I am challenged."

Or, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm."

Highly Creative
In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.
-- Coco Chanel

Results on my Abilities & Behavior Forecaster™ tests show that absolutely fabulous leaders are extremely creative. On the Forecaster™ tests, the leaders’ scores show a classic pattern for creative people: Specifically, they typically score both
+ low on the Following Rules scale
+ high on the Creativity Motivation scale

If you think about this, it makes perfect sense. After all, what is creativity? It is not always following all the rules, as shown in the leaders’ low score on the Forecaster™ test’s Following Rules scale.

But, that is not enough. On top of that, these leaders also feel strongly motivated or enthused to do creative work. This is evidenced in their high score on Creativity Motivation. When you combine creative thinking with motivation to actually do innovative work, you wind up with the
hallmarks of intensely creative people. Indeed, absolutely fabulous leaders certainly excel at conjuring up innovative, yet practical, solutions to propel their companies to vastly boost profits.

In fact, a chief reason for high-level success in business and in life is a person’s ability to continually create desirable opportunities. General Douglas MacArthur summed this up when he pointed out, “There is no security in this life. There is only opportunity.”

Tremendous Brainpower
To the dull mind, all of nature is leaden.
To the illuminated mind, the whole world sparkles with light.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Absolutely fabulous leaders usually are very, very smart people. This was verified in their scores on the Abilities & Behavior Forecaster™ tests. Specifically, these amazing leaders scored amazingly high on the Forecaster™ test’s Problem-Solving scale. This scale measures a person’s general level of intelligence or overall brainpower. The successful leaders also scored high on three other Forecaster™ test scales of mental abilities, namely, Vocabulary, Arithmetic, and Grammar.

What does this mean for you?
For starters, if you are a bright person, use your brains! If you have average intelligence, then do everything you can to boost your brainpower.

Take advantage of this old saying, “Use it or lose it.” First, read books and articles to expand your mental horizons. Second, find absolutely fabulous leaders to be your role models. Carefully observe how they think through situations. Third, get the nutrition and rest you need to use your brain at its peak potential. Fourth, practice thinking through situations, and discuss your ideas with highly successful people who will help you sharpen your thinking. Overall, make sharp thinking into your habit.

What’s in Your Head?
Now, you have the opportunity to examine yourself. How do you stack up compared to incredibly accomplished leaders? What precisely is your own level of optimism, creativity, and intelligent thinking? By peeking into the heads of magnificent leaders, you can use them as your role models when you decide how to improve what is inside your head.

© Copyright 2006 Michael Mercer, Ph.D.


Michael Mercer, Ph.D., is America’s Hire the Best Expert™. Many companies use pre-employment tests he created -- “Abilities & Behavior Forecaster™” Tests – and his “7-Step Method to Hire the Best”™. Dr. Mercer authored 5 books, including, "Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change™", "Hire the Best -- & Avoid the Rest™" and also "Turning Your Human Resources Department into a Profit Center™." You can (a) get a free subscription to his e-Newsletter at
http://www.Pre-EmploymentTests.com
or (b) call to talk with Dr. Mercer at (847) 382-0690

5 Actions to Lead Highly Profitable Organizational Change

Leadership Skills & Styles
By Michael Mercer, Ph.D.
Jul 25, 2006, 15:54

As I consult to executives and managers at many companies, I discovered highly profitable organizational change requires three key ingredients:

Successfully
1. Leading the organizational change
2. Handling employee problems during change
3. Managing yourself as you lead organizational change

If any ingredient is handled poorly, then the change inevitably fails to achieve the profitable results.

Some of America’s best-run companies used my 3-ingredient model to produce hugely profitable organizational change. These organizations include IBM, Intuit, Egghead.com, Harley-Davidson, City of Indianapolis, Robert Mondavi Corporation, Outback Steakhouse, Ritz-Carlton, VF Corporation, and Washington Mutual. This is described in my book, Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change.

Let’s delve into the first ingredient. Successfully leading profitable organizational change requires five actions.

Action 1: Make Sure Your Organizational Change Fits into Your Corporate Culture

The only organizational changes that succeed are those that fit into the company’s culture! Brilliant plans that do not fit into your organizational culture will not achieve bottom line results!!

What is an organization’s culture? It is the actions and values the organization cherishes.

How do you uncover your organization’s culture? I devised a quick method to pinpoint any company’s culture: The culture is conveyed by the story every employee knows, tells, and retells. Usually, the story involves the company’s founder.

An example using my story = culture works was told to me by Brooks Fisher, the executive who started Intuit’s flourishing Internet business. This “Follow Me Home” story conveys Intuit’s corporate culture:

Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, was so focused on understanding and fulfilling the customers’ needs that he invented “Follow Me Home.” He would go to a store where Intuit’s software was being sold. Then, while a customer was buying Intuit software, he would ask if he could follow the customer home. At the home, he would watch how the customer installed and used the software.

Fisher says the story expresses Intuit’s culture of “The customer always is first.” Importantly, Intuit’s Internet business fosters an ultimate “Follow Me Home” link between Intuit and its customers. Why? At Intuit’s site, the company sees which financial products and services each customer examines and buys.

Action 2: Creating A Big, Exciting Vision

A company’s vision is not its puffy, cliché-filled “mission statement.” Instead, its vision is a huge, super-compelling goal the organization aims to accomplish.

Examples:
Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s vision:
Our key goal is to be the premier worldwide provider of luxury travel and hospitality products and services.

Robert Mondavi Corporation’s vision:
Our key goal is to be the world’s preeminent fine wine producer.
Those are fantastic visions. They enthusiastically divulge what the company’s executives and employees work toward every day. That helps explain why these companies produced incredibly profitable organizational change.

Action 3: Goal-Setting

Goal-setting provides steps to build the staircase leading to profitable organizational change. Productive employees require measurable targets with deadline dates. As Henry David Thoreau wisely remarked, “In the long run, people hit only what they aim at. Therefore, they had better aim at something high.”

How do executives leading organizational change get employees to use teamwork plus interdepartmental collaboration? Here is an example.

At Egghead.com, president and COO Jeffrey Sheahan and CEO Jerry Kaplan cleverly package four weekly activities to assure teamwork and goal achievement.

Tuesday, Lunch Meeting of Egghead’s Top 5 Executives. This meeting focuses on strategy.

Tuesday - Weekly Key Data Pack. Each manager submits a “5 - 15 Report.” This report takes a manager 15 minutes to write, and it takes Sheahan 5 minutes to read. Each “5 - 15 Report” details how the manager is progressing on measurable goals.

Friday morning - Senior Staff Meeting. Participants are all middle managers who report to Egghead’s top five executives. Each one announces how he or she is doing at achieving the measurable goals.

