Dear Madeleine,

I manage R&D for a large medical device company. I am at the tail end of my work life. I wanted to retire at the end of this year, but our executive team is encouraging me to stay until I feel comfortable that someone on my team can step into the role.

Right now, I am not seeing a likely replacement. The job requires a wide mix of skills and activities. Although I have shared development ideas with my direct reports, I don’t see anyone doing anything differently.

I just sense that no one really cares much about the job or has the ambition to do anything other than the bare minimum. How can I light a fire under these people?

Where Is the Spark?

______________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Where Is the Spark?

It might be you, my friend. It sounds like you have made some suggestions that your folks may not quite know what to do with. And they may not know why they should bother.

Getting your people fired up to develop themselves for a senior leadership role requires you to intentionally and systematically tap into their dreams and aspirations, understand their identity—how they see themselves, and convince them of their agency—the extent to which they are empowered to go beyond where they think they can go. It’s up to you to create an environment where each of your people sees what’s possible, why it matters, and how they can grow into it.

Here are some ideas for how you might approach creating such an environment:

1. Share a Vision of What Leadership in Your Organization Can Be

You can do this with your entire team, in small doses.

• Describe what great leadership looks like in your organization—not just in competencies, but in impact.
• Share examples of leaders in your company who are admired. Why are they effective?
• Talk about the difference leaders can make at a senior level. Tell stories. You might say something like: “Leadership here isn’t about position—it’s about shaping direction, driving culture, and building something bigger than yourself.”

The challenge with this idea is that you will also be held to the standards you talk about.

2. Spot and Call Out Potential

People rarely see leadership potential in themselves unless someone points it out.

• Tell individuals specifically what strengths or behaviors you’ve seen in them that signal leadership potential.
• Make it personal and credible: “I see you as someone who could be a strategic leader here because you consistently…”

Don’t wait for them to ask. Plant a seed anytime you see something a person can build on.

3. Connect to Personal Purpose

Deep motivation comes from alignment with identity and values. Who is each team member, at their core? How do they see themselves? What matters most to them?

• You might ask: “What kind of impact do you want to have?” or “What problems do you care most about solving?” or “What interests you most about what we do here?
• Once you get some answers, you can connect to ways that senior leadership might offer them a bigger lever to engage in activities that mean the most to them.

4. Share Responsibility

Growth accelerates when people feel responsible for something bigger than their job. Look at what you do daily and figure out what you can delegate. Start out small, and build.

• Assign stretch responsibilities that align with senior leadership competencies, such as cross-functional work, strategy development, or mentoring others.
• Let them lead change, not just manage tasks.
• Frame it: “This is a great chance to build the skill set senior leaders need.”

5. Make Development Visible and Structured

If development feels fuzzy or unsupported, it can easily fall by the wayside—which is what has been happening for your people.

• Build or recommend a clear pathway: rotational projects, leadership coaching, mentoring, strategic courses. Build on strengths or identify specific gaps they can work on.
• Use individual development plans (IDPs) tied to specific leadership competencies. If your organization already has these, use them. If it doesn’t, create the ones you think are most critical. Start with one or two and be careful not to overpower people with too much, too soon. The key is to start with low-hanging fruit. What is a small thing that might be possible and would make a big difference?

6. Celebrate Progress and Model the Way

People need to see development as a rewarding investment; otherwise, it just feels like extra work.

• Acknowledge each person’s accomplishments and growth in public settings. This reinforces motivation and can inspire others in the group to rise as well.
• Share your own development journey, including struggles. This normalizes growth and makes leadership feel attainable. It would require you to be vulnerable, which could be uncomfortable. But it will humanize you and remind your people that you weren’t always the boss.

You will learn a lot about your people as you try some of these suggestions. The obstacles will become much clearer. You may uncover irrational fears that you can allay. You may find that some of your folks are already overwhelmed by their workload and don’t have the bandwidth to take on anything else. You may uncover some cynicism; e.g., you may hear that the organization is perceived as very political. Cynicism is data that can help you pinpoint assumptions about falsehoods that you can dispel, or about realities you hadn’t noticed or considered important. You can help everyone shift their mindset and support them in navigating obstacles.

This will be a lot more work for you—and, of course, for them. But if they know you care and are paying attention, I guarantee a few will rise to the top. And then you can retire!

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services as well as a key facilitator of Blanchard’s Leadership Coach Certification course. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

Dear Madeleine,

I am the COO and founder of what is now being called a “mature” startup. We have been around for 12 years but have not yet exceeded 100 employees or reached our revenue or valuation goals. The company still feels like a startup because we have been experimenting with our business model and the pace of innovation, and the constant pivots are relentless.

Some of our business leaders are tired of it. They are expressing attitudes that are not helpful, such as “If we were going to make it, we’d have made it by now,” or “What’s wrong with things the way they are? We seem to be doing fine.”

We are fine, but we have not achieved our full potential—nor are we as profitable as we need to be to attract investors. My original business partner, who is our CEO, has recently taken a leave of absence to deal with a family matter. He was exhausted. The last few years have been a slog and Covid was a massive setback for us. It seemed like the right time for him to take a break.

I am covering for him and struggling with the Eeyore-like outlook among some of my key people. I’ve been working on finding ways to inspire them. We put a lot more focus on self-care than any other startup I know. I’ve given feedback to some who are resistant to change and to what feels (to them) like risky ideas. It does not seem to be making a difference.

I still know in my heart that we are going to figure things out and break through, but I need everyone to be all in for this last push. How do I get my leaders on board?

Just About There

___________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Just About There,

I’m a battle-worn veteran of a couple of startups myself—and now that I am nearing the last phase of my own career, your situation only confirms to me that startups are best suited for the young. I say this not to discriminate, but simply to point out that when the slog goes on for longer than anyone wants or expects, it can be hard to hold on to the giddy, cockeyed optimism required to stay in the game. The relentless pace of change can be exhausting, and you are going to need to find a way to tap into some of that initial startup energy you had at the beginning if you want to reach your goals.

I have a couple of ideas for you.

• Pay attention. Ask your people what specific concerns they have and listen in a way that makes them feel heard. I recently heard someone say “Clear communication is the oil that reduces the friction of living.” If your key people are turning into Eeyores (for the uninitiated, Eeyore is a character in the Winnie the Pooh stories who is depicted as having a bleak outlook on life), they probably need some attention. You may remember that Eeyore’s catch phrase is “Thanks for noticing me.” I wonder sometimes if leaders are afraid that listening and acknowledging people’s concerns means you have to do something about those concerns, when, in fact, simply listening often can make all the difference. You may think you are a good listener, and you probably are when you aren’t worn down by resistance. So if you want some technical tips on how to listen, you can find some here. For tips on managing constant innovation and change, you can access an excellent webinar here.
• Tap into personal motivations. It sounds like your leaders have run out of steam. There were specific things that drove them at the beginning, and anything you can do to help them get back in touch with those drivers will help. Maybe it was the promise of a big payout, or the ability to make an impact in the world, or the desire to be part of something cool and sexy. Whatever it was, help them remember it. Or maybe what matters to them has changed. If they are not going to be able to find it in their current role, it could be time for them to find another place that suits them better.
• Reclarify and rearticulate the vision. You and your partner had a big vision when you started. It is normal to assume that everyone has heard it and doesn’t need to hear it again, but that is incorrect. People need to be reminded of the big fat WHY all the time. It gets buried under the rough and tumble of the day-to-day slog. So dig for buried treasure, find the stories that will inspire, and tell them a lot more than you think you need to. This will undoubtedly bore you, because the vision is still so clear to you that you forget it is not as clear to others. Do it anyway.
• Stop giving feedback and start making clear requests. Feedback is tricky. We think if we do everything right when we give feedback, people will hear it, internalize it, and do something about it. That simply is not true. If you want your leaders to do things differently, you have to make a direct request. It needs to be crystal clear so that you don’t run the risk of it sounding like a suggestion. It is a request. For example: “Even if you disagree with the strategy, I need you to commit to supporting it and to make sure your team knows that you support it—even if you have your doubts.” You can point out specific dos and don’ts if you have examples. The kind of clarity you achieve with a direct request will help your leaders decide if they can commit or if they need to leave. This, of course, means some people may leave. But all you have is your people, and if your leaders aren’t with you, you need to replace them with leaders who are. This is harsh, I know. But it is true.
• Catch people doing things right. This is a classic bit of genius from Ken Blanchard and there is literally no situation in which it doesn’t apply. At the end of a long, grueling journey, it can be easy to pounce on every little thing that isn’t perfect. This can lead to an over-focus on pointing out what’s going wrong at the costly expense of directing focus on what is going right. You must make everyone feel that they are winning, even if it isn’t as fast or as evident as you would like.

It really does all rest on your shoulders, my friend. That is what leadership is. If it all goes sideways, everyone will blame you. And if you pull it off, you won’t get nearly the credit you deserve. If everyone could do it, everyone would be doing it, but it is the rare soul who has what it takes.

Put on your listening ears, share the inspiration, find and call out the best in people, and pray the gods will smile upon your efforts. Good luck to you.

Love, Madeleine

About Madeleine

Madeleine Homan Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response soon. Please be advised that although she will do her best, Madeleine cannot respond to each letter personally. Letters will be edited for clarity and length.

But that’s not true. In fact, that kind of misinterpretation of the research can lead to assumptions that actually perpetuate disengagement, such as the concept of organizations needing to use incentives, rewards, promotions, praising, perks, status building, pay raises, games, competition, or prizes to get anything accomplished.

Knowing the truth behind the nature of human motivation will not only help you reframe the research and rethink your basic beliefs, it will also allow you to embrace new practices that result in employee engagement and work passion. Let me explain.

People’s Basic Nature is to Thrive

In the 2014 movie Gravity, Sandra Bullock’s character goes into space because she has no reason to live on planet Earth. When circumstances spell certain death, she contemplates giving up. But then we witness her remarkable resilience and creativity as she fights to return to Earth.

As we learn watching the plot unfold in the movie, our true human nature is to thrive by making choices, finding meaning, and developing skills to cope with what the world throws at us. But is that a struggle we have to take on alone? I don’t think so.  In fact, I think leaders can greatly accelerate the process by developing strategies to help people experience what every human being needs to thrive: the three psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence.

For example:

• Define boundaries people need to know and then help them explore the choices they have within those boundaries.
• Demonstrate you care about people through proactive listening.
• Encourage people to develop new skills on a regular basis. Even mundane work is brought to life when people identify transferable skills they can develop such as learning how to focus, improving people skills, practicing different communication styles, etc.

Nobody Wants to be Bored and Disengaged

People want to make worthwhile contributions. People appreciate meaningful challenges. Two of the world’s leading researchers on motivation, Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, wrote a beautiful explanation of human nature*:

“The fullest representations of humanity show people to be curious, vital, and self-motivated. At their best, they are agentic and inspired, striving to learn; extend themselves; master new skills; and apply their talents responsibly. That most people show considerable effort, agency, and commitment in their lives appears, in fact, to be more normative than exceptional, suggesting some very positive and persistent features of human nature. Yet, it is also clear that the human spirit can be diminished or crushed… “

What does this mean for leaders? That it’s important to engage in one-on-one conversations to help people explore their inherent interests, align tasks with their deepest values, and connect their work to a sense of purpose.

Promote Human Thriving

If you believe the high number of disengaged employees reflects a natural state of being, you probably tend to depend on traditional means to fix disengagement—like the incentives, rewards, promotions, etc., I mentioned earlier.

But as you run out of resources and find your workforce is still disengaged, you may need to stop looking for different ways of motivating people and rethink your basic beliefs about human nature and disengagement. Only then will you spark the innovation to develop strategies that promote human thriving—and true engagement—in the workplace.

About the Author

Susan Fowler is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, co-creator of the company’s Optimal Motivation and Situational Self Leadership training programs, and the author of the bestselling book, Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work … And What Does: The New Science of Leading, Engaging, and Energizing.

*Self-Determination Theory and the Facilitation of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being, https://selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2000_RyanDeci_SDT.pdf

Dear Madeleine,

I am a fairly experienced senior manager at an organization that was acquired about eighteen months ago. The larger organization makes a new acquisition about every eight months, with no end in sight. The changes are really hard to keep up with. There seem to be new processes and procedures every day.

I have a wonderful employee—I’ll call him Bob. I like Bob a lot and he has been a dependable producer. His team respects him and he consistently gets the job done with a minimum of fuss.

Recently, though, it’s as if Bob has run out of steam. When I asked him about it, he told me the pace of change here is wearing him down and he is beginning to think he might be happier at a more stable organization.

I am afraid to lose him, but how can I talk him off the ledge when I am kind of feeling the same way?

Trying to Keep Up

Dear Trying to Keep Up,

My first reaction was to laugh and think Good luck finding an organization where change isn’t constant! But seriously, I really understand this. The pace of relentless change can be exhausting.

It is said that many employees leave organizations because no one asked them to stay—so let’s not let that happen.  The first step is to share with Bob how much you understand his feelings and how important you think he is to the success of the organization. Then have the conversation about what it would take for him to stay.

If he insists that the organization would have to stop growing by acquisition—well, that’s probably non-negotiable.  But what is negotiable? Possibly Bob is burnt out and needs to take a vacation—a real one—meaning at least two weeks, maybe even three, with no checking in. Burnout is a real thing. A change of scene and perspective can do wonders.

Maybe the way you manage change could use a tweak. We know from recent neuroscience studies that the brain craves clarity and certainty. There is a ton of research, some of it from The Ken Blanchard Companies, about how to better support people who are dealing with change. Perhaps the two of you could take a class together to get better at it—or at the very least, you could read up and discuss it together.

Here’s the thing. Even if Bob does go somewhere else, he’s probably not going to be able to escape constant change—it is simply a fact of organizational life these days. He seems like a bright guy, so maybe the rate of change isn’t what is really bothering him. You may need to have a different conversation to really get at what the true problem is.

Start by asking the simple question “What’s really bothering you?”

And then keep digging: “What bothers you so much about that?”

“Say more about that.”

You never know what you’ll learn by following this line of questioning, but give it a try. You may actually get to what is really going on—and then you can work out how to proceed.

I hope you figure this out—and I hope you get to keep Bob so that he can help with all the changes to come.

Love, Madeleine

About the author

Madeleine Homan-Blanchard is a master certified coach, author, speaker, and cofounder of Blanchard Coaching Services. Madeleine’s Advice for the Well Intentioned Manager is a regular Saturday feature for a very select group: well intentioned managers. Leadership is hard—and the more you care, the harder it gets. Join us here each week for insight, resources, and conversation.

Got a question for Madeleine? Email Madeleine and look for your response here next week!

But now for various reasons, you or your direct reports may be struggling to stay afloat. Perhaps as a manager you have reached a stage where you feel discouraged or frustrated—or perhaps you see your team’s morale or performance floundering.

Marcus Buckingham says that people who are truly successful in their roles are doing work where they find the majority of their tasks to be enjoyable. A good balance for success is a job where about 70 percent of tasks are enjoyable and only about 30 percent are not as enjoyable. If much of your work consists of tasks you don’t enjoy doing, you may find yourself getting frustrated and beginning to dislike other things around you. Soon you may see decisions made by your company as inefficient and your team members annoying—and your first thought when you get humorous emails from your colleagues is Don’t they have anything better to do?

If you are already at this gloomy phase, here are three things you can do to help move past it.

1. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your team members—and yourself.Whether you are constructing a new team or have been working with the same team for years, it’s time do a diagnosis of each person’s individual strengths and weaknesses. Based on your findings, determine if moving people into certain areas or roles would accomplish tasks or goals more efficiently. Evaluating your team members this way will allow you to place people in projects they like, have strengths in, and enjoy doing.In the same vein, do an honest evaluation of your own strengths and weaknesses as a manager. What are you good, and not so good, at? Do you take on too much because you would rather do things yourself to ensure they are done right?
2. Create a list of all your tasks and put them into two categories: Like/Can live with and Dislike. How do they match up? If you have a long list of things you dislike, you may be on the way to burnout. Look back at your team members’ strengths and decide which of your tasks you can delegate, and to whom. Your high performers will enjoy the challenge of being empowered and you will be able to focus on activities you find more enjoyable.
3. Think of ways to create new experiences to motivate yourself and your team members when doing those necessary but mundane tasks. Work with your team to come up with creative and fun ideas for games or contests associated with the work. Or go a different direction and create a dialogue with your people to bring understanding to the deeper meaning and purpose of these tasks in terms of the bigger picture. Taking the time to make work meaningful and fun can result in a new perspective for each person around the importance of their place in the organization.

Exercise Choice

Remember that being a great leader is a choice you get to make every day.  Skills such as diagnosing strengths and weaknesses in yourself and your team, assigning and delegating work that will play to everyone’s strengths, and being creative with daily responsibilities will not only help your team run more smoothly, it will also improve team productivity and morale while helping propel you toward long-term leadership success.

This issue presents a tremendous challenge for organizational leaders. Even worse than dealing with the effects of people who leave your organization (studies show replacing employees can be 1.5 to 3 times their annual salary), you have to manage these disengaged workers who have decided to “quit and stay.” You’re still paying them to under-perform and ultimately undermine the effectiveness of your organization!

In conducting over 19,000 exit interviews of employees who voluntarily left their jobs, Leigh Branham, author of The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave, identified four basic needs that weren’t being met that started people on the path to disengagement and ultimately quitting a job.

The Need for Trust — The number one priority for any leader is to build trust with his/her team members. Trust is the foundation of any successful relationship, and in the workplace it’s a non-negotiable if leaders desire to tap into the full effort and passion of their employees. Employees won’t give you their best if they don’t believe you have their best interests in mind. They will shy away from taking risks or making themselves vulnerable if they don’t feel safe and trusted. They expect company leadership to deliver on their promises, to be honest and open in communication, to invest in them, and to treat them fairly. The ABCD Trust Model is a helpful tool for leaders to understand what it means to be trustworthy and build trust with others.

The Need to Have Hope — I’ve had the privilege of meeting football legend Rosey Grier, a member of the “Fearsome Foursome” when he played with the Los Angeles Rams, and now a Christian minister and inspirational speaker. He said something I’ve never forgotten. When speaking about his work with inner city youth in Los Angeles, Rosey said “Leaders aren’t dealers of dope, they are dealers of hope!” So true…leaders are dealers of hope. We need to instill a sense of hope in the people we lead. Our people need to believe they will be able to grow, develop their skills, and have the opportunity for advancement or career progress. It’s our job as leaders to foster that hope and support our employees in their growth.

The Need to Feel a Sense of Worth — Despite its struggles and challenges, work is an intrinsically rewarding experience for people. We derive a tremendous amount of self-worth from our work, whether it’s something we’re employed to do or whether we volunteer our time and effort. Employees have a need to feel confident that if they work hard, do their best, and demonstrate commitment and make meaningful contributions, they will be recognized and rewarded appropriately.

The Need to Feel Competent — Employees need to be matched in jobs where their talents align with the challenges of the work. If the work is too simple, then it’s easy for people to lose interest and become disengaged. If the employee is in over his/her head and the work is too challenging, it can lead to discouragement and frustration. Leaders are on a constant quest to find ways to place employees in that sweet spot where they are challenged at just the right level. But it’s not all on the shoulders of leaders to do this work. Employees need to take responsibility for their own development and learn how to manage their motivational outlooks.

Ignore these four needs at your own peril! Poor leadership results in tremendously high costs to organizations, as my colleague, David Witt, discussed in a webinar yesterday. I encourage you to view and listen to the recording. He shares a wealth of research and information that illustrates the importance of effective leadership. You’ll be exposed to several resources, including additional research from Leigh Branham, that will help you improve your own leadership practices.

Randy Conley is the V.P. of Client Services and Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts normally appear the fourth or last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

In a new article, Missing the Point on Motivation, Fowler stresses not to wait until people have become disengaged before taking action. Instead, begin at the source of people’s engagement journey.

She explains that people are always appraising their workplace and coming to conclusions on whether they feel safe, positive, and optimistic about the environment, or threatened, unsure, or fearful. These appraisals lead to conclusions about well-being, intentions, and subsequent behavior.

“A leader’s role is to help people manage their appraisal process now so that people get on the path to employee work passion rather than the road to disengagement,” says Fowler. “Every day is an opportunity for leaders to help individuals shift their motivational outlooks. Day-to-day motivation holds the key to long-term engagement.”

According to Fowler, a primary reason engagement initiatives haven’t been as successful as hoped is that leaders do not understand the role motivation plays in the engagement process. That, and the outdated beliefs leaders have about motivation.

“I think many leaders are afraid of changing traditional methods of motivation because they are worried about how people might react,” explains Fowler. “However, our experience has been that when leaders are exposed to proven best practices and develop skills to use them, they are more inclined to move outside their comfort zone and try an alternative approach.”

Guidelines for Getting Started

For leaders ready to try a new approach, Fowler recommends finding ways of satisfying deeper psychological needs and focusing in six key areas.

• Encourage autonomy. Give people options. Even when you are discussing deadlines, frame them as useful information for achieving important goals rather than ways for applying pressure.
• Deepen relatedness. Appreciate the vital role emotions and feelings play in creating connection. This interconnectedness is something we all long for.
• Develop people’s competence. At the end of the day, it’s not just about what a person accomplishes; it’s also about what they are learning and how they are growing.
• Promote mindfulness. Prompt awareness of options that a person may not have considered. Ask open-ended questions to help individuals see options and rise above old, unhelpful patterns of behavior.
• Align with values. Help others align their work to meaningful values that generate positive energy, vitality, and sense of well-being.
• Connect to purpose. Few things in life are more powerful than acting from a noble purpose.

The quality of people’s day-to-day motivation is the source for the quality of their engagement. For best results, intervene earlier and use more effective and enduring approaches to motivation. You’ll be surprised at the impact you can have as a leader when you meet deeper and more satisfying needs.

To read more about Fowler’s approach to motivation, be sure to check out Missing the Point on Motivation.  You can also learn more via a free, online Leadership Livecast Fowler is hosting on Motivating People Doesn’t Work … What Does? The online event is free, courtesy of The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Surveys have helped organizations to identify areas that need to be addressed, but an inability to “move the needle” when it comes to improving scores has turned optimism into cynicism in many cases.

Organizations need to shift their focus says Bob Freytag, Director of Consulting Services for The Ken Blanchard Companies. In an interview for Blanchard Ignite, Freytag says it’s time to take action.

“Stagnant or declining engagement scores tell you that leadership fundamentals are missing,” explains Freytag. “Putting those fundamentals in place requires time, focus, and a strategic shift.

“Engagement surveys create a dynamic tension between what is and what is possible in an organization. The best leaders lean into those needs and become sponsors and champions of change.”

The Ken Blanchard Companies’ ongoing research into the factors that create a passionate work environment has identified three major areas of focus—Organizational Factors, Job Factors, and Relationship Factors—that leaders at different levels in organizations need to address to bring out the best in their people.

Organizational Factors include Fairness (as measured by Distributive and Procedural Justice), Growth, and Performance Expectations.  Job Factors include Meaningful Work, Autonomy, Task Variety, and Workload Balance.  Relationships Factors include Connectedness with Leader, Connectedness with Colleagues, Collaboration, and Feedback.

At an Organizational Level, senior leaders can begin looking at ways to shape the organization’s systems, policies, and procedures. At a Job Level, managers and supervisors can begin to explore the degree to which their direct reports feel their needs are being met in each area–and once identified, look at ways to set up the conditions that are more favorable for each factor. The scores on the four Relationship Factors can—and should be—addressed by leaders at all levels to understand how to improve the connections between people in the organization.

“But leaders need to address issues directly and not be vague or ambiguous,” cautions Freytag. “Help people see a clear path ahead and address what is possible. Also recognize how important you really are as a leader. Leaders often get in the groove like anyone else and they come to work, they execute against their list of responsibilities, and they forget the importance of their role.

“It’s important for leaders to remember that they are always having an impact—you have no choice in that. The only choice you have is what that impact will be.”

You can read the complete interview with Freytag in the November issue of Ignite.  Also be sure to check out the information about a free webinar that Freytag is conducting on The Leader’s Role in Creating an Engaging Work Environment.  It is a complimentary event, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

When that happens, organizations find themselves with falling engagement scores and increasing apathy from employees about participating in continued surveys. As a result, many engagement initiatives are stalling, and some are even in danger of being quietly discontinued.

Dr. Drea Zigarmi, a founding associate and Director of Research for The Ken Blanchard Companies who has been studying employee engagement since 2006, believes organizations can achieve the results they are looking for if they are disciplined in the way they measure, plan, and roll out engagement initiatives.

In the September issue of Blanchard’s Ignite! newsletter, Zigarmi identifies three areas where organizations need to be especially vigilant in the way they approach this type of organizational initiative.

Start with a validated assessment.  Find an assessment that accurately measures what is happening in your organization in a way that is reliable, validated, and provides you with information that the organization can act upon.  If a commercial scale is used, be sure to vet the scales and also make sure that the psychometric properties are specified and up to academic standards.

Tie the assessment to specific outcomes.  Move beyond just measuring employee satisfaction. Before you launch an engagement initiative, tie it back to specific desired outcomes. What would you like to see happening differently in the organization?  Zigarmi recommends a focus on improving employee intentions in five key areas because they are the best predictor of future employee behavior.

Devote resources to implementation—not just measurement.  One of the reasons organizations find themselves in an engagement bind these days is because the primary focus is on surveying their employee base without much thought about what to do with the results.  In many cases, the implementation plan doesn’t go beyond sharing the data with managers and asking them to fix it.  When that is the situation, interventions usually lack depth or the character necessary to change the perceptions about what is going on.

Zigarmi reminds leaders that employee engagement initiatives are organizational change initiatives.  Most changes will require policy or system support. The good news is that with the help of a validated instrument, clear connections to desired behavior changes, and a focus on action, employee engagement initiatives can achieve the results organizations are looking for.

To learn more about Zigarmi’s recommended approach, read, Not Making Progress on Your Employee Engagement Initiative? 3 Keys for “Moving the Needle” in the September issue of Ignite!  (You can see the 12 Employee Work Passion factors Zigarmi recommends assessing and the Five Employee Intentions he measures.)

My previous blog challenged you to complete five common statements related to motivation. It wasn’t much of a challenge. These beliefs are so deeply embedded in our collective psyche that they roll off the tongue. What is a challenge is to let go and replace these statements with beliefs that promote an optimally motivating workplace.

In Part 1, we flipped the first statement: It’s not personal, it is just business, became If it is business, it must be personal.

In this post we explore the second eroding belief: The purpose of business is to make money (a profit).

We will explore the other statements in upcoming posts.

• We need to hold people ___________.
• The only thing that really matters is _______.
• If you cannot measure it, it _________ ________.

Your Beliefs Determine the Way You Lead

When you hold the belief that money is the purpose of business you are likely to over-emphasize results. You are apt to resort to pressure to motivate people to get those results. You may be tempted to employ questionable ethical practices. When given a choice, you might choose quantity over quality, short-term results over long-term results, and profits over people.

Consider how an alternative belief would generate a different approach to your leadership. How would your decisions and actions be different with the following statement?

The purpose of business is to serve.

Think how this reframed belief might alter your organization’s dashboard metrics—or at least the content and quality of the goals. How might reframing goals so they focus on internal as well as external service, quality of people’s efforts as well as the results of their efforts, or celebrating learning and growth in addition to accomplishments, change the way you lead day-to-day?

Hard-nosed businesspeople will push back on these ideas with a traditional argument, “You can serve all you want, but this soft stuff doesn’t make you money and if you don’t make a profit you will go out of business. Then you won’t be serving anyone.”

It is true that a business must make a profit to sustain itself. But it is an illogical leap to conclude that profit is therefore the purpose of business. You need air to live, plus water and food. But the purpose of your life is not to just breathe, eat, and drink. Your purpose is richer and more profound than basic survival. And the more noble your purpose and developed your values are, the more they influence how you live day-to-day. When you believe that the purpose of business is to serve, you lead differently. Your decisions and actions are more likely to cultivate a workplace that supports people’s optimal motivation.

The nature of human motivation is not in making money. It is in making meaning.

Ken Blanchard says, “Profit is the applause you receive for serving your customers’ needs.” I would add “and your people’s needs.” Research conducted by The Ken Blanchard Companies found definitive evidence that organizational vitality measured by ROI, earnings by share, access to venture capital, stock price, debt load and other financial indicators, is dependent on two factors: customer devotion and employee work passion[1]. It does not work the other way around—organizational vitality is not what determines customer devotion or employee work passion.

Leaders who focus on serving their customers’ needs and satisfying their people’s psychological needs will enjoy organizational vitality. The old sports analogy works equally well in business: Focusing on money and profit is like playing the game with your eye on the scoreboard instead of the ball. In business, service is the game you are playing. Keeping your eye focused on customer service and people development will result in scoring—both to the bottom line and in other more meaningful ways that sustain high performance over time.

Try this for the next month: Challenge the notion that the purpose of business is to make money. Try changing that outdated traditional belief to an Optimal Motivation belief: “The purpose of business is to serve—both your customers and your people. Money is a by-product of doing both of these things well.”

Watch how your people respond to your changed belief. Then notice the results and accept the well-earned applause.

______________________________________________________________________

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop. Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

.

• It’s not personal, it is just ________.
• The purpose of business is to _____ _______.
• We need to hold people ___________.
• The only thing that really matters is _______.
• If you cannot measure it, it _________ ________.

We have embedded these beliefs so deep in our collective psyche that I bet you do not even need to check your answers. However, just because these belief statements are common, does not mean they are legitimate. I encourage you to consider that holding these beliefs may be undermining your ability to effectively cultivate a motivating environment for those you lead.

In this blog we will explore the first eroding belief: “It’s not personal, it is just business.”  We will tackle the other belief statements in upcoming posts.

Are You Kidding?

As a manager, you deliver information, feedback, or news to an individual that affects his or her work, livelihood, opportunities, status, income, mood, health, and/or well-being. How is this not personal?

On average, employees spend 75% of their waking hours connected to work—getting ready for work, getting to work, working, returning home from work, and decompressing. Oftentimes, employees spend more time interacting with coworkers than family members. Yet managers believe their actions are not personal and just business? Are you kidding?

Getting at the Root of the Belief

Trust me, what you say and do feels personal to the people you lead! Therein lies the issue. The new “F-word” in business, it seems, is Feelings. Is this because we hold a belief that expressing feelings does not belong in the workplace? If so, where did this belief come from?

I welcome your opinion. Here is mine: Feelings are discouraged in business because managers do not have the skill to effectively deal with them. True, some employees do not self-regulate well and may let their emotions get the best of them from time-to-time. But the fear of unruly emotions is disproportionate to the occurrence and severity of emotional outbreaks.

Research shows that even though people judge their work environment both emotionally and cognitively, emotions are the primary determinant of their sense of well-being[1] As a manager, your actions strongly influence the outcome of an individual’s appraisal process that results in a sense of well-being—or not. If you do not notice, acknowledge, and deal with a person’s emotions, you may unwittingly be undermining that sense of well-being that is the vital link to a person’s intentions and behavior.

Try this for the next month: Instead of holding on to a traditional belief that potentially undermines people’s motivation, listen to your heart and acknowledge the crucial role that feelings play in work and life. Try changing that traditional belief to an Optimal Motivation belief: “If it is business, it must be personal.”

Watch how your leadership changes as your belief changes. Then notice the positive affect your changed belief has on those you lead.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

For example, even if you are familiar with the differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, it hits home when you see examples of how setting intrinsic goals not only gives you a greater probability of achieving them, but also experiencing self-actualization and sustainable vitality.