Friday - 3:30 - 3:50 p.m. - “Social”. All employees meet for a 20-minute stand-up meeting. People publicly praise employees who accomplished wonderful things.

Action 5: Lots of Celebrations

In all organizations, team members emotionally “bond” and feel thrilled to collaborate when they celebrate big successes.
For example, IBM’s Accounts Payable organization carried out a gigantic organizational change that saved $1-billion in three years. Each key success during the change immediately was followed by a celebration of everyone involved. Each celebration added fuel to the team’s enthusiasm to create hugely profitable enhancements.

Celebrations included:
1. giving project member a high-quality e-business shirt at a party

2. at another party -- with disk jockey and karaoke -- cartoon caricaturists drew each employee’s face onto a mock-up cover of Electronic Commerce magazine --
which employees proudly hung in their offices

Celebrations, special clothing and custom items give team members visible symbols proving they belong to a special group of high-achievers.

Your Call to Action

This article revealed five actions used by leaders of highly profitable organizational change. This is not all! These outstanding leaders also used the other two ingredients of my 3-ingredient method: (a) managing employees who resist --or undermine -- organizational change and (b) being a superb role-model for their employees.
Now, you have “inside information” on one key ingredient to help you lead absolutely fabulous organizational change™.

Copyright 2006 Michael Mercer, Ph.D.

Michael Mercer, Ph.D., is a nationally-renowned speaker, author, and pre-employment testing expert. This article is based on part of his 5th book, Absolutely Fabulous Organizational Change™: Strategies for Success in America’s Best-Run Companies. Another book Dr. Mercer authored is Hire the Best -- & Avoid the Rest™. Pre-employment tests he created are used by companies to help them hire profitable, productive employees. His 50 speeches each year combine readily useful management techniques with an entertaining speaking style. You can contact Dr. Mercer at phone = 847-382-0690 or get a free subscription to his Management Newsletter at http://www.DrMercer.com

7 HORRIBLE HIRING MISTAKES

Pre-Employment Tests, Interview Skills & Hiring
By Michael Mercer, Ph.D.
Sep 28, 2006, 13:29


You need to hire the best employees. You undoubtedly hired some employees who were losers.

Oops! Well, let’s be more diplomatic. Let’s just say you hired some “underachievers” you would have been better without.

Or maybe you have the curse of hiring only “average” employees – people who are average in productivity and average in producing profits.

Question: Who wants to hire “average” (or “below average”) employees?

Answer: No one!

To hire the best, you need to avoid the problems that plagued your previous hiring decisions. So, let me reveal seven horrible hiring blunders or mistakes you may have made.

1st Horrible Mistake: = Interviewers typically do a lousy job at predicting job success.

This is a proven fact, verified by a lot of research. Statistically, most interviewers do about as well as flipping a coin!



2nd Horrible Mistake = Reference checks fail to tell you what you really need to know.

Most employers are so freaked out about giving reference checks that they tell you nothing or barely anything useful about how an applicant performed on-the-job. Another way to put that is most reference checks are about as non-useful as simultaneously (a) flipping a coin while (b) rubbing a rabbit’s foot!!



3rd Horrible Mistake: You relied on your “gut feel” or “intuition” & you were W-R-O-N-G.

Later, as you moaned about the mistake you made by hiring the wrong person, you asked yourself, “I knew what I was feeling. But, what was I thinking?”



4th Horrible Mistake: You used subjective prediction methods to make hiring decisions.

For example, you relied on subjective interviews, subjective reference checks, or subjective “impressions “ of the applicant. Wow! Were you ever off-base. And then you and your company needed to pay for your incorrect hiring decisions. That is expensive, time-consuming, and frustrating.



5th Horrible Mistake: You used NO objective AND customized prediction method.

Important: Research shows pre-employment tests are the most objective method to make predictions. But, make sure you use a test customized for specific jobs in your company!

If you have not used tests customized for specific jobs in your company, then you really have missed out on the most objective and customized prediction method you could use.



6th Horrible Mistake: You [stupidly] told the applicant what you were looking for!!

Then, lo-&-behold, the applicant spent your entire interview telling you s/he just

happens to possess all the skills, talents and qualities you – stupidly – told the applicant you want in an employee.



For example, let’s say you – stupidly – told the applicant you need to hire an employee who excels at teamwork, customer-service, and correctly handling small details. I bet I can predict what that applicant told you in the interview: The applicant told you – with a serious yet pleasant expression – that s/he excels at teamwork, customer-service, and correctly handling small details.

And then, when you hired the person who gave you all the answers you – stupidly – told the applicant you want, you pay the price of having an employee who may not REALLY be talented at teamwork, customer-service, or handling small details. You got fooled – and you have only yourself to blame.



7th Horrible Mistake: You terribly harm any person you should not have hired.

Let’s be humanistic about it. If you hire the wrong person, the applicant also loses. People crave to work in a job where they will do well and enjoy it. People hate a job where they will perform only average or below average, and not enjoy the work. So, you actually benefit the applicant you carefully evaluated using customized, objective hiring methods.



Summary: When you hire . . .

1. high-achieving “superstar” employees, both you and your company win.

2. underachieving employees, (a) you lose and (b) your company loses.



So, make sure you use customized and objective prediction methods, like pre-employment tests, biodata and more, to make sure you hire employees who are (a) productive, (b) profitable, and (c) low turnover.



Copyright 2006 Michael Mercer, Ph.D.



Michael Mercer, Ph.D., is nationally recognized as America’s Hire the Best Expert™. Dr. Mercer created widely used pre-employment tests – Abilities & Behavior Forecaster™ Tests – which many companies use to evaluate job applicants. He also invented the groundbreaking “7-Step Method to Hire the Best™.” His 5 books include “Hire the Best -- & Avoid the Rest™” & “Turning Your Human Resources Department into a Profit Center™.” Get his free 14-page Special Report on “Hiring Productive, Profitable, & Honest Employees”, plus a free subscription to his Management Newsletter at
http://www.Pre-EmploymentTests.com

The Key to Hiring Right

What's the key to finding the right team? Hire people with a passion for your mission. By Robert Kiyosaki
Entrepreneur Magazine - May 2006

Entrepreneurs often ask me, "How do I find the right people?" Often my reply is, "First, get rid of the wrong people."

One of your toughest and most important jobs is putting the right team of people together. A friend of mine faced this challenge a year ago--his business had grown quickly but was stagnating. He had brought in a new CEO and CFO, yet sales stayed down and the staff was lethargic. When he asked me what I thought was wrong, I replied, "You hired the wrong people. They're smart and come with excellent business pedigrees, but they're used to the corporate world, not the world of entrepreneurs. More important, they're here for the paycheck, not for your mission. I recommend you let them go."

"I can't do that," my friend said. "I paid a fortune to the headhunting firm to hire and relocate them. And I would have to buy out their contracts. Any other ideas?"

"Sure," I replied. "If you can't fire them and make changes, maybe you're the wrong person in this company."

Years ago, my rich dad told me, "Hire people who are mission-driven--people who share your vision. If you don't, your business will struggle, or may never even get off the ground." He also said, "Big business can afford to hire managers and employees. Entrepreneurs need to hire missionaries."

One of the reasons Steve Jobs is the entrepreneur of the era is because he has missionaries inside his company as well as outside--Apple Computer's customers are missionaries, too. Jobs is successful because he is true to his personal mission and demands the same from his staff. Jobs' mission is at the core of Apple Computer.

I told my friend he was the wrong person simply because he and his staff only paid lip service to the company mission. I reminded him: "Mission comes from the heart, not just the mouth."

The word courage is derived from the French words le coeur, meaning the heart. It is unfortunate that my friend is brilliant in mind, eloquent of tongue, yet weak at heart. Today, the same CEO and CFO are still there. Sales, energy and morale continue to decline. The company is rotting at the core.

When I asked my rich dad for further clarification on hiring people with a passion for your mission, he simply laughed and said, "If you own a butcher shop, don't hire vegetarians."
Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad series of books, is an investor, entrepreneur and educator whose perspectives have changed the way people think about money and investing.

Originally published in the May 2006 issue of Entrepreneur Magazine

The Champion Within

Positive Discipline for Your Elementary Age Child by Dr. Denis Waitley and Dr. Maryann Rosenthal

Teaching our children right from wrong requires disciplining with love, and relying more on influence and rewards than on power and control. We teach parents every day that their children need to learn that "no" is a good thing so, of course, parents must establish rules and consequences and be willing to put them into effect. It is not possible to be a good parent without giving a child, especially a small child, negative attention, but the issue becomes one of degree. If the parent predominantly takes positive actions (such as giving praise, listening non-judgmentally, relaxing with the kid or working together side by side), the child will get the message that he is loved. And that's the most important message of all. The child who knows that he is loved is able to accept his parent's guidance without hostility and resentment and understands the difference between free choice and boundaries.

When children are young, parents have almost full responsibility in determining their behavior and one common mistake many parents make is explaining too much. The goal of discipline is to help young children to understand, and understanding should be age appropriate. When young children are old enough, they should be as responsible for keeping their personal belongings in order as a regular routine. This includes their beds, clothing, toys and school materials. In order to set appropriate limits, parents and caregivers need to stay close by, offer frequent reminders, and be involved with what their children are doing.

Responsibility should be set for family members for operating the home, which becomes training for life management when children are on their own. There should be regular chores at certain times on certain days, in addition to a spirit of cooperation at mealtime and in other routines and family projects like yard work, windows and car washing and shopping. There is no question the some kids are more challenging than others to raise, but the parents who have the most success disciplining with love:

Always treat their children with respect no matter how frustrated or disappointed they are;

Avoid all "put down" actions and language;

Remain emotionally accessible;

Maintain a sense of humor;

Are confidential. Gaining your child's trust should be at the top of your list because a great inhibitor for our children is the fear of being exposed or embarrassed.


An effective disciplinarian has:

Foresight - it's important to set family rules before discipline situations occur. Once a problem occurs you have to go into crisis control and teach the desired behavior later when things are calmer.

Empathy - "Yes, I am angry... I know that you are capable and competent".

Good communication skills - let them know why you are saying "no" and what they have to do the next time to get a "yes".

Ability to modify negative scripts in ourselves and others - When your child says: "Our team can't win for losing"; redirect with something like, "You made a really good shot and I'm proud of you".

Addresses the problem without laying the blame. Blame placing wastes time and creates negative results. Move right into the solution: "What do we do now?" Teach your children to ask: "What do we do now?"

Appreciation of each child's unique temperament.

As you discipline your child, you should look for the source of her misbehavior. Kids sometimes misbehave out of frustration because they are feeling unhappy or unsuccessful in school. Family problems, such as a new baby, mom going back to work, or sibling rivalry can make a child feel disconnected and left out and cause a child to act out in a negative way to get attention. Of course, you must set limits, but make sure that you are expressing disapproval of your child's misbehavior and not disapproval of your child. By setting limits you are letting your child know that you care about her behavior. By letting her share her feelings, you will gain insight into her behavior.

Remember, it's a child's nature to want what they want when they want it. In fact, delayed gratification is one of the most difficult principles for parents to teach, because parents want children to have everything the parents have or don't have. Parents often spoil their children because of this and are truly spoiling the children's ability to become independent adults, who learn the cause and effect of their decisions, actions, and choices.

A parent, who gives in to a child's whining and temper tantrums, simply reinforces the behavior and teaches immediate gratification. This permissiveness leads to spoiled, irresponsible and dependent teenagers. As they become adults, they blame their parents, society and externals for their own failures.

Conversely, when parents are domineering, with strict rule, stern punishment and no flexibility, the children may conform outwardly, but inside there's a revolution in progress. When a child's behavior is controlled by an authority figure, the behavior usually lasts only as long as the authority is present, and then the child goes on a permanent "Spring Break" when he or she leaves home. Or, that child becomes intimidated by all authority figures in the future.

Help your children to understand that they cause their own effects in life, good and bad. Teach them: "If it is to be, it's up to me." Life is a do-it-for-others, do-it-yourself project and rewards in life will be in direct proportion to the quality and amount of effort they give.

Denis Waitley and Maryann Rosenthal

This article was excerpted from Dr. Denis Waitley and Dr. Maryann Rosenthal's newest release, The Seeds of Greatness - The Value-based, Family Enrichment System for the 21st Century

The Pitfalls of Planning

by Arlene Goldbard


The main pitfall of planning - the one from which all others derive - is falling into the delusion that planning can determine outcome. The error of this proposition is a commonplace. In 17th century Japan, Ihara Saikaku wrote "There is always something to upset the most careful of human calculations." Robert Burns, the bard of 18th century Scotland, put it as follows: "The best laid schemes o' mice and men/Gang aft a-gley." I cannot name the late-20th century wit who coined the resonant phrase "Shit happens," but whatever elegance it lacks in comparison with its predecessors it more than makes up in economy of expression.

If the wisdom of the ages won't suffice to make this point, consider only the top layer of recent human events, the happenings big enough to make banner headlines. Notwithstanding global intelligence operations, including unlimited access to computer simulations, who was able to predict the fall of the Berlin Wall? The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia? The end of apartheid in South Africa? As I write, headlines trumpet the top-speed collapse of the Asian economic miracle, long-touted as a triumph of economic planning. Who would have guessed?