On the other hand, extrinsic goals, more often than not, lead to depression and unhealthy physical symptoms. Regretfully, the goals most of us set are extrinsic goals–both personally and professionally.

What can you do differently?

Focus on setting intrinsic goals such as…

• Personal growth (improving listening skills or practicing mindfulness)
• Affiliation (nurturing a mentoring relationship or enhancing relationships with others)
• Community (contributing to something bigger than yourself or making a difference)
• Physical health (losing weight as a means for increasing energy or changing your eating habits as a way of lowering blood pressure)

Avoid extrinsic goals relating to…

• Social recognition such as increasing Facebook friends or LinkedIn contacts to improve your social or professional status
• Image and appearance such as losing weight to look good at your reunion or losing weight to be more attractive
• Material success such as earning more money, buying a powerful car, or moving to a prestigious neighborhood

Prompt intrinsic goals for others

Managers, teachers, and parents need to gain goal setting skills that prompt intrinsic goals based on optimally motivated, higher-level values. Individuals will benefit, but more importantly, it is a way to immediately begin shifting the values practiced in our organizations, educational systems, and communities.

If you find yourself challenging these notions, it is probably because most of us are conditioned to believe that setting goals for things we want (or think we need)–such as obtaining more money and the stuff we can buy with it–are part of “the secret” to success.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of research studies by the family of Self-Determination Theory thought leaders are proving that conventional thinking is simply wrong-headed. The real secret is that extrinsic goals do not provide the energy, vitality, and sense of positive well-being required to achieve most goals. And even if you happen to achieve the extrinsic goal, it doesn’t yield the sustainable joy, happiness, satisfaction, or energy you thought it would.

But perhaps more importantly, there is an undermining effect with extrinsic goals. In other words, extrinsic goals (social recognition, image and appearance, material success) tend to extinguish a potentially intrinsic experience. What we really yearn for is something we cannot buy or achieve through extrinsic goals.

As I sat in dozens of research presentations, I was thrilled with the compelling evidence demonstrating how the quality of the goals you set determines the quality of your experience. As a leader of others, if you remember that the value behind the goal determines the value of the goal, it can open up a distinctly different approach to setting goals that becomes a powerful and sustainable mechanism for positive well-being, engagement, and employee work passion.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

The more that virtual teams become our normal way of working, the more we realize how difficult it is to build the positive relationships so critical for team success.   A face-to-face meeting for team building is best, yet most teams can’t afford that luxury.

So how do you build team spirit when you can’t have a retreat or even just meet for coffee at the end of the day?   The key is tapping into the creativity and lighthearted nature buried within our business minds.   Here are three enjoyable activities to build relationships and team spirit.

How do you celebrate?

• If you search world holidays on the web you’ll find that almost every day is a holiday somewhere in the world. Holidays are culturally important, and how we celebrate reveals a lot about us as individuals.
• Ask one or two team members to share a few photographs and chat for five minutes in your next team meeting about how they celebrated their latest holiday.  What foods did they eat, what were the activities, what was being celebrated?

Guess the desk. 

• Ask team members to send in a photograph of their office (or home office) desk.  Show the photo and discuss what the desk reveals about its owner.
  • Does a bowl of fruit mean the person is health conscious?
  • Are there family photos?
  • How many technological gadgets are on the desk?
• After the discussion, ask team members to guess the desk owner’s name.   The owner then gets an opportunity to reveal him/herself and to clarify or explain anything noticed by the team.   

The most unusual thing …

• Use this as a conversation starter for the team.  When you send out the meeting agenda ask them to be prepared to answer a question. For example:
  • The most unusual thing I ever ate …
  • The most unusual place I ever visited …
  • The most unusual event I witnessed …

When building a virtual team, encourage that fun-loving side of you to emerge. Relaxed creativity can provide just the lift needed to build the positive relationships and esprit de corps that are the keys to successful virtual teams.

About the author

Carmela Sperlazza Southers is a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. Her posts on increasing organizational, team, and leader effectiveness in the virtual work world appear on the fourth Monday of every month.

These facts should sound really familiar to us.  They probably feel familiar, too—unfortunately.  The purpose of such articles—and this blog—should be to stimulate our determination to improve the situation.  But how?

The thing about engagement is that you can’t go at it directly.  You have to work on the many conditions—some of which we used to call working conditions—that contribute to employees feeling stressed, fearful, and disinterested in the work.  And Blanchard’s research into Employee Work Passion and Optimal Motivation can be really useful to you here.

But, more than discussing the 12 factors that you can improve to help employees feel genuinely passionate about the work and the company, I want to encourage you to contemplate where your heart is.  And for that exploration, I’d like to ask you to contemplate these three questions—and read one book:

1. What do you want from your employees?  List the top ten things you want—or maybe even expect from them.
2. What do you want for them?  In your heart of hearts, what do you want them to experience at work?  What kind of experience do you want them going home to their loved ones having had all day long?
3. What differences are there in the tone of the two lists?

I have run this simple experiment dozens of times throughout the world.  The lists are always the same.  And there is always a difference in the tone and “vibe” of the two lists.

The key idea here is this:  If leaders don’t make the shift from fixating on demanding more and more and more from employees without regard for their well-being, no one will ever get out of the disengagement vortex they are in.  We will just read another article about it next year.

What is needed more than anything is the soft stuff.  More warmth, more emphasis on the deep meaning of one’s work, more discussion about values linkages, more love.  Yep.  More love.

If that last point strikes you as a little crazy, check out Tim Sanders’ Love is the Killer App.  It’s a wonderful read…and perhaps the best gift I can give you today.

This heart shift is a vital part of the strategy to improving the motivation and engagement of your employees.  If you want them to shift their energy and be more engaged, shift your heart and love them more.  Then, pour that love into improving the environment they work in.  Our research shows that they will notice, and they will naturally turn that noticing into improved engagement.  Funny how that love thing works…

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

Surprisingly, when Fowler talks with leaders about what is motivating them on their current tasks and responsibilities, people recognize right away that much of it falls into a Disinterested, External, or Imposed Motivational Outlook.

• A Disinterested Motivational Outlook is where you just don’t care, and you are going through the motions.
• An External Motivational Outlook is where people justify their actions for an external reward—money, incentives, power, or status.
• An Imposed Motivational Outlook is where behavior is driven by fear, shame, or guilt.

But that comes at a cost, especially when people realize the amount of emotional labor they have been using to constantly self-regulate—finding ways to avoid feelings of pressure, stress, anger, disappointment, guilt, or shame.

As Fowler explains, “We spend inordinate amounts of time just overcoming our feelings of being imposed upon, or just overcoming the emptiness that comes from external motivation. It’s like we are using all of our emotional labor on low-level tasks just to muck around with low-level motivation.

“That might help us cope but it’s not helping us experience the energy, vitality, or sense of positive well-being that comes with higher levels of motivational outlook. Those come from mindfulness, developed values, and a noble purpose, for example.”

The search for a higher quality of motivation

In the Optimal Motivation program that Fowler has created with her co-authors David Facer and Drea Zigarmi, the focus is on teaching people a way to have a higher quality of life where they don’t have to use as much emotional labor.

“If you have clarity on what you value—for example, a life purpose, or a work purpose—and if you understand what brings you joy and what you love to do, then you have a higher quality of life and well-being. You may still require some emotional labor from time to time to self-regulate, but it is emotional labor that you’re willing to do because you see how it is related to higher quality motivation.”

That’s important says Fowler because people driven primarily by external motivators don’t achieve the sustainable flourishing and positive sense of well-being that you get with higher levels of motivation.

Fowler explains that as a leader, you need to think beyond imposed and external motivators. How could you invite choice? How could you help people build relationships? How can you increase competence?

“You never want to be the one encouraging a person’s need for external rewards.  Don’t settle for motivational models that try to find other ways to manipulate or trick people into giving more. Why not take the conversation to a different level? ”

To read more of Fowler’s thinking on cultivating a motivating work environment, check out her interview in the June issue of Ignite!, Don’t Settle for Less When It Comes to Personal Motivation.  You’ll also see information about a free webinar Fowler is conducting June 19 on The Business Case for Motivating Your Workforce.  It’s complimentary, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

I think that needs to change. Leaders need to use the “F” word more. Much more.

I used to be afraid of the “F” word until I learned better. Now I find myself using the “F” word whenever I get the chance. Here are four reasons why it’s important for leaders to use the “F” word – feelings – in the workplace (you didn’t really think I was talking about that “F” word, did you?!):

1. It recognizes reality – People don’t check their feelings and emotions at the office door. Every one of your employees is a walking, talking, bundle of thoughts and emotions that affect the way they “show up” at work. Even though every manager in the world wishes that people kept their personal lives at home and didn’t bring their issues to work, that’s just not realistic. Everybody, including you and me, have issues in our lives that affect our work performance. Maybe it’s a sick child, an ailing parent, marital problems, financial pressures, <insert challenge here>, you name it – we all have ups and downs in life. Effective leaders have learned to be emotionally intelligent and understand the need to manage the whole person, not just the faceless/mindless “worker” that shows up to do a job.

2. It builds trust – There is no more important leadership competency than building high-trust relationships. There is very little chance for success in the leader/follower relationship without a solid foundation of trust. One of the core elements of a trustworthy relationship is “connectedness.” People trust you when they know you care about them as individuals and not just workers being paid to do a job. Acknowledging emotions, maintaining open communication, and recognizing/rewarding people for their accomplishments are key behaviors in building trust. You can’t build trust without using the “F” word.

3. It fosters engagement – Research has shown there are 12 primary factors in creating passionate employees at work. By “passionate” I mean engaged employees that are willing to be good corporate citizens, perform at high levels, and devote their discretionary energy to accomplishing their goals and those of the organization. Two of those 12 factors are relationship-focused: connectedness with leader and connectedness with colleagues. Like the theme song from the old TV sitcom “Cheers” says, “You want to go where everybody knows your name.” People need rewarding interpersonal relationships with their coworkers to be fully engaged on the job. Employees also want and need a supportive and personal relationship with their boss. Of course this varies by personality types and other factors, but everyone wants to have a positive and productive relationship with their leader. You have to talk about feelings if you want to have engaged employees.

4. It helps manage stress – People need an appropriate emotional outlet at work to share their concerns and frustrations. There needs to be a “safe zone” where people can voice their feelings without fear of recrimination, and in order for this to be possible, there has to be a high level of trust. Admittedly this can be scary. If there aren’t proper boundaries in place, venting can quickly turn into gossiping, whining, complaining, and general negativity. That’s why I think it’s important for leaders to take charge on this issue and create a culture where their people feel safe in coming to them to share these concerns. People are going to vent about their frustrations whether the leader chooses to be involved or not. Why not be purposeful about creating a system, process, or structure to positively channel these feelings? (Oops, there I go…using the “F” word again.)

The world at work has changed dramatically over the last 25 years. The “F” word used to be off-limits. Everyone understood that a person showed up for work, punched the clock, did their job, punched out, and went home. There was no namby-pamby talk about feelings, engagement, well-being, or happiness at work. You want to be fulfilled? Get a hobby outside of work. That will fulfill you.

Nowadays there is much less separation between a person’s personal life and work life. Technology has blurred the boundaries between those areas and it’s created new dynamics in the workplace to which leaders have to adapt. Whether you like it or not, leaders have to know how to deal with feelings in the workplace. Get used to it, you’re going to have start using the “F” word more. Much more.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

Alexa took her current post in 2010.  That year she led her group to earn Best Retail Operation for the region, going from worst-to-first in a single year.  Along with a public award, Alexa received a “Far Exceeds” rating on her annual performance appraisal.

Unfortunately, at the time of her next review, Alexa’s group was slightly below its Key Performance Indicators (KPI) targets and so her boss rated her performance as only “Meets Expectations.”  It turned out to be a case of poor timing as the group rebounded and by year’s end had once again won Best Retail Operation.

An important and tangible difference

For Alexa, the difference between “Meets Expectations” and “Far Exceeds” was important—and tangible.  In her company, a rating of Far Exceeds meant the employee had a greater chance of a promotion in the next 12 months, a greater opportunity to participate in juicy cross-functional projects that C-level executives track, and a larger base salary and bonus package for the coming year.

Alexa’s boss apologized for the 2011 rating and said he would make it up to her in the 2013 review.  Unfortunately, the damage was done; Alexa interpreted her boss’s decision as unfair given her history of taking a last place group to first place in less than a year, and then repeating that high performance.  Her boss said nothing could be done.

The impact of that interpretation was that Alexa went from being highly interested and innovative in her role to being more or less disinterested—just going through the motions.  She said, “You rate me as Meets Expectations, and I will meet expectations.  Nothing more.”

Leading with Optimal Motivation

When  talked with about  this, Alexa was immovable, so deep was the sense of betrayal.  In considering ways to help her, a purely rational, left brain, traditional business analysis of this situation would have us evoking some version of the Nike slogan—Just Do It.  In other words, “Alexa, change your attitude, accept your boss’s apology,  and get back to it.”

But, that’s probably a fantasy at this point.  Alexa now perceives the performance management system as unfair, so she feels hurt by it and wary of it.

Our Optimal Motivation process suggests a different approach.  Instead of suggesting that she just get over it, we would recommend that Alexa’s leader’s work would be to address how Alexa feels, and  to help her reconnect with her passion for delighting customers, her passion for making the workplace amazing for her employees, and the important financial and competitive contribution her group makes to the welfare of the entire organization.  Her manager, then, would be engaging with Alexa in a series of Motivational Outlook Conversations.

What Would You Do?

That’s our approach (and we would be happy to talk with you more about that) but for now, let’s make this interactive.

• What would you do to help Alexa return to the proverbial sunny side of the street?
• How would you engage her manager?
• What changes do you think her manager would want to make so that she or he is successful with Alexa?

Use the comments feature.  It would be great to hear your thoughts and how you would address this situation.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

Consider these five statements. True or False?

1. Money cannot buy you happiness.
2. Money may not buy happiness, but it will buy things that make you happy.
3. The more money you have, the happier you are.
4. Seeking wealth, status, or image undermines interpersonal relationships and connectedness to others.
5. Pursuing money or other materialistic values results in feeling pressured and controlled.

Did you answer True to #1? Most of us have held a programmed value since childhood that money doesn’t buy us happiness. If it did, we reason, we wouldn’t see rich people with substance abuse issues, struggling with their weight, or defending themselves in court against character or behavior accusations.

Ironically, I find that people also answer True to statements #2 and #3. Despite believing that money cannot buy happiness, they believe that money can buy things that make us happy and that the more we have, the better off we are. But that isn’t logical. If money doesn’t buy you happiness, how can having more money buy you happiness?

Research supports the notion that money and happiness are related, but not in the way you might think. If it were true that money buys the things that make us happy and that the more we have the happier we are, then we would expect happiness scales to increase when per capita wealth increases. But that isn’t the case in the United States or any other country in the world. Pursuing and achieving material wealth may increase short-term mood, but it does not increase one’s sustainable happiness.* Both statements #2 and #3 are False.

Not only does money not buy happiness or the things that make you happy, but the more that materialistic values are at the center of your life, the more the quality of your life is diminished. This lower quality of life is reflected in a variety of measures including low energy, anxiety, substance abuse, negative emotion, depression, and likelihood to engage in high-risk behaviors. 

The Problem with More

Interestingly, when individuals are asked what level of wealth they need to be happy, both the poor and the rich respond with relative amounts of “more.” No matter how much you have, you always want more—more money, belongings, toys, status, power, or image. But here’s the thing: No amount of riches will buy security, safety, trust, friendship, loyalty, a longer life, or peace of mind. Moreover, thinking you can buy these things destroys any real chance of experiencing them.

Therein lies the problem. We’ve been programmed to believe that our well-being depends on the quantity of what we have. There is a current TV commercial where a little girl tries to explain why more is always better—which is the message the advertiser is trying to convey because that’s what they are offering you—more. The irony is that the little girl simply cannot explain why more is better. It really is funny. But it disproves the very point the advertiser is hoping to make. More is not always better—it is simply a belief that most of us have yet to challenge. 