Planning cannot guarantee the outcome you want. Instead, it can help you to achieve something integral to any future success: readiness to face the challenges that chance presents. Rule number one for coping with challenges is to know what you're up against. Allow me to offer some of the pitfalls of planning in the hopes that forewarned, you will be forearmed against them.

PLANNING IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE INFORMATION ON WHICH IT IS BASED. Too often, groups rely on untested assumptions or hunches, erecting their plans on unsteady ground. Everyone "just knows" there'll be no problem getting a distributor for a video, or that it would be impossible to find funding for a new facility; or it's "obvious" that a half-time person would suffice to accomplish a brand-new and sorely needed task. It's the obvious things that everyone just knows that are most likely to trip you up. We were once called in to help a client who'd gotten into a lot of trouble by assuming it would be a snap to solve a problem that had stymied its whole field for years. The client's optimistic pronouncements were greeted by the field as arrogant examples of unjustified self-confidence that could only have been based on disrespect for other's efforts to solve the same problem. The client had to do a lot of apologizing and fence-mending that could have been avoided if only they'd taken the time to find out how others had attempted to address the problem in the past. Not only that, the basic assumption was wrong: most of the "new" solutions the client had put forward had already been tested by others and found wanting. If you're going to plan, it's worth the extra time to test assumptions and hunches against reality.

PLANNING ISN'T MAGIC: YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET WHAT YOU WANT. Frequently, organizations contemplating new initiatives - a program, a facility, staff expansion - begin by writing the last page of their plans, the one where everyone lives happily ever after. But the process of planning is one of research and investigation. Results can no more be predetermined than can the outcome of a scientific experiment. Considering a major expansion of activity means taking stock of organizational readiness in many ways. Is there a need for the new activity? An audience or constituency? Do you have access to the expertise? The material resources? The time required to do it right? Planning is a tool that can help you decide whether to go forward, not just how. If the answers to key questions are "no," then the outcome of planning should be to postpone the contemplated expansion, working toward readiness to tackle it farther down the road.

ADAPTABLE BEATS OBDURATE, ANYTIME. Some planners see themselves as creating a blueprint, building a future the way one builds a house. If things don't go according to plan, they blame other people's failure to "get with the program." But an organization isn't an artifact to be set in place with planks and nails. In contrast to a construction project, organization-building is never complete; like all life-forms, an organization's choices are to continuously adapt or die. Rather than planning as if the future were pre-determined, plan for flexibility. Plans that can't be changed shouldn't be written.

PUT PLANNING IN ITS PLACE AND TIME. Some groups don't recognize that it takes time and effort to plan well. They want the results, but aren't able or willing to make the investment. They end up in the worst of both worlds: their ongoing work is set back because they took time to plan without thinking through the implications; and their too-rushed plans end up half-baked ideas. Be realistic about what you can invest. Find a way to plan that suits your available resources - time, energy, money.

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING: PLANNING CAN BECOME A SUBSTITUTE FOR ACTION. Times have been hard for many nonprofit organizations. One of the ironies of funding cutbacks in recent years is that it has sometimes been easier to obtain support for planning than for programming. Some funders evidently believe that merely talking about self-sufficiency - to pick just one example - is a perfectly good way to achieve it. This can lead to an obsessive internal focus: fleeing the indifferent outside world - the "big world" - people retreat to the "little worlds" of their organizations, where they can at least have company in their misery. "They're always having retreats to figure out who they are," someone recently said of a well-funded but aimless organization. "That's a bad sign."

WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND: GROUPS CAN BE BLINDSIDED BY THE ISSUES THAT PLANNING REVEALS. There's a mollifying rhythm to the daily grind, as diligence, deadlines, and distractions keep tensions and conflicts at bay. When an organization pauses to plan, what's been submerged may come up for air. Suppose everyone is asked to dream of future roles or projects, and two staff members' dreams come into major conflict? Suppose there's a discussion of workplace culture, fingers are pointed, defenses mustered, rifts revealed? When an organization undertakes to plan, everyone should be made aware that issues may arise that need talking through, that there may be moments of heat, struggle, even head-on collision. Your planning process should include the time, focus, and talent for the mediation needed to resolve such conflicts, so you can turn to face the future as a team.

BOILERPLATES AND COOKIE-CUTTERS ARE THE WRONG TOOLS FOR THIS JOB. Some planners opt for a "model" approach: all dance companies are supposed to develop this way, media centers that way; here are the seven stages of museum development; follow the ten "best practices" of community arts councils. It's not that other organizations' experiences aren't relevant to your own. Sometimes they're perfectly germane. But not often. Perfect congruence is more likely to be a fortuitous accident than an application of science: even a broken clock is right twice a day. Think about how complex and various individual human beings are. Even if I were equipped with a database of the ways that hundreds of individuals roughly your age and background had behaved in a variety of situations, in competition with your partner or best friend, I could never hope to win a game whose object was to guess your next move - let alone advise you on what it should be. Organizations, multiplying the complexity and diversity of their individual members, deserve to find their own paths rather than being pulsed through an organizational assembly-line. In planning, insist on your right to march to a different drummer.

WRITING IT UP IN PLANSPEAK RATHER THAN PLAIN LANGUAGE UNDOES THE GOOD OF PLANNING. Sometimes organizations have great face-to-face planning experiences: good discussions, moments of profound insight, the excitement of contemplating future possibility, the elation of a meeting of the minds. But feelings don't last long: they need to be carried forward into action, guided by a written plan. Some planning documents are so vague, abstract, and general, they're useless to the people who invested so much in considering their futures. Typically, an aim is listed - "become self-sufficient in five years" - and beneath it, phrases suggesting a range of ways to advance that aim: "expand earned income," "secure individual donations," "develop endowment." As time goes by and the memory of the face-to-face experience fades, the planning document's generalities are drained of any meaning that might once have clung to them. If you are going to take the time to plan, do it right: talk through alternative scenarios for realizing your aims; map out ways to test them; be concrete about guiding values, deadlines, ways to evaluate your experiments. Put enough flesh on the bare bones of your plans to keep the document alive and kicking, or it will be buried in a drawer before the ink has dried.

To speed you on your way, I offer a small selection of sage efforts to describe the future by people who were no doubt smarter, braver, or more intoxicated than either you or I. They were also wrong - or the truths they hit on were so partial as to be entirely inadequate - which brings us back to the point about planning: not to be right, but to be ready.

"I have seen the future; and it works."
-- Muckraking author Lincoln Steffen on the Soviet Union, circa 1919

"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."
--George Orwell, NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR (published in 1949)

"Deer will be grazing in Times Square in forty years."
--Timothy Leary, 1967.

The Six Layers of Resistance to Change

Layer 1 - "We don't agree on the problem."

Identification and confirmation of the current constraint, usually perpetuated by a debilitating dilemma or chronic systemic conflict

Layer 2 - "We don't agree on a direction for a solution."

A breakthrough idea for dealing with the root cause of identified symptoms

Layer 3 - "We don't have an effective solution"

Clear vision of the system-wide solution, its desired outcomes, and its implications

Layer 4 - "Yes, but..." (Reservations about undesirable side effects)

Identification and consideration of concerns, reservations, and risks that may be encountered in implementing the proposed solution

Layer 5 - "We can't do it because..."

Identification of and planning to overcome obstacles to implementing the solution

Layer 6 - Unverbalized fear

Comprehensive "Change Management" for necessary personal buy-in of all key players

You'll notice that layers one through three may seem familiar if you've read about what to change and to what to change. These are the basis for developing an effective solution to the right problem. (After all, you do have to convince yourself during the development of a change, right?)

But as soon as you start sharing your idea, layers four through six can get in the way. As a matter of fact if you don't go back to layer one with your target audience, they probably won't even listen.

Every workshop and implementation program offered by Focused Performance and the Goldratt Institute is built on this foundation. If one of your obstacles is the lack of familiarity with the TOC tools or concepts that enable effective change, we'll be happy to provide you with the guidance for their appropriate use.

Top Ten Ways To Motivate Today's Employees

By Bob Nelson

Today's employees may not need a pay raise as much as they need a personal thanks from their manager for a job well done. Following, in priority order, is the top-ten things to do to motivate today's employees.

Personally thank employees for doing a good job-one on one-verbally, in writing or both. Do it in a timely manner, often and sincerely.

Be willing to take the time to meet with and listen to employees-as much as they need or want.

Provide specific feedback about performance of the person, the department and the organization.

Strive to create a work environment that is open, trusting and fun. Encourage new ideas and initiative.

Provide information about how the company makes and loses money, upcoming products, strategies for competing in the marketplace and how the person fits in with the overall plan.

Involve employees in decisions, especially when those decisions affect them.

Provide employees with a sense of ownership in their work and the work environment.

Recognize, reward and promote people based on their performance. Deal with low and marginal performers so they either improve or leave.

Give people a chance to grow and learn new skills. Show them how you can help them meet their goals within the context of meeting the organization's goals. Create a partnership with each employee.

Celebrate successes-of the company, of the department and of individuals in it. Take time for team- and morale-building meetings and activities.

The 12 Elements of Great Managing

To identify the elements of worker engagement, Gallup conducted many thousands of interviews in all kinds of organizations, at all levels, in most industries, and in many countries. These 12 statements -- the Gallup Q12 -- emerged from Gallup's pioneering research as those that best predict employee and workgroup performance.

1. I know what is expected of me at work.

2. I have the materials and equipment I need to do my work right.

3. At work, I have the opportunity to do what I do best every day.

4. In the last seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work.

5. My supervisor, or someone at work, seems to care about me as a person.

6. There is someone at work who encourages my development.

7. At work, my opinions seem to count.

8. The mission or purpose of my company makes me feel my job is important.

9. My associates or fellow employees are committed to doing quality work.

10. I have a best friend at work.

11. In the last six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.

12. This last year, I have had opportunities at work to learn and grow.

Copyright © 1992-1999 The Gallup Organization, Princeton, NJ. All rights reserved.

10 Keys To Keeping Morale Up During Times Of Difficulty And Change
By David Lee


1. Let employees express their feelings about the difficulties and changes that are going on. If you try to curtail this and tell them they need to “move on” (i.e. get over it), these feelings will only fester and turn into anger and resentment, or result in employees becoming disengaged.

2. Don't focus all of your efforts on getting buy-in to the changes you seek. Remember "Seek First to Understand". People need to know you understand their perspective and their feelings before they will listen to your exhortations.

3. Support constructive criticism. Make it safe for employees to express dissent or criticism without being labeled as not being a "team player." If you don't, you will miss out on important information and will create a workforce that learns not to care.

4. Give employees as much opportunity as possible to solve problems and take constructive action. Taking constructive action is perhaps the strongest antidote to fear and the feeling of helplessness. Thus, engaging employees in constructive action plays a central role in keeping morale up in times of uncertainty and difficulty.

5. To facilitate employees taking constructive action and feeling like winners during difficult times, establish and communicate clear short-term goals and objectives. Not only does it build confidence and a sense of purpose, it also channels employees' attention in a useful direction, rather than on feeling sorry for themselves and scared.

6. Amp up your communication. Make sure employees know what is going on each step of the way. When people are feeling vulnerable, their tolerance for ambiguity decreases dramatically. To feel safe and secure, they need to know as much as possible about what is going on. To increase the efficacy of your communication, get employee input about what information and what forms of communication would be most useful.

7. When you talk about the your vision and the challenges you are facing, use as many stories and analogies as possible, rather than PowerPoint slides filled with statistics and facts. Great leaders are masters at inspiring people through compelling stories and analogies.

8. Make sure you are "wired into the voice of your internal customers" through Employee Advisory Groups, president's breakfasts, team meetings, focus groups, etc. During times of uncertainty, this is of paramount importance. By having a vehicle for ongoing conversations with employees, you get valuable "customer feedback" that allows you to come up with the most effective strategies for executing and communicating changes. Getting employee feedback also helps you avoid making huge morale damaging blunders. Soliciting input and engaging employees in ongoing conversation, also communicates respect - a significant factor in employee morale, and keeps employees engaged. Keeping employees engaged not only increases buy-in, as everyone knows, it also enables employees to take constructive action, and thus prevent them from feeling helpless and then demoralized.

9. When asking for employee input and ideas, clearly define the parameters of employee input and involvement. If you don't, employees will feel "set up" if their input is not used. Also, make sure you keep employees apprised of the status of their ideas and requests, as well as the final outcome.

10. Celebrate victories and examples of excellence both formally and informally. During times of difficulty, it is especially important for employees to feel like winners.

If You Want to Become a Talent Magnet, Focus On The Fundamentals
By David Lee


In the frenzy to find high tech talent, it’s tempting to search for the Talent Magnet Silver Bullet – the ultimate perk or program that will make you the employer of choice.

This attempt to find the Holy Grail of recruiting and retaining talent includes the misguided notion that being a Talent Magnet also involves recreating the kind of workplace that gets media coverage - the workplace where dot-com stock option millionaires engage in SuperSoaker water fights or dance on their desks to relieve stress.

The answer to becoming a Talent Magnet isn’t in gimmicks, the perfect enticement, or a contrived "we’re a fun workplace" image. The answer to becoming a Talent Magnet is in the fundamentals. The answer is in creating an organization that satisfies fundamental human needs and the emerging needs of today’s workers. When organizations do this, they create a workplace that is intrinsically motivating and fun, a workplace that makes them a magnet for the most talented employees.