Quality Over Quantity

What if we were to turn the table and focus on quality over quantity? Consider your answer to statement #4. Did you answer it True? One of our most basic and crucial human needs is for relatedness with others. This longing for connectedness is obvious in the explosion of social media and online dating services. The lack of relatedness is detrimental to everything including the quality of our physical and mental health. Research indicates that relatedness is thwarted by the pursuit of materialism.* Yet we rarely link materialistic values and goals to the undermining of interpersonal relationships that influence the quality of our life.

Statement #5 is also True. If you follow any of the popular culture regarding the effects of extrinsic motivation, or what we call suboptimal Motivational Outlooks, you understand the negative impact that feeling pressure or control has on creativity, discretionary effort, and sustained high productivity and performance. And yet, organizations are hesitant to generate alternatives to pay-for-performance schemes and incentivizing behavior, despite the proof that those systems based on materialistic values generate the pressure and control that undermine the quality of our work experience—and our results. 

Our Values Shape Us

And here is a great sadness. When you operate from materialistic values, it not only undermines your well-being, it also negatively affects the health and well-being of others. When our focus is on material pursuits, we become less compassionate and empathetic. Our values shape the way we work, play, live, and make decisions. And those decisions impact the world around us.*

Each of us has an amazing opportunity with the understanding gained through recent research and the evolution of human spirit. We can shift our focus from the value of materialism to the more empowering values of acceptance, compassion, emotional intimacy, caring for the welfare of others, and contributing to the world around us. Not only will this shift in focus improve the quality of our own lives, it will also create a ripple effect that ultimately will improve the quality of life for others. For the reality is that the most important things in life cannot be bought. Indeed, they are priceless.

* For supporting research and more information on this topic, I highly recommend the following resources:

• The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser
• The Handbook of Self-Determination Theory Research by Deci and Ryan
• The Price of Inequality by Joseph E. Stiglitz
• Website:  www.selfdeterminationtheory.org

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

The program explains the link between three basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence and what we call Motivational Outlooks—the actual motivational experience someone develops around a particular task, goal, or situation. And it teaches people how to shift from suboptimal motivation to optimal motivation anytime they want.

And that’s what I need right now.

As I write this, it is the end of a very long Sunday—a day, some say, for rest. But I worked fifteen hours today after working six yesterday. It is now 12:53 a.m. on Monday morning. I have hardly eaten. I missed phone calls from my dad and from my friends Emily, Alison, and Anthony. I have a meeting 90 miles from home tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m., which means being up at 5:30. I am exhausted.

Low Quality Motivation

The aggravation I feel is akin to one of the six Motivational Outlooks—the Imposed Motivational Outlook. It is a feeling of resentment that the deadline is so tight, that I feel as if we are in a fire drill, and that it is seen as unreasonable to ask for a weekend free of work and have that reasonable request honored. The Imposed Motivational Outlook tonight comes with a sound track. It plays Noooobody knoooows the troubles I’ve seen…

High Quality Motivation

But, I also feel exhilaration knowing this program is onto something big and important. We are not only tapping a vein—we are shaping the conversation about how motivation in the workplace could be experienced and how the conversation among leaders in HR and business ought to operationalize motivation in everyday programs, systems, and conversations. This is the Integrated Motivational Outlook because all of this vast work is linked to my deepest values and sense that we are making a real difference.

I’m thinking about how my sense of relatedness has been both undermined and supported today. I have felt pressured to get this work done, but I also have felt free to do it using my personal flair and creativity. My sense of competence is soaring because something that used to seem daunting now just seems like any other big project that takes a lot of time, focus, and skill—a project that pretty much anyone could master given the right skill, mindset—or Motivational Outlook—and environment.

Now at nearly 1:00 a.m., writing, expressing, and sharing requires a great deal of self-regulation—to remain focused, to remain sanguine, and to remain awake!

Shift if You Want To

Through it all, I have an incredible tool to help me monitor and manage my Motivational Outlook—and shift it if I want to. Which experience will win this very late night? With what perspective will I color this very long day? Will it be aggravation and exhaustion, or exhilaration from the knowledge that I, as well as the program, have taken strides today toward a higher level of performance and contribution? Will I choose Imposed or Integrated around the time requirements, values, and purpose of this work?

With the last flickers of my synapses, with the final shallow breaths of my groggy self, with the last blinks of my bloodshot and bleary eyes, on the roller coaster of well-being, I choose Integrated and I think to myself, “Physician—heal thyself!”

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.

One of the main themes of her story is that businesses are asking employees to work harder without providing the kinds of rewards—financial and psychological—that were once routine. As Semuels explains, “Employers figure that if some people quit, there are plenty of others looking for jobs.”

Paul Osterman, co-director of the MIT Sloan Institute for Work and Employment Research, who was quoted in the story, agrees. He says, “Wages are stagnant, jobs are less secure, work is more intense — it’s a much tougher world.”

For example, Semuels quotes Matt Taibi of Providence, Rhode Island, who routinely works twelve-hour days as a driver for UPS. “There’s more and more push toward doing more with less workers,” says Taibi. “There are more stops, more packages, more pickups. What’s happening is that we’re stretched to our limits and beyond.”

All workers are being impacted

Semuels reports that salaried workers are also experiencing the harsher work environment. While an over-forty-hour work week has routinely been a part of salaried positions, workers often enjoyed a measure of autonomy in their schedules.

That’s increasingly rare, says David Tayar, who spent a decade on salary as an associate attorney at a Manhattan law firm. He says that the demands of his job grew so much in that time, he eventually felt that he could never take a break.

When he started, Tayar says, “I checked my voice mail every few hours. Today, lawyers must check their BlackBerrys every few minutes — and be prepared to cancel a dinner, a weekend trip, or a vacation at a moment’s notice.” Tayar says he took just one day of vacation in a five-year stretch.

“You could never totally relax — you could be called at any time, unless you were officially on vacation,” Tayar says. “And even if you were, there were times when you would be called in to work.”

In defense of the common tactic of reducing headcount, cutting costs, and driving higher levels of productivity, Tim Meyer, an executive with private equity firm Gores Group of Los Angeles, explains, “Sometimes you have to make dramatic changes to save the jobs that you can.”

But it’s come at a cost, says HR Specialist Donna Prewoznik . “The relationship between employers and employees has changed,” she says. “Employees haven’t had raises. They’re tired. Their hours are reduced. They feel a little bit betrayed.”

What’s your experience doing more with less in today’s work environment?  Share your comments below—or check out the hundreds that have been posted online in response to Semuels’ article.  You can read more by checking out The Tougher Workplace series here.

Beyond absolutely loving that visual, the question really caught me. How often to do you hear someone ask you why you do what you do?

My “whys” are straightforward.

First, I think all employees, from today’s new hires to the most seasoned top execs, long for a more fulfilling work experience than they have.  Most can’t, or won’t, say it like that—not in such blatant terms.  But their words, body language, mental and physical exhaustion, dry business approach, and chronic complaints about other people (seldom about themselves, of course) offer some evidence of this assertion.

Second, the need is widespread. I have never had less than one individual from a consulting, coaching, or training program in any organization come up and tell me during or afterwards, “You need to get my boss to learn this stuff.”  They explain that the motivational culture they currently work in consists mostly of pressure and demands for ever greater accountability.

My third reason is the most potent of them all.  It helps make the entire world a better place.  In essence, this is optimal motivation as moral agent.  Huh?  Moral agent?  Well, I believe people long to do good work.  They long to be part of organizational cultures that are psychologically healthy, intellectually vibrant, and purposefully productive. Motivation research shows we thrive with such vitality and well-being.  And don’t you think employees also have a right to it, too?

In the end, my biggest why is that enriching the work environment by teaching others how to leverage the most up-to-date science of motivation in practical ways is the morally right thing to do.  It’s one small action that offers the fresh possibility of making life more fulfilling for everyone.

When asked how well the traditional mantras of, “Results, results, results!” and, “People need to be held accountable,” helps them thrive at work, most employees report, “They don’t—not really.”  We have enough old approaches like that. Instead, what we need now is actionable individual, interpersonal, and systems-focused tools that help all employees—individual contributors and management alike—to rejuvenate their stale and pressure-filled work environments.  We need psychologically healthy ways to bring employees alive, and to make work—and our entire lives—better.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

Their conclusion?

“Cutting yourself off, or choosing not to focus on the people side of the equation, can—and will—be a problem that will impact your development as a leader.”

Have you inadvertently cut yourself off from your people?  Many leaders have.  It’s usually because of time pressures, or a single-minded focus on results—but sometimes it’s also a conscious choice to create “professional distance” that allows you the emotional room to make tough choices.

That’s a mistake say the Blanchards. “The best working relationships are partnerships. For leaders, this means maintaining a focus on results along with high levels of demonstrated caring.”

They go on to caution that, “The relationship foundation has to be in place first. It’s only when leaders and managers take the time to build the foundation that they earn the permission to be aggressive in asking people to produce results. The best managers combine high support with high levels of focus, urgency, and criticality. As a result, they get more things done, more quickly, than managers who do not have this double skill base.”

Don’t limit yourself—or others

Don’t limit yourself, or others, by focusing on just one half of the leadership equation.  You don’t have to choose.  In this case you can have it all.  Create strong relationships focused on jointly achieving results. To read the complete article—including some tips on getting started—be sure to check out Getting Your Team Emotionally Engaged Is Half The Leadership Battle. Here’s How To Do It

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Wondering if you might be making some of these common mistakes in your own goal setting with employees?  Here’s what Hester warns against.

• Goals are not realistic. Stretch goals are great, but if they are out of reach they become demotivating and can even cause some employees to engage in unethical behavior to achieve them. In addition to making sure a goal is attainable, goals should be monitored and adjusted as needed during the year.
• Setting too many goals. When employees have too many goals they can easily lose track of what is important and spend time on the ones they “want” to do or that are easier to accomplish whether or not they are the highest priority.
• Setting goals and then walking away. Goal setting is the beginning of the process, not an end in itself. Once goals are set, managers need to meet regularly to provide support and direction to help employees achieve their goals.
• Setting a “how” goal instead of a “what” goal. Goals should indicate “what” is to be accomplished—the end in mind—not “how” it should be accomplished.

3 Ways to Improve Goal Setting

For managers looking to make their goal setting and performance planning more effective, Hester recommends focusing on three key areas.

Approach goal-setting as a partnership. Recognize that performance planning is not something that you should do alone. This is something to be done in partnership with your team member. It’s a collaborative process. So the manager needs to know what the employee’s key areas of responsibility are, what is expected in the role, and what they want to see in terms of performance. The key is to have that discussion with the employee.

Make sure the goal is SMART (or SMMART). Anytime you set a goal, objective, or an assignment, you need to make sure that it meets the simple SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound). Hester also believes that there should be a second “M” in the SMART acronym to account for employee Motivation. This means the manager needs to additionally ask, “What is it about this goal that is motivating? What difference does it make in the organization, or to the team, or to the individual employee?”

Diagnose competence and commitment levels. Finally, managers need to consider an employee’s individual competence and commitment level for a task. It’s a common mistake to assume that because a person is a veteran employee, they will be experienced at any new task that might be set before them. This is often incorrect. It’s important that a manager find out about experience with a specific task and then partner with the employee to determine what they need in terms of direction and support to be successful with this particular assignment.

To learn more about Hester’s advice for improved goal setting and performance with your people, be sure to check out the article Goal Setting Needs to Be a Partnership.  Also be sure to check out Hester’s January 23 webinar on Performance Planning: 5 ways to set your people up for success—it’s free courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

For the past several weeks (and several weeks ahead for procrastinators) managers around the world have been meeting with their direct reports to review last year’s goals, measure performance, and determine pay increases.

If you are in the middle of performance reviews with your people, here are two radical ideas inspired by a recent article Scott and Ken Blanchard wrote for Fast Company, The Best Gift Managers Can Give Their Employees This Season.

In the article, Scott and Ken identified that two of the most important ingredients missing in today’s manager-direct report conversations are growth and considering the employee’s agenda.

In some ways, that’s not surprising considering the cautious way most companies have been operating during our slow, tepid economic recovery.  “Just lucky to have a job,” has become institutionalized after four years of a weak employment picture and little or no growth in many industries.

But 2013 feels different.  There’s a small, but flickering sense of optimism in the air.  (Maybe it’s because that Mayan calendar scare is over—it is, isn’t it?)

Are you ready to move forward?  Here are three new ways of thinking.  How could you add these components into your next performance management or goal setting conversation either as a manager or direct report?

1. Think growth.  Yes, GROWTH!  It’s time.  People can only tread water for so long.  Eventually, you have to start swimming somewhere.  Developing new skills in your present job—and seeing the next step on your career path are both important factors that lead to happiness, well-being and better performance at work.  What can you add to your list of skills during the coming year?  What move can you make (even a small one) that will get you one step closer to your next career objectives?
2. Think connection. Who can help you along the way?  There is only so much that you can do on your own and left to your own devices.  We all need some help.
3. Think helping others. The late Zig Ziglar (who passed away earlier this year) was famous for identifying that, “You can get just about anything you want out of life as long as you are willing to help others get what they want.” But it has to begin with you.  Who can you reach out to this week or next?  Who can you help take the next step toward their career plans?

In their article for Fast Company Scott and Ken Blanchard share an important paradox for anyone in business to remember.  The more you give, the more that comes back to you.

Add a little bit of giving into your work conversations in 2013.  Talk about growth issues with your direct reports.  Find out how you can help.  You’ll be surprised at how much comes back to you during the course of the year.

Optimal Motivation

Victoria has a very special and very feisty cat that likes to be petted, but only on its head.  Miss the mark and you are likely to receive a hiss and a toothy kiss.

Gary recently rescued an equally special and feisty dog from the middle of a road near his home.  Now he is wondering how big it will get and how high the new fence needs to be.

I told about a gecko that lived under my refrigerator.

We also talked about research—and personal experience—of the effects of patient interaction with animals such as petting a dog or cat (or ferret, I suppose) on blood pressure (reduction) and mood (improvement).

Beyond the obvious suggestion to allow employees to bring their dog or cat to work once in a while (which may be impractical), I couldn’t help but wonder, what creative new programs could we create in 2013 that would bring similar health and well-being benefits?

This is where the games come in.  Jay enjoys playing Mexican Train with family and friends.  Jim and Drea enjoy bridge and pinochle.  Susan enjoys Words with Friends.  As we talked about the games we love, we talked about our heightened sense of well-being while playing them.  The benefits include intense concentration, connectedness with the people we play with, exercising our strategic skills, and feeling proud when we improve our competence.

Don’t we want these same benefits for our employees in their everyday work, too?

Influencing well-being

So, let’s get specific.  What creative new programs could you start in 2013 to help employees experience:

• A sense of passion
• Ever expanding competence
• Continual growth and learning
• Strong positive relationships, and
• A sense of pride for performing well?

Here are some things to consider as you think outside the box.  The Optimal Motivation dimensions are in parentheses:

1. Focus the program on enriching employees’ sense of well-being and enjoyment at work.  (Well-being)
2. Allow employees to opt-in, and publically celebrate all participants.  (Autonomy and Relatedness)
3. Encourage senior executives to participate alongside everyone else. (Relatedness and Competence)
4. While establishing teams or groups, minimize competition.  Make sure all teams are cross-functional only, with no teams by single roles, ranks, divisions, or departments.  (Relatedness and Competence)
5. Emphasize camaraderie rather than competition.   (Relatedness)
6. If you allow a monthly Pet at Work day, structure some fun activities like Stupid Pet Tricks, or Silly Pet Uniform contest.  Keep it light and fun.  (Relatedness and Well-being)
7. Make sure to allow time in the workday for all activities.  (Autonomy and Relatedness)

Let us know what you decide and how it goes.  And as ever, we wish you energy, vitality, and well-being in all you do.