To become such an organization – a Talent Magnet - here are some ways you can satisfy these fundamental needs of today’s worker:

Engage Your Employees’ Hearts and Souls - People don’t just want to bring their brains to work, they want to bring their hearts. They want to feel passionate about what they are doing and be part of something great. Leaders of Talent Magnets speak to this human need by regularly communicating to all employees where the company is going, the importance of what they are doing, and the significance of each employee’s contribution. They share stories of victories and warn about imminent battles with competitors.

The more you let your employees know they are part of something great, and how they make it possible to be great, the more passionate they will be about your company. The more passionate they are, the more they will tell others about how great your company is - making every employee a recruiter.

Keep People in the Know – It’s hard to be excited about something you know nothing about. When employees understand the big picture, and are kept in the loop about new developments, they feel part of the organization, and therefore, more involved, more excited, and more loyal.

At ManagedOps.com, CEO Dan Taylor keeps their 180 employees in the loop by holding a President’s Breakfast each week. At these breakfasts, he meets with 10 different employees to discuss new developments and listens to their ideas and concerns.

Respect Employee’s Right to Have a Life – Research shows flexibility and work/life balance are top priorities of today’s workers, especially GenXers. At HCI Systems of Kennebunk, Maine, employees trying to juggle parenting and work responsibilities are strongly supported in their efforts to balance the two.

With several employees at HCI Systems being single mothers of young children, this kind of flexibility and respect has a huge impact on morale and dedication. "Because of the flexibility and respect employees are shown, we’ll have people willingly come in on a weekend if need be. It pays to be flexible," notes Kathie Davies, HCI Systems’ HR Manager.

Provide Opportunities to Grow – A study by the American Electronics Association, the nation’s largest high-tech trade group, revealed that the number one factor influencing employee retention was having challenging work assignments. If going to work means grinding out the same task over and over, employees will soon go elsewhere. Thus, keeping employees energized and excited about coming to work requires making sure they are constantly being challenged. As the head of HR for Sun Microsystems, Ken Alvares says "our goal is to keep people so busy having fun every day that they don’t even listen when the headhunters call." Apparently this strategy is working, as Sun’s turnover rate is less than half of the industry’s average.

Show Appreciation – Many companies drop the ball on this one. Decades of employee research shows that appreciation is one of the greatest motivators. Yet, when companies remember to show appreciation, it is usually with a gimmicky Employee of the Month or Employee Recognition Day programs.

Far more effective are simple, informal expressions of appreciation such as saying "Thank you" to employees as they are leaving for the day, as does HCI Systems’ president Jim Kavanagh.

Because managers and front line people tend to treat each other the way they are treated, employees at HCI Systems show the same kind of gratitude and appreciation to each other. "For instance, I’ll have people in product development come up and thank me for something I’ve done," notes HR Manager Kathie Davies. "That almost never happens to the HR person in most companies."

The kind of goodwill created by such gestures translates into tremendous synergy and the kind of workplace people are excited about going to.

Showing sincere appreciation is a no-cost, high return practice. Not showing appreciation is a high-risk behavior for companies hoping to keep talented people. When the staff of a Maine high tech company recently received bonus checks, several said "I would rather have gotten a handshake and a ‘thank you’ from the president than the cash." Not surprisingly, morale at this company is low and turnover high.

Don’t Hamstring Your Employees – Putting obstacles in the way of employees doing their work well is a great way to send them to the competition. Whether its inadequate technology, bureaucratic hurdles to leap, or a "Sorry, there’s nothing we can do about it" attitude, making life difficult for employees is a costly endeavor. Not only does it make them less efficient, it conveys disrespect.

Give People the Chance to Do Something Great – The best, most talented employees want the opportunity to do something great. Says BroadcastAMERICA.com’s CEO Alex Lauchlin, "You don’t want to give them a job, you want to give them a challenge."

" We don’t say ‘Go out and get 20 new stations next week.’ We say ‘We want you to build BroadcastSports.com or BroadcastTalk.com’ (two of BroadcastAMERICA.com brands)," explains Lauchlin. Such a philosophy has helped BroadcastAMERICA.com become the largest online broadcasting network.

Show Employees That You Care – Although talented people want their talent and expertise to be recognized and valued, they also want to know you care about them as a person - not just a producer of high quality work. Leaders like ManagedOps.com Dan Taylor or BroadcastAMERICA.com’s co-founders John Brier and Alex Lauchlin address this need by taking the time to get to know employees not just as programmer or designer, but as people who have families, hopes, and dreams.

Says Laurie Murphy, HR Manager at ManagedOps.com "One of the most frequent comments on our employee satisfaction surveys is how much it means to employees that Dan knows who they are, who their spouses are, and the names of their children."

To Become a Talent Magnet, Remember The Fundamentals – Being a Talent Magnet doesn’t require being clever or cute. It requires a sincere appreciation of, and interest in, the people who work for you. It requires a willingness to meet their fundamental human needs, and their needs as workers in a complex world of competing responsibilities. By doing this, you will create the kind of workplace that talented people love – and love to tell their talented friends about.

The Secret To Attracting and Retaining Excellent Employees
By David Lee


It’s no secret that the challenge of finding high quality employees in today’s tight labor market is on every manager and business owner’s mind. What does appear to be a secret - given the typical response to this challenge - is what to do about it.

Most employee attraction and retention strategies consist of creating a competitive compensation and benefits package, or instituting an employee appreciation and recognition program. Even worse, many companies – especially smaller ones – think attracting the best employees is a lost cause for them, because they can’t match the perks and programs showcased in Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Places to Work.

Although most companies don’t “get it” when it comes to attracting and retaining employees, some do. These companies are the Talent Magnets – the employers of choice for highly talented people. They know the key to attracting and retaining quality employees isn’t compensation and benefits packages or gimmicky programs. They know the key is how well they address these four critical areas:

Your Company’s Image
Great companies attract great people. If you have a strong brand in the marketplace, you will have a strong brand in the labor marketplace. If your company is synonymous with quality, you will attract quality people; if it isn’t, you won’t.

The Quality of Your Internal Operations – Your image in the marketplace influences your ability to attract good people. The quality of your internal operations influences your ability to retain these people. Out-dated technology, inadequate resources, inefficient work processes, and stifling bureaucracy are guaranteed Talent Repellents. Conversely, when a company is run intelligently and efficiently, people want to stay and be part of such a world class operation.