Happy Holidays.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together  with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

A best-selling business book (and one that I had never heard of until earlier this month) addresses a key piece of the accountability issue.  Leadership and Self-Deception was first published in 2000 and then re-issued as a second edition in 2010.  The book has sold over 1,000,000 copies since it was published and sales have grown every year since it was first “discovered” by HR, OD, and change practitioners.

What makes the book so different (and hard to describe) is that it looks at work behavior as fundamentally an inside-out proposition.  We basically act out externally what we are feeling inside.  Bad behavior externally—doing just enough to get by, compliance instead of commitment, and putting self-interest ahead of team or department goals—are justified because of the way that that colleagues, managers, and senior leaders are acting in return.

The folks at The Arbinger Institute, the corporate authors of the book, call this “in the box thinking” and they believe it is the root cause of many of the problems being experienced at work today.

Is your organization stuck “in the box?”

Wondering if negative attitudes inside might be causing poor accountability on the outside in your organization? Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself.

• Where are the trouble spots in your organization?  Where are people getting the job done but it seems to always be at minimum level of performance—and with a low sense of enthusiasm and morale?
• What are the possible attitudes and beliefs among members of that team or department that make them feel justified in their behaviors?  Why do they feel it is okay to narrow the scope of their job, focus on their own agenda, and do only what’s required to stay out of trouble—but not much more?
• What can you do to break the cycle of negative thinking that keeps people “in the box?”

Climbing out of the box

Surprisingly, the answer to breaking out of the box starts with expecting more of yourself and others. People climb into the box when they decide to do less than their best.  The folks at Arbinger describe this as “self-betrayal” and it sets in motion all sorts of coping strategies that end up with self-focused behaviors.  Don’t let that happen in your organization.  Here are two ways that you can help people see beyond their self interests.

1. Constantly remind people of the bigger picture and their role in it.  Set high standards and hold people accountable to them.
2. Second, and just as important, provide high levels of support and encouragement for people to do the right thing.  Make it easy for people to put the needs of the team, department, and organization ahead of their own.  Look at reward, recognition, and compensation strategies.  Look at growth and career planning.  What can you do to free people up to focus on the needs of others instead of themselves?

Change behavior by changing beliefs

Accountability is a tough issue to address because most people feel justified in their actions and opinions.  Don’t let your people self-justify their way into lower performance.  It’s not good for them and it’s not good for your organization.  Lead people to higher levels of performance.  Help people find the best in themselves.

“Shocking,” he exclaimed again before I could put up the second part of the slide. I asked the obvious question, “Why is this so shocking?” His reply: “My whole career I have been told my job was to motivate my people, now you tell me I can’t. No wonder I’ve been so frustrated.”

I revealed the second part of the slide: What managers can do is create an environment where people are more likely to experience optimal motivation at work.

Now this may not seem so shocking if you accept that motivation is truly an inside-out job–only an individual can determine how they are motivated. And it may be obvious that a manager’s role is to create a workplace where people can experience positive motivation. But the manager’s initial shock led to an exploration of the latest science of motivation that you might also find useful.

Over the years it has become evident that most managers do not understand how to create that motivating environment. Throwing their arms up in despair, they assumed motivating people depended on things mostly outside their managerial control such as good wages, promotions, and job security. Managers defaulted to HR to come up with better compensation schemes, more creative reward and recognition systems, and elite high potential programs.

But now we know better. If you hope to motivate–or create that motivational environment–for your staff through raises, bonuses, annual awards, or promotions, you are pinning your hopes on false promises. I can hear HR managers breathing a collective sigh of relief at the same time as they are thinking: But what do managers do differently?

Here are three things to stop doing that undermine optimal motivation and how to use the new science of motivation to make a positive difference:

1. Stop depending on your authority and hierarchical power and find ways to give your people a greater sense of autonomy. Start giving people a sense of choice by helping them generate alternative actions and solutions, discussing implications for various approaches to problems, and providing freedom within boundaries whenever possible.
2. Stop thinking business isn’t personal. Turn the old axiom around: If it is business, it must be personal. Learn how to have effective challenging conversations, take note of personal issues that may be influencing a person’s performance on any given day, and be willing to share personal stories that are relevant to work and goals.
3. Stop focusing on what was achieved today and ask instead: What did people learn today? One of the greatest joys of being a manager is also being a great teacher. If your people go home each day having learned one new thing, they will not be the only ones feeling rewarded that day–you will also find a greater sense of accomplishment and purpose in your work.

The good news is that through the latest science of motivation, we have a good, solid, research-based understanding of what motivates people in the workplace. The other good news is that managers can use that understanding to help their people enjoy a higher quality motivational work experience. And that’s the maybe not-so-shocking truth about motivation.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

In a special presentation on Motivation as a skill: Strategies for managers and employees, Facer will be sharing some of the research underlying Blanchard’s new Optimal Motivation program and workshops.  Participants will explore real-world examples and learn pragmatic strategies that can help managers and individual employees make progress in important areas such as engagement, innovation, and employee well-being. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 1,000 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, David will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  David will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

When individuals prioritize their own needs and gains at the expense of others, our sense of relatedness decreases—and both intra-team competition and interpersonal suspicion increase.

This amounts to a special form of self-protective behavior—hoarding and hiding information.  It’s akin to sealing off a wing of the company library and saying that the information will not be shared with others to help solve the issues and challenges of the day. This behavior hinders the organization’s ability to learn quickly, which reduces its capacity to compete and serve its clients.

It’s especially troublesome when a manager asks the question.

Recent Blanchard research published in the Journal of Modern Economy and Management revealed that people who perceive their managers as primarily self-oriented experience more negative emotion and are less likely to speak positively about the organization to industry colleagues, friends, and family.  They also have higher turnover intentions.

Conversely, people who see their managers as highly interested in the needs and well-being of employees at least as much or more than their own personal needs are statistically much more likely to:

• perform at high levels;
• use more discretionary effort;
• positively endorse the company to industry colleagues, friends, and family;
• be highly ethical in their jobs;
• have the intention of staying with the company longer.

In other words, a manager who is others-oriented fosters the kind of behavior and intentions that help organizations thrive.

So, what can you do to build more employee goodwill—and help fling “What’s in it for me?” into deep space?

• Stop using the phrase yourself.
• When you hear others using the phrase, share the business and personal benefits of being more others-oriented than self-oriented.
• Cite the latest research as often as you can—because people will want to know you have strong evidence for your new point of view.

Working together effectively is a key competency in today’s work environment.  Here’s hoping that you and all your colleagues will together enjoy much shared happiness and success.

About the author:

The Motivation Guy  (also known as Dr. David Facer)  is one of the principal authors—together  with Susan Fowler and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

Funny thing is, senior executives make the same mistake when trying to identify what motivates their direct reports.  In separate research, Facer points to studies at George Mason University where executives emphasize external factors such as compensation, job security, and promotions while employees point to inherent factors such as interesting work, being appreciated for making meaningful contributions, and a feeling of being involved in decisions.

The assumed focus on purely external motivators keeps executives and employees looking in the wrong places when trying to identify cures to the lingering lack of engagement in today’s workplaces.  While disengagement continues to hover near 70% according to recent Gallup studies (a number relatively unchanged over the past 10 years) managers and employees continue to assume that there is little that can be done to improve motivation at work.  It seems that it is completely dependent on the economy.  In other words, when times are tough and money is scarce there is very little you can do to motivate people.

This is a false assumption explains Facer and the reality is that many people remain highly motivated—even during lean times, and even in organizations struggling to make ends meet.  It is all dependent on your motivational outlook and your perceptions of the environment you are working in.

What motivates you?

Here’s an interesting exercise to try for yourself that will allow you to replicate some of the findings cited in the research.

• Identify some of the key tasks you are working on as you finish up the year.  Be sure to write down tasks that you are looking forward to getting done as well as the ones that you’ve been procrastinating on. Don’t make the list too long.  About 5-7 items will help you see the pattern.
• What’s your motivation for finishing each task by the end of the year?  While there are actually six motivational outlooks, let’s look at two broad categories—Sub-optimal motivators (tasks you have to do because of negative consequences or promised rewards) and Optimal motivators (tasks you want to do because they are meaningful and part of a bigger picture you see for yourself and your organization).
• How many of your tasks fall into each category?  What’s your engagement level with each task as a result?

If you are like most people, you’ll find that your engagement level (and subsequent performance and well-being levels) are highest on the tasks where you see the work aligned with personal and organizational goals.  You’ll find that the tasks being done merely to avoid punishment or gain rewards are at a lesser level.

As leaders, it’s important to connect our individual work—and the work of others—to something bigger and more meaningful than just avoiding punishment and gaining rewards.  Don’t let misconceptions about what motivates you—and others—keep you and your team from performing at their best.

To learn more about Facer’s approach to motivation, be sure to read, Motivation Misunderstanding and Rethinking Motivation: It’s time for a change.  Also check out Facer’s complimentary November 28 webinar, Motivation as a skill: Strategies for managers and employees.  The event is free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

We are so caught up in the “busyness” of life, that practicing Mindfulness appears antithetical to producing the results and productivity required in our roles.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

When you notice and are aware of what is happening without judgment, you release yourself from patterns of behavior based on past experience, your dispositional tendencies, and your prejudices that limit your response.  When you do this, you have a myriad of choices for how to respond or react.  When mindful, you are able to choose a higher quality experience from your now unlimited choices.  The benefits to your own health, success, and productivity are rewards enough.

Practicing Mindfulness

Ready to practice some Mindfulness in your own life?  Here are three ways to get started:

1. Consider an important goal, task, or situation you currently have on your priority list.
2. Notice the physical sensation in your body that occurs just by thinking about it.  Does your stomach turn, your jaw clench, your chest tighten, your forehead frown?  Do you break into a smile, have butterflies in your stomach, or feel your pulse race?  Your body notices how you feel before you do!
3. Now notice the emotion attached to the physical feeling.  Is it positive or negative?  That’s judgment.  An emotion is your opinion of the physical sensation you are experiencing.  What if you were to let go of it and simply notice?  This would present you with a myriad of more choices than the one that so automatically came to your awareness.

Ripple effect with others

Donna, a participant in a recent Optimal Motivation workshop, told me that a major action step she committed to at the end of the session was to practice Mindfulness at work.  Being a woman in a leadership role in a manufacturing environment, Donna described herself as extroverted, strong, vocal, and quick to react.  She began taking a breath before calls and meetings; rather than immediately reacting to people and situations, she observed what was happening as “data.”

Donna reported that after a month of this practice her 17-year-old daughter said to her, “Mom, you seem really different; calmer.”  Donna was amazed that her practice had filtered throughout her life and that even her teenage daughter had noticed.

I hope you will experiment with Mindfulness.  Google it.  Check out the research by Kirk Warren Brown.  Travel to India and study with a yogi.  Or better yet, join us for an Optimal Motivation session and discover how Mindfulness can help you experience greater energy, vitality, and sense of positive well-being.

About the author:

Susan Fowler is one of the principal authors—together  with David Facer and Drea Zigarmi—of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ new Optimal Motivation process and workshop.  Their posts appear on the first and third Monday of each month.

1. I am not really here. (Well, maybe my body is, but my mind is elsewhere.)
2. I am being paid to be here. (And if I wasn’t being paid—or receiving some other type of reward—I wouldn’t be here.)
3. I have to be here; I’d be afraid of what might happen if I wasn’t.
4. Being here aligns with my values and will help me and my organization reach important goals.
5. Being here resonates with me; I feel it could make an important difference to others in my organization and/or help me fulfill a meaningful purpose.
6. I am inherently interested in being here; it is fun for me.

A quick survey found that people were attending for a variety of reasons including all six of the possible choices above. Fowler went on to explain that the first three choices were all “Sub Optimal” motivational outlooks that generated poor results. She also shared that outlooks 4, 5 and 6 were the “Optimal” motivational outlooks that most closely correlated with intentions to perform at a high level, apply discretionary effort, and be a good corporate citizen.

What motivates you?

What’s motivating you on your tasks at work?  Is it a “carrot” (External #2) or a “stick” (Imposed #3) approach?  If so, what’s the impact been on your motivation and performance?  Chances are that you’re not performing at your best.  Even worse, you could find yourself feeling somewhat manipulated and controlled, which rarely brings out the best in people.

For better results, think about what it might mean to employ a more Aligned, Integrated, or Inherent approach.  Find ways to connect the dots for yourself to create a more intrinsically satisfying strategy.

3 ways to enhance motivation

Fowler suggests beginning by evaluating the quality of A-R-C in your life.  Looking back at over 40 years of motivation research, Fowler shared that the answer to creating a more motivating environment is a combination of increased Autonomy (control of your experiences), Relatedness (working together with others), and Competence (developing and refining new skills).  The good news is that anyone can change their motivational outlook with some self-awareness and self-regulation.

Could you use a little more motivation in your life?   Most of us could.  To find out more about Fowler’s thinking on motivation and bringing out the best in yourself and others, be sure to check out Fowler’s free, on-demand webinar recording, A Closer Look at the New Science of Motivation.  You’ll discover some of the common mistakes people make when it comes to motivation and what you can do to improve your outlook.  Recorded on October 3 for an audience of 700 participants, the download is free, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

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Join best-selling business author Susan Fowler for a complimentary webinar and online chat beginning today at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (12:00 noon Eastern).

In a special presentation on A Closer Look at the New Science of Motivation Fowler will be sharing some of the research underlying Blanchard’s new Optimal Motivation program and workshops.  Participants will explore three basic psychological needs—Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence—and the skills needed to reach a high quality of self-regulation. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 700 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Susan will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  Susan will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

In Fowler’s experience, you have to understand your own reasons for performing at a high level before you can help others do the same. Without that understanding, most managers attempting to “motivate” others will resort to imposed or extrinsic techniques that may only make the matter worse—for example, a “carrot” approach which dangles incentives in front of people in exchange for desired behaviors—or a “stick” approach which applies sanctions and negative consequences for undesired behaviors.

A new understanding on what motivates people

Fowler maintains that the reason for our dependence on external rewards to motivate people, especially in the workplace, is not just because they were easy and the “fast food” of motivation, but because we didn’t have alternatives—we didn’t know what truly motivates people.

That’s been changing rapidly the past couple of years as research about intrinsic motivators have begun to make their way into the work environment.

Building on the pioneering work of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, researchers and practitioners have begun exploring the powerful impact that intrinsic motivators such as Autonomy (being in control of one’s own life), Relatedness (to interact, be connected to, and experience caring for others) and Competence (experience mastery) can have.

For example, researchers at The Ken Blanchard Companies have established that employee perceptions of increased Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence are positively correlated to intentions to stay with an organization, endorse the organization as a good place to work, and apply discretionary effort in service of the organization’s goals.

As Fowler explains, “The latest science of motivation gives us an entire spectrum of options beyond the carrot and stick. People want or need money and rewards, but when they believe that is what motivates them, they are missing out on much more effective and satisfying motivational experiences.”

How are you motivated?

Wondering how you can apply this latest research into your own work life?  Here are three area to explore:

1. What’s your motivation? What’s driving your performance on key work goals and tasks—is it in pursuit of rewards, avoidance of punishment, or something more meaningful and personal to you?
2. How are your needs for Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence currently being met?  Are you growing and developing skills?  Do you get a chance to work together in community with others toward a shared goal?
3. What can you do to create a more satisfying work environment for yourself and others? What small step can you take this week to start moving things in the right direction?

Work can—and should be—a motivating experience.  Sometimes we forget, or become resigned to, a transactional relationship.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  Re-examine your beliefs, reframe your experience and rediscover your passion. Break out of carrot and stick thinking.  Consider the impact that increased Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competency can have on your life.

PS: You can learn more about Susan Fowler’s approach to motivation in the article Motivation As a Skill.  Also be sure to check out a free webinar that Susan is conducting on October 3, A Closer Look at the New Science of Motivation.  It’s a free event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.

Granted, out of 7 billion people in the world, the odds of you being the absolute best at a particular something or other is pretty remote. But the point of the question is more general. What is it that you do really well? Probably better than most people you know? Knowing the answer to that question can help unlock levels of job satisfaction and engagement that you didn’t know existed.

Here are three steps you can take to understand the unique value you bring to your work and how you can stand out from the crowd.

1. Identify your strengths. Sounds pretty basic, huh? Well, it is pretty basic, but believe it or not, many people don’t have a good understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, or personality traits that help or hinder their success. Assessments such as the DISC, MBTI, Strengths Finder, or Marcus Buckingham’s newest StandOut survey can give you insight into what motivates you or how your personality preferences shape the way you perceive work experiences and “show up” to other people.

2. Understand the type of work or circumstances that best leverage your strengths and personality traits. One of my first “real” jobs was working for a popular Southern California fast food chain. I lasted one shift. The reason? My supervisor drilled into me the importance of following all the rules to the letter and corrected me whenever I deviated from them, yet he would go into the back of the kitchen and smoke a cigarette whenever he wanted (clearly in violation of the rules). I knew that I would never be happy working for a boss who didn’t display integrity in his actions. For me to be at my best, I need to be surrounded by people who have honorable values and strive to live up to those values.

One way to identify situations where you’ll thrive is to make a list of all the times where you’ve felt “in the flow” – those instances where you’ve been so absorbed in your work that you’ve lost track of time. What are the commonalities among those experiences? It might take a little digging and analysis, but you can probably find some themes running through those experiences. Perhaps it’s the type of people you worked with. Or maybe there was an element of problem-solving involved. Maybe it was the opportunity for you to use certain skills, like writing, teaching, or public speaking. Whatever the theme may be, it’s a clue to what really engages you and prepares you to take step #3 below.

3. Intentionally seek your “sweet spot.” Your “sweet spot” is that place where you find fulfillment in your work. You have two basic choices when it comes to identifying your sweet spot. The first is to leave it up to chance. You can hope that you stumble upon the type of job that is a good match for your personality and skills. Not a good option. The second choice is to actively look for situations that are a good match for what you bring to the table. Take what you’ve learned in steps 1 and 2 and apply it to your current situation. If you’re in a job that’s a complete mismatch for your personality and strengths, begin to put a plan together for how you can transition to something more in alignment with your natural gifts. If you’re in a job you like, but need a little more pizzazz in your work, map out new projects, tasks, or areas of responsibility that could benefit from the application of your strengths.

Discovering your strengths and learning how to use them in combination with your personality traits is an evolutionary journey. It doesn’t happen overnight and sometimes there is a lot of trial and error involved. However, taking a purposeful and introspective look into yourself and following these three steps can put you on the path toward finding a higher level of fulfillment and success in your work.

Randy Conley is the Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies and his LeaderChat posts appear the last Thursday of every month. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit Randy at his Leading with Trust blog or follow him on Twitter @RandyConley.

That’s not surprising.  What you’ve just described are some of the common feelings people have when their work environment isn’t quite as engaging as it could be—including a need for meaningful work, collaboration, connectedness, and feedback.  If you’re feeling a little bit out of the loop—or suspect that some of your colleagues or co-workers are, here are three ways to loop yourself back in.

1. Revisit your team or departmental goals.  What are the top priorities for the team this quarter, this month, and this week?  Get a sense of the bigger picture.  Where is everyone’s focus?
2. Identify your role.  Where do you—and your work—fit in?  Make sure your tasks and projects are aligned and have a clear line of impact on what is important to your unit.  You don’t want to be spending your time on things that are tangential or irrelevant.  I know that sounds basic, but it is surprising how many people find that their work has drifted.  Bring yourself back in by tightening up your focus.
3. Take action today.  What is an action step that you can take today to move yourself back in line with your team?  Are there roadblocks or obstacles that are keeping you in place?  What are they?  Do you need additional resources or authority to move forward?  Don’t stop there—the magic is in taking an action step that moves the process forward.

A three step process of identifying purpose, defining your role and taking action is a great way to reconnect with your group.  There are many benefits that will flow from this process.  You’ll find yourself with a sense of purpose, a clearer sense of where you fit in, and a bias for action that will get you moving again.

Get started this week on a fall check-up.  It’s a great way to reenergize yourself.

Rediscover your passion

Just about everyone has had a motivating work experience sometime in their lives.  (If you haven’t, give me a call and we’ll talk.)  For many of us though, that experience may have occurred long ago in the past.  Your first task to jump start your work environment is to rediscover that passion. When was the last time you truly loved a job? Make sure it’s a real example.

The reason I’m asking for a specific example is because I want to find a time when you actually experienced the environment you’d like to recreate.  Your past behavior is the best predictor of your future behavior.  If you want to know what would create an engaging environment now, identify a time when you were engaged in the past.

Now, here’s the second part.  What was it about that job that made it so great?  Be a good detective.  Don’t overlook any clue.  (Here are a couple of possibilities I’ve heard from others if you’re having trouble identifying your personal motivators off of the top of your head.)

1. My boss cared about me as a person
2. My colleagues cared about me.
3. The work was very meaningful
4. It was a fun, collaborative environment.
5. I had a lot of freedom and authority in how I did my work.
6. The work was varied and interesting.
7. I had a clear sense of what I was trying to do.
8. I was growing and learning a lot.
9. I felt involved and in the know.

Develop a plan

Now that you’ve got some data, it’s time to take some action.  What can you do to build those components into your current job?  Two cautions; don’t look outside yourself and don’t focus on what you don’t have.  You are looking to re-engage yourself—not discover what is wrong with your present environment or what others should do.

Instead, think of ways that you can build more connectedness, growth, meaning, and involvement into your present job.

Work the plan

Your last step is to take some action this week.  What can you do to reconnect with your boss or colleagues?  How can you rediscover the meaning in your work?  What steps can you take to provide some growth and variety in your work environment?

Happiness is a discipline

Taking action is one of the great antidotes for worry—and taking action in a positive direction is especially beneficial.  (Don’t you feel a little boost already—just thinking about it?)

Shake the rust off of your positive attitude.  Send yourself in the direction you want to go.

Here’s what people said attracts them to an organization and what would cause them to leave.

Adapted from Top Five  Global Drivers of Attraction, Retention and Sustainable Engagement           Towers Watson 2012 Global Workforce Study At A Glance

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The study also looks at the factors that create an engaging work environment.  It’s interesting to note that Towers Watson has expanded their definition of employee engagement—which they are calling “sustainable engagement”—to include enablement (having the tools, resources and support to do their job effectively), as well as energy (which means a work environment that actively supports employees’ well-being.)

Overall, the study showed that:

• Only 35% of workers rate high in all three areas and are engaged, energized and enabled.
• 22% are classified as unsupported, meaning they display traditional engagement, but lack the enablement and/or energy required for sustainable engagement.
• 17% are detached, meaning they feel enabled and/or energized, but are not willing to go the extra mile.
• 26% are completely disengaged, with less favorable scores for all three aspects of sustainable engagement.

Wondering where to get started in addressing some of these factors in your organization? 

Abhishek Mittal, a senior consultant with Towers Watson in Singapore shares some possibilities for specifically addressing the enablement aspect of sustainable engagement in a separate, but related article, Building a Sustainable Engagement Strategy.

In the article, published late last year, he describes a Towers Watson study with a large Asian bank that identified:

“The analysis of over 300 branches found that the direct manager has a large impact on ‘enabling’ employees. When we look at branches where employees are more satisfied with their managers on a range of parameters, the employees tend to feel much more well-supported or enabled to deliver in their roles. Their perceptions about work resources, tools, condition and work organisation are much stronger than other branches. In turn, branches with more “enabled” employees clearly have a higher percentage of engaged customers. And, we saw clear links between engaged customers and higher target achievement on branch-level operating profits.”

To read more about the two studies, check out Building a Sustainable Engagement Strategy or 2012 Global Workforce Study: A Quick Glance

Respondents could assign responsibility for each factor to either the senior leaders in the organization, their immediate manager, or themselves.  Surprisingly, in six out of the 12 categories, respondents identified themselves as the person most responsible for impacting that factor in their work environment.

Here’s the breakdown by factor.

Chart 1: Who in your opinion has primary responsibility for influencing and improving the following JOB factors?

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Chart 2: Who in your opinion has primary responsibility for influencing and improving the following ORGANIZATIONAL factors?

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Chart 3: Who in your opinion has primary responsibility for influencing and improving the following RELATIONSHIP factors?

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Implications for Organizations

The good news is that employees see the creation of a passionate work environment as a partnership between themselves, their immediate managers, and their senior leaders.  While some factors (Growth and Distributive Justice for senior leaders and Feedback, Performance Expectations, and Procedural Justice for immediate managers) are clearly seen as leadership’s primary responsibility, all of the other factors are seen as a joint responsibility.  Senior leaders can take advantage of this partnership attitude by encouraging conversations at all levels in their organizations.

Getting started

What can you do to encourage the people in your organization to begin discussing these factors and working together at ways to improve conditions in each area?  Give people a chance to share what they know about  improving their work environment and the environment of others.  Tap into that knowledge and experience.  You’ll be surprised at the small things you can do that will make a big difference.

To learn more about the survey and to access the complete results, be sure to check out Employee Work Passion Volume 4: What’s important in creating a motivating work environment and whose job is it?

As reported in (2005) The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave by Leigh Branham, page 21, Figure 3.1

Yes, compensation was a factor in 12% of the cases, but look at some of the other issues that drove people away—growth, meaningful work, supervisor skills, workload balance, fairness, and recognition—to name a few.

What type of environment are you providing for your people?

Author, speaker, and consultant Leigh Branham, who partnered with PwC to analyze the results of the study identifies that trust, hope, worth, and competence are at the core of most voluntary separations.  When employees are not getting their needs met in these key areas, they begin to look elsewhere.

Wondering how your company would stack up in these areas? Here are a couple of questions to ask yourself.  How would your people respond if they were asked to rate their work environment  in each of the following areas?

• I am able to grow and develop my skills on the job and through training.
• I have opportunities for advancement or career progress leading to higher earnings.
• My job makes good use of my talents and is challenging.
• I receive the necessary training to perform my job capably.
• I can see the end results of my work.
• I receive regular feedback on my performance.
• I’m confident that if I work hard, do my best, demonstrate commitment, and make meaningful contributions, I will be recognized and rewarded accordingly.

Don’t wait until it’s too late

Better compensation is only a part of the reason why people leave an organization.  In most cases it is a symptom of a more complex need that people have to work for an organization that is fair, trustworthy, and deserving of an individual’s best efforts.  Don’t take your people for granted.  While you may not be able to provide the pay increases you were able to in the past, there is nothing stopping you from showing that you care for your people, are interested in their long term development, and are committed to their careers.

But most leaders don’t know how to create that environment, explains Bob Glaser, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies. “Many leaders would prefer to deal with what they know instead of taking a risk with what they don’t know. As a result, leaders don’t think outside the box to look at other options. They know things are not where they need to be, but they are not able or willing to deal with it, or move in a new direction.”

The result is sub-optimized performance, says Glaser. “If you don’t have engaged employees, then they are not really going to take care of customers….they just do what they need to do, day to day, and not much more.”

“It’s normal behavior during economic downturns,” shares Glaser. “But it causes people to focus more on protecting their turf as opposed to looking for innovative new ways to contribute to the organization. It’s a self-serving, ‘circle the wagons’ type of attitude that is counterproductive to the organization.”

Breaking the cycle

While you may not be able to influence the organization as a whole at first, most managers have a sphere of influence where they can make decisions and where they can impact results and outcomes. Inside of this team, group, or department, managers can change the environment that will allow employees to be more engaged. For leaders up to that challenge, Glaser recommends a three-step approach.

1. Create a micro-vision. Leaders need to have a vision of what they want their team, their department, or their group to look like when they are performing at a high level of excellence. Focus on both results and the behaviors that will drive the results.

2. Get everyone involved. Next, involve people in shaping that vision for the department, group, or team. When it’s done right, it’s not just the leader’s vision, but it is the collective vision of where the group wants to go. Work together to create solutions where everyone feels that they can contribute, that they can make a difference, and that they are owners of at least that part of the organization.

3. Reward and recognize desired behaviors. Everyone is operating under a huge scarcity mentality. That takes its toll. People are stressed, working hard, and they’re trying to do the right thing, but their efforts just seem to maintain the status quo. Without explicit rewards and recognition to move in a new direction, it’s not going to happen. Be sure that you explicitly define expected behaviors and then measure alignment with the expectations.

Are your people growing—or just trying to survive and get by?

Ready to start growing again?  Begin by putting fear on the back burner and focus instead on moving in a positive direction encourages Glaser.  “Rally people around an organizational vision and show them how they contribute to the vital work the company is involved in.

“When everyone understands how they contribute and how their work makes the organization better, when leaders can put their own self-interest aside and focus on the needs of others, it can have great impact on morale, engagement, and results.”

You can read more of Glaser’s thoughts in this month’s main article of The Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter.  Also check out a free webinar that Glaser is conducting on May 23, Leading from Any Chair in the Organization, courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies

Chris will be exploring three actionable steps leaders can take to self-diagnose, assess, and change unwanted behaviors in a special presentation on The Biggest Mistakes Leaders Make and How to Avoid Them. The webinar is free and seats are still available if you would like to join over 600 people expected to participate.

Immediately after the webinar, Chris will be answering follow-up questions here at LeaderChat for about 30 minutes.  To participate in the follow-up discussion, use these simple instructions.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

• Click on the LEAVE A COMMENT link above
• Type in your question
• Push SUBMIT COMMENT

It’s as easy as that!  Chris will answer as many questions as possible in the order they are received.  Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.

We hope you can join us later today for this special complimentary event courtesy of Cisco WebEx and The Ken Blanchard Companies.  Click here for more information on participating.

The researchers at Gallup first identified this about seven years ago when they started to look more closely into the performance of a retail store chain where they had employee engagement scores, customer engagement scores, and financial performance measures for individual locations.

Conventional wisdom would have predicted that the stores with the highest employee engagement scores would also be the ones with the highest customer engagement scores and subsequently, the best financial performance, but that wasn’t the case.

Instead, what they found was that the stores that scored in the top half of both employee engagement and customer engagement were the ones that performed the best.  It was the dual focus on meeting employee and customer needs at the same time that produced the best results.  Scoring high on one aspect while neglecting the other didn’t generate nearly the results that an above average score on both measures did.

Where’s your focus?

Are you maintaining this double-focus on employees and customers in your organization?  Or are you narrowly focusing on one group over the other?

The best organizations keep a sharp focus on both groups.  They seek to create an engaging work environment for employees while simultaneously maintaining a clear focus on meeting customer needs.  It is this high support environment for employees, together with high standards of customer service, which produces the best results.

Don’t be narrow-minded in your thinking.  Look for ways to focus on both groups.  It will create the multiplier effect that will generate the results you are looking for.

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PS: Looking to learn more?  Check out How Employee and Customer Engagement Interact in The Gallup Management Journal.  It’s a great article with links to additional Gallup research and findings.

Chris Edmonds, a senior consulting partner with The Ken Blanchard Companies, believes employers may start seeing a talent drain as early as the latter part of this year as staff begin seeking out positions with employers who will value them more highly. In the meantime, and perhaps even more damaging, these same workers are content to “quit and stay,” emotionally checking out on their current employers and just doing enough to remain below the radar and maintain their jobs.

Allowed to remain unchecked, this attitude can spread and soon an organization finds itself battling a general malaise and heaviness. Performance is sluggish, but improvement is hard to pinpoint. The organization is surviving, but it isn’t thriving. Worse yet, attitude and morale issues begin to surface as employees question the “fairness” of it all. This is often experienced as an entitlement mentality, something that many organizations are experiencing.

Breaking the negative cycle

A damaging negative cycle can ensue as managers bemoan the entitlement mentality of employees while employees point to a perceived injustice in the way work is assigned, managed, and rewarded. Once this cycle starts, it can be difficult to reverse. Organizations can hope that employees will rise above the situation, but a more likely scenario is that leaders will have to take the first step.