How Well Your Management Team Treats Your Employees
This is where so many companies drop the ball. They promote technically adept people to management positions, even if they have virtually no people skills. They further compound the problem by scrimping on management training and coaching, so these managers never develop the skills to bring out the best in their workers. Worse, many companies turn a blind eye to disrespectful or even abusive behavior by managers. The importance of having a top notch management team and great supervisors cannot be overstated. Research conducted by the Gallup Organization, involving over a million employees and 80,000 managers, revealed that having good managers was the most influential factor affecting both employee retention and performance.

Your Ability To Satisfy The Needs Of Your “Internal Customers,” Your Employees – Just as the key to marketing and customer service success is understanding what the customer wants, and then delivering it; competing in the labor market requires understanding what employees want, and then delivering that. Here are a few of the things employees want most:

• Pride in Where They Work and What They Do

• Meaningful Work

• Respect – Both Personal and Professional

• Sincere Expressions of Appreciation

• The Ability to Exercise Autonomy and Control in One’s Job

• The Opportunity to Learn and Grow on the Job

• A Sense of Community and Belonging

• Flexibility That Allows for Work/Life Balance

• The Opportunity to Make a Difference; To Have Input and Influence


Taking the First Step Toward Becoming a Talent Magnet
The first step is to find out where you currently are. Find out what your “customers” – your employees – think about your company. Engage your management team in a very frank self-examination process about how well the company is run, and how well employees are managed. Use the four critical areas and the nine key human needs outlined in this article as a launching point for this important discussion. By successfully addressing these, you will become a Talent Magnet.
About the Author: David Lee is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. The founder of HumanNature@Work, he has worked with organizations and presented at conferences throughout North America and overseas. He is the author of Managing Employee Stress and Safety, as well as dozens of articles on employee and organizational performance.

Becoming a Talent Magnet:
How to Attract and Retain Great Employees
By David Lee


Although most business owners and CEOs say they realize the critical role attracting and retaining high quality employees plays in their company’s success, a recent survey by Kepner-Tregoe of Princeton, New Jersey, seems to demonstrate what many employees experience firsthand - many don’t “walk the talk.” In their survey of 1,290 employees, Kepner-Tregoe found that 64% of workers stated that top management doesn’t initiate programs to reduce turnover.

When management does address this issue, they often focus their attraction and retention efforts on financial factors - competitive pay and a good benefits package. Although important, these are not enough to attract and retain the best of the best. In fact, the Kepner-Tregoe study revealed that 40% of employees felt that increased salaries and financial rewards were ineffective in reducing turnover. In Fortune magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” survey, not a single employee mentioned money as a reason why they loved the place they worked. If competitive salary and a generous compensation package aren’t enough, what does make a company the kind of place that draws great people to it, and makes them want to stay? In short, what makes a company a Talent Magnet.

Talent Magnet organizations attract and retain great employees because they satisfy the key human needs that influence performance and loyalty. They satisfy these needs by the way they are lead and managed. In this article, we will identify several core human needs which affect how people feel about a company, and how Talent Magnet organizations address these. The following list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather a place for HR managers to begin the conversation with their fellow managers about how they can co-create a Talent Magnet Organization.

What Are People Looking For?

Pride In Where They Work and What They Do
The type of person employers want most - those who do an outstanding job and take pride in their work - want to be proud of the company they work for. Companies that produce mediocre products or provide poor service have difficulty attracting and retaining excellent workers - regardless of how generous their benefits and compensation package. Conversely, companies that offer the highest quality products and service are far more likely to attract and retain the “best of the best.” Employee pride also comes from observing management making decisions that show a clear understanding of what is going on “in the trenches.” When management tolerates shoddy decision-making and mediocre management, pride is damaged. When an organization embodies excellence, it creates a self-reinforcing, winning success cycle - a great company that attracts great people who make it possible for the company to remain great.

Meaning and Purpose
Meaningful work brings workers alive in a way a generous benefits package cannot. In the words of Studs Terkel, author of Working, employees “search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”
How do Talent Magnet organizations address this issue? First, they have, and embody, a mission and a vision that captures the hearts and souls of their workforce. Second, they continuously communicate their mission and vision to their people. Third, they communicate the important role each employee has in making the vision a reality. Fourth, they give employees the tools and freedom to make a difference in the company. Fifth, they let employees hear “the voice of the customer,” to help them stay connected to the bigger picture. Medtronics, a medical products company from Minneapolis, helps their employees hear the voice of the customer and stay connected to the big picture by flying in patients whose lives were saved by Medtronics products, along with their families and doctors, to the company’s annual holiday party, and letting employees hear their stories.

Appreciation
Showing genuine appreciation is simple, inexpensive, and tremendously effective. Research shows that appreciation is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, employee motivator. How do you show appreciation? It can be as simple as saying "Thanks for doing a great job," when handing out paychecks, as does Meredith Burgess of Burgess Advertising, a Portland, Maine firm known for having far greater employee and client retention than is typical for an industry characterized by rapid turnover and fickle relationships.

Doug Levin, CEO of Fresh Samantha, the natural fruit juice phenomenon from Maine, solicits information from managers every week, about who has done a great job, gone the extra mile, or has done some other outstanding “Juicehead” action, and sends them “Thank you” notes. At Oakhurst Dairy, of Portland, Maine, co-owners Bill and Stan Bennett are always on the lookout for employees going the extra mile, and then making sure they get a gift certificate to dinner, the movies, or some other small token of appreciation. It’s not the “prize” that matters as much as the underlying message - “We don’t take you for granted; we notice the good things you do.” In fact, management at Talent Magnet companies are careful not to confuse prizes, awards, and Employee Appreciation Days with genuine, ongoing, person-to-person displays of appreciation. The former can create cynicism and decrease motivation; the latter taps into one of the most powerful human needs and motivators.

Opportunities To Learn and Grow
When work allows employees to use their minds, acquire new skills, and face situations that invite them to grow, they come alive. Talent Magnet organizations address this fundamental need by providing their employees with ongoing learning opportunities. They do this not only through formal training, but through cross-training, and assigning employees projects and responsibilities that cause them to stretch. Even for production work that might not be considered “knowledge work,” innovative companies like Hussey Seating of South Berwick, Maine design jobs so front-line employees get to bring their brains as well as their brawn to work. Using a team model, production workers at Hussey Seating are actively engaged in decision-making and process improvement initiatives.

While management at non-Talent Magnet organizations view training as a luxury they either can’t afford, or don’t have the time for, management at Talent Magnet organizations see it as investment in attracting, retaining, and growing a world class workforce.