Looking to reverse a negative cycle in your organization?  Edmonds has three suggestions for leaders:

1. Refocus on strategy. Identify key organizational objectives and connect department, team, and individual goals to overall strategy.
2. Engage staff and leverage skills. Take a positive approach. Trade in a defensive posture seeking to “avoid mistakes” and instead move in a positive direction that explores strengths and possibilities.
3. Support and serve. See your role as “chief obstacle remover” instead of “inspector general.” Make it easier for staff to work the plan without interference.

This is especially true with instances where managers are leading staff who have specialized skills, or who may be much more experienced, smarter, and skilled in their function than the leader is. As Edmonds explains, “A leader who manages with an assumption that they must control decisions in this environment will create a disaster. The leader needs to coach from the sideline, get the strategy clear, and then let the talent drive the appropriate activity. The leader needs to be kept informed so they can coach and refine the plan ‘in the moment’, but for the most part, enable the subject matter experts to act upon their knowledge.”

Leaders who set a strong vision, develop an aligned strategy, and engage talented staff in pursuit of that vision by encouraging, removing hurdles, and marshalling resources will always outperform those who remain reactive and only hope for the best.

Leading is about going somewhere. Where are you going? Are you moving forward—or are you standing still?  Take positive action today!

Take a little test

Feeling a little burned out yourself?  Here are five places to look for causes and improvement.  See how you’re scoring in each of these key areas.  Keep track on one hand.  Raise a finger for every question you can answer “yes” to.

1. Positive Emotion at Work

Let’s start with the basics—“feelings.”  The ten positive emotions are Appreciation, Love, Amusement, Joy, Hope, Gratitude, Serenity, Interest, Inspiration, and Awe.  How many of these emotions have you experienced in the past week at work? Raise a finger if you’ve experienced at least one of these emotions during the past seven days.

2. Positive Relationships at Work

Good relationships may be the single most important source of life satisfaction and emotional wellbeing. In fact, The Gallup Organization identified that having a best friend at work was one of the key predictors of overall employee engagement.  Do you have at least one person at work that you can talk to, share experiences with, and confide in?  Raise a second finger if you do.

3. Meaning and Purpose at Work

The third ingredient of positivity at work is meaning or purpose. To what degree is your work—and the work of your organization—contributing to something bigger than just making money?  We all need to serve something bigger than ourselves.  If you have a clear sense of the bigger picture and how you contribute to it, raise a third finger.

4. Positive Accomplishment at Work

The fourth element of positivity at work is positive accomplishment or achievement. Are you good at what you do?  Do you feel like you are learning and growing? Positive accomplishment fulfills a vital psychological need.   Raise a fourth finger if you are learning, growing, and achieving at work.

5. Positive Health at Work

As the old saying goes, “If you have your health, you have everything.”  How is your work environment contributing to your overall physical health?  Sedentary, repetitive, and stressful environments take their toll.  How would you rate your work environment’s impact on your health?  If it’s positive, raise a fifth finger.

An open hand—or a closed, little fist?

Now take a look at your hand.  Is it open with all five fingers extended?  Or is it closed in a tight little fist?  (See my personal score—and share yours—in the comment section below.)  If you’re like me, it’s probably somewhere in between.  A couple of areas are good while a couple of areas could use work.

Now, the important question—what to do about it?  For some great suggestions on how to bring some additional joy, optimism, and well-being back into your workplace, check out Edmonds’ and Zigarmi’s website, Positivity Works.  You’ll find a free downloadable excerpt of their book that will give you actionable ideas you can use immediately.  You’ll be surprised at some of the small things you can do today that will make a big difference.

Yet few organizations see personal well-being as an important focus for their business, nor do they understand the powerful connections between personal well-being and organizational success. Study after study has shown that when individual employees experience well-being, they consistently apply their skills and hearts in service of company goals and customers, adapt more flexibly to change, and are more creative and proactive problem solvers.

My colleagues at The Ken Blanchard Companies, Lisa Zigarmi and Chris Edmonds, have published a new book titled #POSITIVITY AT WORK tweet, that presents 140 short, actionable quotes on how to create and manage well-being in the workplace. Zigarmi and Edmonds present five “pillars” of well-being that are essential for positive workplaces. The five pillars are positive:

• Emotion – people function best in workplaces that provide a sense of satisfaction, achievement, and safety
• Relationships – human beings were created to live and work in community and our bonds of relationship are the most significant source of emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual well-being
• Meaning and purpose – again and again research shows that a sense of meaning, purpose, and doing worthwhile work is more important to employees than pay, status, or title
• Accomplishment – achieving mastery over work and working in service to a goal, group, or purpose beyond one’s self is a key driver of personal well-being
• Health – more than the absence of sickness, health is the balanced approach of taking quality time for work, family, and self, including total body exercise

Tweet #45 is the one that stood out to me. Zigarmi and Edmonds say “When you maintain a safe, open, trusting work environment, people bring all their skills and all their heart to the work opportunity.”

The foundation of any healthy, positive work environment is a culture of trust. When trust is present, people are willing to take risks, go the extra mile, and offer the best they have to give. The sense of safety and security that comes with a high-trust culture allows people to focus on the goals at hand rather than spending time questioning decisions or doing just the minimum amount of work to collect their paycheck.

Well-being in the workplace begins with trust, and Lisa Zigarmi and Chris Edmonds provide leaders with actionable steps to create a healthy, affirmative work environment where every individual contributes, connects, succeeds, and thrives.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at The Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust and leadership, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

Last week over 5,000 people joined The Ken Blanchard Companies for a Quit and Stayed Leadership Livecast looking at strategies for reducing the number of people who have mentally and emotionally “checked out” from their organization.  What can you do to improve engagement levels in your organization?  Plenty—depending on your role in the organization.  Here are some recommendations if you are a senior leader, frontline manager, or an individual contributor.

Senior leaders.

From senior leaders, the biggest need is two-fold.  1. Recognize the issue exists. 2.  Put a plan in place to reconnect people to the organization’s mission, vision, and values.  Legendary CEO of Herman Miller, Max De Pree, once likened leadership to being a 3^rd-grade teacher.  You have to say it again and again, until people get it right, right, right.  As focused as organization have become on grinding it out in recent years, it’s easy to fall into a mentality of “same as last year—but 10% more.”  That might be the reality, but it’s not going to inspire anyone.  People come to work for a variety of reasons beyond taking home a paycheck.   (For example, opportunities to learn and exercise new skills, work together with others toward a common goal, and to be a part of something bigger than themselves.)  Examine your organization.  Has it become one-dimensional?  If you meet only a part of people’s needs, you will receive only a portion of their effort in return.  If you want people to be fully engaged at work, you have to meet all of their reasons for being there.

Frontline managers.

Take the time to notice what is going on in your specific area of the organization.  You have tremendous impact on an employee’s perceptions of their work environment by the ways that you operationalize company policies and strategies.  How are you encouraging or discouraging people to act?  What message are you sending?  Also, where are you at personally with getting your needs met at work?  Your experience translates into your people’s experience.  Are you portraying work as dull drudgery that has to be accomplished?  Are you telling people a story of doing more with less—with little hope for any change in the near future?  If that’s your attitude, what’s the experience your people are having?  Change your internal environment and change the environment for the people who report to you.  See a brighter future for yourself and others.

Individual contributors.

Don’t stand back and wait for someone else to motivate you.  Yes, senior leadership, company policies, and your immediate manager all play a role in creating your work environment, but ultimately it is your choice whether you are going to be motivated or not.  In any organization, working under the same exact conditions, a certain percentage of people are thriving, while others are merely surviving.  It’s easy to see yourself as a victim of your circumstances—but you have more choice than that.  Even during difficult times, some people thrive and shine.  Be one of those people.  To the best of your abilities, create the environment you need to succeed.  Look for ways to contribute.  Standing back with your arms crossed and a chip on your shoulder is not going to create new opportunities for you.  Be the person you want others to see you as.

Don’t miss your future

The economy is picking up.  Things are starting to improve.  Don’t let a tired attitude keep you–or your company–from taking advantage of new opportunities.  Review where you are at;  Can you see a bigger vision?  Do you see where you fit in?  Do you know what your next step is?  How can you help yourself and others get there?  Depending on where you sit in the organization, take action today!

While some of the factors that contribute to disengagement need to be addressed at an organizational level, there is one action that managers at all levels can take that will help the situation.  Talking about it.  Staying quiet on the subject and hoping that it gets better on its own never works out.  In fact, usually, things will get worse.

As the late great business author Peter Drucker pointed out, “Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.”

First Steps

Having a conversation with someone who has fallen into a state of disengagement can be a challenge.  There is usually some history that has to be dealt with, as well as some shared responsibility for the situation.  As a leader though, you have to address the situation squarely. That means setting up some time to have a conversation.

It will also be important to put some structure around that conversation.  One great framework that you can use are the 12 employee work passion factors identified by Blanchard as the factors which most impact employee intentions to perform at high levels, actively endorse the organization, and be a good corporate citizen.   Some thinking on your part, and some gentle inquiry around these areas in your first conversation, will help to provide that structure.

It’s also important to keep things positive and assume the best intentions.  Even though things may be in a difficult spot currently, it’s important to remember that very few people want to go into work to see what they can screw up.  That’s almost always a long term reaction to the environment.

Don’t wait and hope for things to get better.  Take some action today.  Most people, if given the chance, want to be magnificent.  What can you do to help bring out that magnificence in your people?  You’ll never know unless you ask.

PS: Interested in learning more?  Don’t miss this special online event!

On January 25, over 40 thought leaders from a wide variety of organizations will be getting together to share their ideas on how to address the quit and stayed phenomenon in a unique Leadership Livecast.  This is a free online event being hosted by The Ken Blanchard Companies and over 5,000 people have already registered to hear how to address the problem from an individual, team, or organization-wide point of view.

To learn more—or to participate in this complimentary online event, check out the information on the Quit and Stayed Leadership Livecast here.

This passive-aggressive behavior is popularly known as “quitting and staying” and it happens anytime you combine a large number of employees with limited opportunities together with unresponsive management. On the surface, everything seems to be going along okay, but underneath, tensions and emotions are anything but tranquil. It’s a difficult situation for leaders because it is hard to get a handle on. People are not overtly working against company goals and initiatives—they just aren’t working as hard toward them.

It’s a normal reaction, but that doesn’t mean it can be left unaddressed, says Scott Blanchard, consultant, author, and EVP at The Ken Blanchard Companies.  In an interview for Blanchard’s Ignite newsletter, he explains that it’s not healthy to have people working just for a paycheck. Leaders need to take direct action to identify where people are feeling disaffected and work hard to reenergize the passion and motivation that still exists.

Otherwise, the impact on the work environment can be predicted almost every time.

As an example, Blanchard points back to an experience he had working as a consultant to a client in the automotive industry.

“When I used to work in the automotive industry there was a principle that said, ‘You get the union that you deserve.’ And what that basically meant was that if you had a respectful relationship with the union and you didn’t break promises and you sat at the table together and shared what was happening in the business, relationships improved and things got better. And the same is true with your company—you get the environment that you deserve.

“If you do not make any attempts to make lemonade out of lemons and if you’re not working to bring people together and engage in good practices, you’ll get what you deserve as a result of that.

“One of the things that the late, great management consultant Peter Drucker said years ago, that is still true today, is that the only things that happen naturally in organizations are the creation of fear, frustration, inefficiency, friction, and political mayhem.

“And what Drucker went on to say is that positive things  happen in a company only when leaders identify  a purposeful, unified direction, shared operating rules that everyone holds sacred, and a tenacity to make good things happen.”

Take a proactive approach

It may seem like a large problem to tackle, explains Blanchard, especially if these issues haven’t been addressed in a long time. Still, Blanchard recommends getting started as soon as possible.

“It may feel hard to do at this point, but the best companies are the ones that are making efforts to work together,” says Blanchard. “Everyone is in the same boat. If you don’t create a positive environment where people are encouraged to work together productively, you are going to end up with a lot of people thinking only of themselves.

To address the situation, Blanchard recommends that leaders look at 12 employee work passion factors that impact employee perceptions of their work environment.  By addressing what can be done on an individual, managerial, and organizational level, leaders can positively impact the work environment going forward.

As he explains, “You have to be proactive. Taking the approach of, ‘There’s nothing we can do!’ and throwing your hands up is a strategy that will predict a marginalized workforce, guaranteed! If you are just doing nothing, it’s not going to get the results that you want.”

To read more about Blanchard’s thinking, check out the January issue of Ignite.  Also, be sure to see the information about a special Leadership Livecast coming up on January 25.  Over 40 different business thought leaders will be addressing the phenomenon of “quitting and staying” in today’s organizations.  It’s a free event and over 3,000 people are currently registered.

How is your organization doing?

Blanchard and Blanchard go on to explain that to create a passionate work environment, leaders need to address 12 work environment factors. Drawing on the company’s employee work passion research, the Blanchards point out that employee perceptions of what is happening in each of these areas will lead to positive or negative feelings and performance intentions including whether or not to:

• Actively endorse the organization as a good place to work
• Perform above and beyond the basic requirements of the job
• Think beyond themselves and striving for win/win solutions
• Go the extra mile when it is necessary to get the job done
• Stay with the organization long term

Getting started

As the Blanchards explain, “unless you engage people emotionally, you won’t tap into their discretionary energy and achieve outstanding organizational performance.”

They also remind us that, “As leaders, we have to stop trying to create sterile organizations where people are expected to check their feelings at the door. Instead, we need to view feelings as a positive force that can take performance to a higher level.” 

Looking to begin creating a more fulfilling work environment for your employees?  Here are three good ways to get started.

1. Set clear goals for each of your employees.  This is the foundation that has to be in place.  Clear goals help address the need for performance expectations. They also set the stage for discussions about autonomy and necessary resources.
2. Once goals are in place, set up regular meetings to see how things are going. Praise progress and provide support or redirection as necessary.  Regular meetings address the need for feedback and connectedness.
3. Finally, make sure there are no surprises at performance review time.  People should have a clear sense of what is expected of them and should be receiving feedback all along on how they are doing.  Performance reviews, when done right, are less about feedback and redirection than they are about celebrating accomplishments and planning for the future.  Performance reviews address the need for achievement, recognition, and growth.

Leadership makes a difference

As Scott and Ken Blanchard conclude, “Emotional management is a core skill that contributes to a high performing organization. Leadership sets the tone of the workplace culture.” To read more about their thinking, check out the complete column at Training Industry Quarterly.

This is a dilemma for most managers according to Scott Blanchard in a recent blog post for Fast Company magazine.  Blanchard explains that it is only natural to assign tasks to the most accomplished people on your team. The challenge is to balance a short-term need for immediate results with a long-term view for the growth and development of your people.

Finding the perfect balance

Drawing on some of the core concepts from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Blanchard explains that managers need to balance routine work that is easily accomplished with challenging new tasks that provide variety.

How can managers find the right balance?  Here are three strategies that Blanchard recommends:

• Become more aware of your goal-setting habits.  Have you optimized the challenge inherent in each person’s goals or tasks, or have you fallen into the habit of overusing and under-challenging your best people? Have you focused more on your own needs instead of theirs by giving them routine work you know they can accomplish successfully with little intervention on your part?
• Focus on both the long and short term.  Manage the urge to assign a task to a proven winner to ensure quick completion versus assigning the same task to someone who is brand new and may require some direction and support. But don’t go overboard. You don’t want to focus solely on employee development and compromise organizational effectiveness. Balance is the key.
• Create variety for yourself and others. According to Warren Bennis, the most effective managers are the ones who actively engage in clear periods of reflection as well as action. Balancing task variety is one of those projects that requires some discipline and awareness to think through.

Blanchard also reminds readers that most people become bored because they’re doing boring tasks—not because of a character flaw. Instead of moving away from a person you might see as a complainer, see that person instead as someone who is not really “in flow” and work with him or her to find out what the right mix could be. It’s a management basic that creates the long and short term impact that works best.