Respect
Managers at Talent Magnet organizations realize that every management action, response, or communication conveys a message about how much management respects - or doesn’t respect - its employees. They realize that simple demonstrations of respect, like not requiring employees to ask permission for every minor decision, or saying “Would you...” rather than “You should...” or “You need to...,” when assigning tasks, makes a big difference in how employees feel about their employer. Management shows respect by soliciting input from people on the front-line. When Keane, Inc.’s co-presidents Brian and John, Keane, Jr. go out into the field and ask their people in the trenches “What do you recommend we do about this situation?” they send a clear message of personal and professional respect, and reinforce Keane’s reputation as a great place to work. Asking for employee’s input on how they feel about the organization and the way they are managed - and then responding to the feedback - is another sign of respect.

Respect is also shown by recognizing that employees have a life outside of work. It’s demonstrated by not piling on so much that work employees don’t have a life, and not requiring them to beg for flexible scheduling so they can meet their other life responsibilities. At Tom’s of Maine, employees recently requested that they leave early on Friday for the summer. The fact that they even dared ask for that says something about the company. The fact that management agreed - and that productivity has not decreased - says something even more important about the company and the kind of mutual respect and commitment that comes out of such responsiveness. Tom’s management also responds flexibly to their workers’ child care challenges, resulting in employees who can focus on doing a great job, rather than on how they are going to juggle work and home responsibilities - and feeling resentful.

This Isn’t Rocket Science.... So How Come So Few Companies Do These Things?

These needs are so basic; so obvious; yet so often not met by companies. HR Managers need to be aware of what prevent companies from recognizing and addressing these needs, if they are going to help their organization become a Talent Magnet.

Time Pressure - Managers are often so time pressured and so focused on putting out fires, they incorrectly believe they don’t have time to work on the “soft issues” related to the human side of business. Obviously, a lack of understanding about the impact these “soft issues” have on the bottom line contributes to their being put on the “nice to do if we had more time” list.

Lack of Awareness - When people are promoted to the managerial level because of their technical prowess, but lack effective interpersonal skills or an understanding of human nature, they are more likely to dismiss the human side of attraction and retention as “touchy feely” or just plain irrelevant.

Arrogance - Many companies show the same arrogance toward their employees as they do to their customers. They assume they know better than their customers and their employees about what would satisfy them, and don’t bother to find out if they’re correct. If they do ask, and the feedback isn’t positive, they dismiss it as irrational and impertinent. Even when their workforce is hemorrhaging, they adamantly maintain that employee requests are inappropriate and impossible to satisfy.

"Quick Fixitis" - If managers can order an Employee Appreciation Day or an Employee of the Month award, they can remove “Implement Attraction and Retention Program” from their “to do” list. The feeling of mastery that accompanies the completion of a task is so intrinsically satisfying - especially to a harried manager whose work is never done - that it blinds us to whether the solution is effective or not.

The unfortunate truth is that quick fixes and gimmicky approaches to attraction and retention aren’t effective; they can even have the opposite effect. Because people are very sensitive to insincerity, workers are quick to notice a disconnect between staged events and corporate proclamations, and the day to day treatment they receive by their manager and the company as a whole.

HR Managers Can Help Their Organization Become a Talent Magnet by Helping Management...

...Recognize the Importance of Listening To The Voice of THEIR Customer - The Employees
Assuming customers are happy without asking them if you’re right, is a surefire way to lose customers - and employees - left and right. Talent Magnet organizations don’t assume that what they are doing is working; they are constantly engaging in conversations with their workforce through employee satisfaction surveys, anonymous suggestion boxes, company-wide meetings, focus groups, and informal conversations. Importantly, they also work at creating a culture where honesty and openness is supported, so employees feel safe enough to voice their concerns.

...Identify From Their Own Experience What Works, And Doesn’t Work
When people compare their own experiences at positive and negative workplaces or with their best and worst boss, they find it difficult to deny the huge impact organizational culture and management practices have on performance and loyalty. HR Managers can help management identify those management practices and organizational qualities that lead to high performance and employee loyalty. They can do this by facilitating discussions among groups of managers, and then using this information, along with an employee survey, to assess what needs to be addressed in the organization.

...Recognize The Importance of Management Development
According to Quinton Studer, president of Baptist Hospital, Inc., of Pensacola, Florida, “the number one things companies just don’t want to spend money on (is) middle-management development.” How employees feel about their organization is profoundly influenced by how they feel about their boss. When they have a boss who is respectful, inspiring, and appreciative, it’s hard not to be loyal. Thus, management development is a wise investment for any organization seeking to maximize their ability to attract and retain the best of the best.

...Ask Themselves Tough Questions
This is perhaps the most difficult step to take. Creating a Talent Magnet Organization requires courageous self-examination by management at all levels about how well they lead and about the kind of company they have created. This process of engaging in self-examination, and engaging employees in honest conversation about how well the company is run, can yield critical information about what steps need to be taken to transform an organization into a Talent Magnet. See the side bar for a few questions to get the process started.

Conclusion

It takes more than a generous benefits package and competitive salaries to attract and retain talented employees. It takes addressing the fundamental need people have for Pride, Meaning and Purpose, Appreciation, Opportunities To Learn and Grow, and Respect. Leaders at Talent Magnet organizations realize this, and continuously strive to address these fundamental human needs. By listening to the voice of their customer - their employees - and honestly engaging in self-examination, they can create an organization that is a magnet for great employees.

Is Your Organization a Talent Magnet?

The following questions can help management begin the process of exploring if they are doing the things that create a Talent Magnet organization. Just as in customer service research, to effectively answer these questions requires management soliciting feedback from its customer - the employee. Without their input, all answers are merely conjecture.

Some Questions to Ask:

1. How do our people feel about being here?

2. Are we the kind of organization that inspires pride?

3. Are the products and/or services that we bring to the marketplace, and the operational decisions we make, worthy of pride?

4. Do we have a compelling mission and vision - and do we “walk our talk”?

5. Do we communicate our mission and vision to employees, and do we communicate how they contribute to it?

6. Do we work with employees to design their jobs so they are as meaningful and intrinsically satisfying as possible?

7. Do our employees feel appreciated?

8. Do we believe that training is important; and are we acting accordingly?

9. Do we provide opportunities for employees to grow by taking on more responsibility and developing new skills on the job, and could we provide more?

10. Do employees feel respected?

11. Are we open to feedback about how we manage, or do we assume that what we’re doing is right, and its their job to adapt to us?

12. If I worked for me, how would I feel about being here?

13. Do we try to get the most work out of each employee, regardless of the toll it takes, both on them, and on the quality of their work?

14. Do we show respect for employees life outside of work?

15. Can employees discuss openly with management their work/life balance needs?

16. Do we have a workplace environment where people generally have fun and enjoy each other’s company?

17. Can people be open and honest about how they feel and what they think?





About the Author: David Lee is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach. The founder of HumanNature@Work, he has worked with organizations and presented at conferences throughout North America and overseas. He is the author of Managing Employee Stress and Safety, as well as dozens of articles on employee and organizational performance.