PS: To read more of Blanchard’s thinking on creating the right mix in your work environment, check out, Helping Your Employees Find Their “Flow” at Fast Company.

• Are you an Avoider, unsure about how to deal with feelings so you retreat from the situation? 
• Are you an Ice Man, and believe that feelings don’t really have a place in the work environment?
• Are you an Over Indulger and tend to get a little too wrapped up in emotional situations?

Going too far in any of these three directions can lead to problems at work.  The best approach is to find a balance.  Make sure that people are clear on performance expectations, but at the same time let them know that you are there to help and support them when necessary.

Looking for a way to do this regardless of your personality type?  Here’s some good advice from Ken Blanchard, best-selling author of more than 50 books on management and leadership.  When asked what he hopes people remember most from his body of work, Blanchard identifies one concept that goes back to his best-selling book, The One Minute Manager, written together with Spencer Johnson. 

“Catch people doing things right.”

Take the time to notice when someone who reports to you is doing something right.  This one simple gesture says volumes.  Imagine it for yourself.  How would your day be impacted if your boss stopped by and shared a kind word about something you’re working on? How would that make you feel, impact your morale, and subsequent performance? 

Now, imagine what a kind word from you would do for your direct reports.  No matter what your personality type is, a kind word is always appropriate and appreciated.  Try it today.  You’ll be surprised at the difference it makes.

In a new article for the November issue of Blanchard’s Ignite newsletter, best-selling business author and consultant Scott Blanchard identifies five ways that organizations can find and learn from these best practice managers. 

Step 1: Survey your organization. Use a reputable employee engagement assessment to survey your organization. Make sure that the instrument is valid and reliable and that it will provide you with actionable data. Also, be sure to set the demographics up carefully. You need to protect anonymity to ensure candid responses while still obtaining the smaller unit data that you are looking for. In Blanchard’s experience, a review at the department or function level will usually get the job done.

Step 2: Identify your personal pockets of excellence. Once you get your survey results back, study your organization at the department or functional level. Identify your own personal pockets of excellence. Find out which teams and departments are scoring significantly above the organizational average. Contact leaders in these departments to set up interviews to learn more about what is happening in their specific unit.

Step 3: Focus your conversation where it counts the most. Blanchard research has identified 12 factors that create a passionate work environment and account for most of the variance in employee perceptions. (See Blanchard’s white paper, Employee Work Passion: Connecting the Dots, for more information on this.) These factors are broken down into five organizational factors, five job factors, and two moderating factors.

• Organizational Factors—Growth, Procedural Justice, Distributive Justice, Collaboration, and Performance Expectations
• Job Factors—Meaningful Work, Task Variety, Workload Balance, Autonomy, and Feedback
• Moderating Factors—Connectedness to Colleagues and Connectedness to Leader

Use these factors as a structure for your conversations with unit leaders. Find out how they approach meeting each of these components of a passionate work environment. Discover what they are doing differently from leaders in other departments.

Step 4: Don’t go overboard with prescriptions—Understand the process instead. As you listen and learn about how individual managers and teams address each of the 12 Employee Work Passion factors, listen for the underlying reasons why they engage in those behaviors. Don’t fall into the trap of just mimicking the behavior. The relationship between managers and direct reports is complex. What works for one manager in creating positive feelings of Connectedness and Collaboration may not work for another. Each manager needs to find his or her own individual approach.

Step 5: Share best practices with others and ask your leaders to do the same. Once you’ve identified all of the different ways that people in your organization are approaching employee work passion in the company, start to share some of those practices. Conduct forums, post tips on internal Web sites, and share success stories.

Get started today!

In any organization, at least 20%, and often as much as 30% of the people coming to work each day report high engagement levels.  Do you know who they are in your organization?  If not, you’re missing a very practical way to identify, celebrate, and learn from people who intimately understand how to create an engaging environment within your unique culture.

To read more of Blanchard’s thoughts on bringing out the best from your own organization check out Employee Work Passion: Seek out your pockets of excellence.  Also be sure to see the information about a free November 16 webinar that Blanchard will be conducting on Cultivating Employee Work Passion: The New Rules of Engagement

The lingering economic slowdown has created a real motivational problem for today’s leaders.  A shortage of resources has limited the ability of organizations to provide raises, promotions, and other perks. It’s been just as bad for employees as the widespread scope of the problem has left them with few alternatives beyond their present organization.

The result has been a perfect storm where millions of workers have resigned themselves to their jobs and effectively “quit and stayed.”  These workers show up and do their job at a basic level, but they are sullen and unmotivated in a quiet way that is hard to get at. 

It’s not so much what these workers do, as much as it is what they don’t do.

Here are the five intentions that passionate employees embrace.  Wondering if your people have “quit and stayed?”  Ask yourself to what degree your people:

1. Actively endorse the organization as a good place to work?
2. Go above and beyond the basic requirements of the job in terms of performance?
3. Think beyond themselves and strive for win/win solutions?
4. Go the extra mile when it is necessary to get the job done?
5. Intend to stay with the organization long term?

If you can’t answer YES confidently to these five questions, here are a couple of additional questions to ask yourself to get at the cause of the problem. A lack of passion is usually caused by negative perceptions at a job, organizational, or relationship level.  Probe a little bit in each of these areas and you will likely find the problem area. 

• Job Factors: Do your employees see the importance of their work?  Are people empowered to make decisions about their work and tasks? Are workloads reasonably proportioned for the time people have to accomplish them?
• Organizational Factors: Does the organization still seem committed to growth? Have clear goals been set? Are decisions about resources being made fairly?
• Relationship Factors: Do people feel connected? Do employees have a supportive professional relationship with their leader? Are leaders checking in and providing feedback regarding employee performance?

No one wants to be the type of person who quits and stays, but sometimes people fall into that trap.  Help people up.  Open up a dialogue around these issues.  Just taking the time and asking how things are going in each of these areas will show people that you’re noticing, that you’re willing to help, and that you care.

PS: Do you have a “quit and stay” solution to share?

On January 25, The Ken Blanchard Companies will be hosting a Leadership Livecast on the problem of Quitting and Staying.  Have you successfully addressed quitting and staying in your organization? Can you share it in five minutes or less?  Videotape yourself and send it to us.  You could be a featured speaker!  Click here for details.

One item buried deep in the report was something that I hadn’t seen Gallup talk much about in the past.  In a section looking at implications for leaders, the report identified the two factors among the twelve that Gallup measures that are consistently among the lowest rated worldwide. Can you guess what they are?

I’ll give you a hint.  It’s something you can do personally and it won’t cost you a thing.

The two lowest rated items are, “In the past seven days, I have received recognition or praise for doing good work” and “In the past six months, someone at work has talked to me about my progress.”

In looking at why this might be occurring, Gallup researchers identified three possible causes

• Larger spans of control might be making it more difficult to give the kind of individualized attention required to ensure these needs are met.
• When it comes to jobs with a high degree of routine, feedback and recognition may be overlooked because managers do not differentiate individual contributions.
• It might just be that we are “…better wired to receive praise than to give it. We feel our own hunger more than we empathize with others around us.”

How are you doing with the praise and recognition of your people?  If you are a little rusty, here are three tips for getting started.

1. Make it timely.  Praisings are most effective when they are delivered as close to real time as powerful.  Don’t “save up” your praisings for a specified time.  Praise in the moment!
2. Give specific examples.  A general comment like, “You’re really doing good work,” is nice, but a praising that identifies a specific action is better.
3. Repeat often.  You really can’t overdo it—as long as you are specific and sincere in your praising.

For over 30 years, Ken Blanchard has asked audiences worldwide, “How many of you get too much praise at work?”  No one ever raises their hand.  We all have a deep-seated need to be recognized and appreciated.  Everyone enjoys a pat on the back.  Don’t be stingy with your praise.  Catch someone doing things right this week.  Guess what?  You’ll feel better too!

Individual Employees

For individual employees, Blanchard recommends first and foremost, to focus on doing a good job in your current role while you look for new opportunities inside the company.  As he explains, “Growth beyond your current job is a privilege usually reserved for people who perform in an exemplary fashion. When managers get requests for growth from people who are not performing at their best, it may feel to them like they are stepping on a treadmill with an employee who may never be satisfied in his or her current role.  Most managers will avoid this, because they suspect it will become a never-ending process.”

Managers

For managers, Blanchard advises facing growth conversations head-on—even when you don’t have traditional next steps up the corporate ladder to offer. As a manager, keep your eye out for new opportunities and new projects that may come up. Know which people on your team would consider it rewarding to get involved in a project that is different than their normal job.

This could potentially be a lateral move, or even a move to completely different part of the organization. Some of the greatest opportunities for growth are found in areas that integrate what’s happening between two departments. For example, a project following up on leads could bring the sales and marketing departments together, while refining and solving a business problem could integrate the engineering and sales departments.

Good managers look out for their people and think beyond the day-to-day. When they have someone who is really working hard for them, they go out of their way to help that person grow.

Senior Leaders

For senior leaders, Blanchard reminds executives that good people always have opportunities.  His recommendation?  Conduct an assessment to find out how employees view current growth opportunities in the organization. Make growth a priority. Your best people are not going to wait patiently for opportunities for advancement—even in a slow economy.  If you are not providing them with growth opportunities, they will go elsewhere and they will take what they learn from you and use that to build their career at another company.

You don’t want to be the person at a top employee’s exit interview who hears, “The headhunters seemed to care more about my career development and growth opportunities than this organization did.”

Learn More

Growth is just one of 12  important factors employees evaluate in their work environment. To see Blanchard’s latest research on the topic read Employee Work Passion Volume 3: Connecting the Dots.  To read more on Scott Blanchard’s specific strategies for creating an engaging work environment check out his other Fast Company articles.

Do Your People Really Know What You Expect From Them?

Feedback Usually Says More About the Giver than the Receiver

Managers: Set People Free to Promote Growth and Get Results

The Role Money Plays in Engaging Employees

The Just-Right Approach To Social Media And Transparency, And What It Says About Your Company

Maintain A Startup Attitude for a Passionate Office

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If you find yourself with an employee who doesn’t seem enthused to take on a new project and you can’t quite figure out why, here are three areas to explore. First identified by Edward Deci and Richard Ryan in the 1970’s, these factors are being rediscovered as management theorists and practitioners look at the factors that create an engaging work environment. 

1. Autonomy.  Everyone has a need to exercise some level of control over their environment.  Is the new role or project that you are assigning promoting autonomy in your employee, or will working on it make them more dependent on you and your organization?  Employees will move toward projects and roles that increase their sense of autonomy and will retreat from environments that they feel decrease it.  What is your new role or project offering?
2. Relatedness.  People are social animals.  It’s important to create opportunities for people to work in a way that allows them to feel cared for by others, and to be able to give back to others.  Even for people who seemingly want to work in an isolated manner with little interaction, there is still a need to be seen, accepted, and validated by others.  Will the new project you are proposing lead to an increased sense of connectedness, or promote isolation?
3. Competence.  Everyone needs to feel that they are growing.  People will move toward assignments which provide growth opportunities, and they will avoid assignments which seem to be dead ends.  While routine work is a part of most jobs, keep in mind that a properly constructed role or task will include opportunities to learn new skills and increased competencies. How does this new task rate on that scale?

People have good reasons why they act on certain tasks and why they delay taking action on others.

Even when managers set clear goals, provide day-to-day coaching, and follow-up with proper amounts of direction and support, employees can still be slow to take action if these sometimes hidden drivers of behavior are not taken into account.

Is someone you know dragging their feet on an assignment?  Keep in mind their perceptions of Autonomy, Relatedness, and Competence.  Though often unspoken, they are always a part of an employee’s decision process.

__________________________________________

 PS: Would you like to learn more about creating an engaging environment for employees? 

Join The Ken Blanchard Companies for an Executive Briefing near you.  Upcoming cities include San Diego, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and St. Louis. 

Learn more here.

Alfie Kohn first wrote about this in his book, Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes.  Daniel Pink picked up the banner most recently in his 2009 book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. 

In both cases, the author’s point to social science research conducted over the past 50 years which shows that money and other extrinsic rewards can actually reduce motivation and ultimately performance if not used properly. 

(For a great introduction into some of this social science research, check out Why We Do What We Do: Understanding Self-Motivation which summarizes the work of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, two long-time researchers in this field.)

Three warning signs

Are you falling into the “if-then” trap as a manager?  Here are three warning signs:

1. Instead of trying to understand what really motivates your direct reports, you increasingly rely on a carrot approach where you dangle incentives in front of employees to get them to engage in desired behaviors.

2. Instead of taking the time to fine tune job roles and responsibilities, you take an approach of, “We pay you a fair day’s wage and we expect a fair day’s work in return.”

3. Instead of helping people connect their work to a higher purpose, you instead insist that they stay focused on their own task and leave the big picture thinking to senior management.

With this type of thinking, it’s easy to fall into a transactional mindset as a manager.  Now work becomes mostly about getting the next raise, bonus, or other prize.  Don’t let incentives and compensation become the de facto manager in your organization.  Go beyond “if-then” thinking to discover what truly motivates your people. It’s time well-spent that will pay long-term benefits!

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PS: Interested in learning more about creating a motivating work environment?  Check out these upcoming executive briefing presentations!

Creating an Engaging Work Environment: The Leader’s Role

The New Paradigm of Motivation: How to Make It Work

Why? 

Changes in technology, attitudes, and the nature of work eliminate the need for supervisors who only see their job as telling people what to do and then evaluating performance at an annual review.

If that is what’s happening in your organization, consider asking senior leadership to create a higher standard for managers.  Setting goals and conducting performance reviews are just the beginning of a middle manager’s job.  Their real value is in their ability to access resources, remove obstacles, and provide day-to-day coaching for the people who report to them. 

If your manager is not providing you with the support that you need to succeed, here are three things to ask for (and a proven way on how to ask for it.)

What to ask for

1. A clear sense of how your job impacts key departmental goals. Everyone needs to know that their work is meaningful and to have some clear alignment between what they do and what the organization is trying to accomplish.  If you can’t point to a key departmental objective and how your work is impacting it, you do not have the alignment that should be in place.
2. A well defined job that includes some routine and some challenging tasks. In a healthy work environment, you will typically have 3-5 goals that you need to accomplish.  If your job is structured properly, some of those tasks will be very achievable with your present skills while others are more of a stretch that you cannot accomplish with your current skill set and resources. This mix is an essential component of a satisfying job that also encourages career growth.
3. A clear agreement with your boss about where you are at and what you need to succeed.  For tasks where you are self sufficient you need an agreement with your boss to give you the autonomy you deserve to accomplish the task as you see fit.  No one likes being micromanaged on tasks they are capable of achieving on their own.  For tasks that are beyond your current skill level and immediate resources, you need an agreement for the direction and support that will help you access the budget, training, and expertise you need to get the job done.

How to ask for it

• Use “I need” statements.  One of the most powerful ways you can get the help you need to accomplish your work goals is to use “I need” statements.  For example, “In order to process customer orders more efficiently, I need a higher level of access into our customer database,” or “In order to create the type of social media campaign and metrics that we are talking about, I need some additional training.”  For best results, pair any “I need” statement with three possible solutions.  Very few bosses will turn down this type of request—especially when it is in pursuit of legitimate departmental goals.

A good middle manager or front line supervisor takes strategic directives and turns them into results.  Is that the role your immediate manager is playing?  If not, expect more.  Use “I need” statements to make sure that your job is aligned,  that you have a mix of routine and stretch goals, and that you have an immediate supervisor committed to helping you access the resources you need to succeed.

Good middle managers will never be obsolete.  That distinction is only reserved for managers who see their role as assigning tasks and evaluating others.  That truly is obsolete, not just for the next generation of employees, but for all employees.

The top three job factors that the respondents identified as most important were

• Meaningful Work
• Autonomy
• Task Variety

The top three organizational factors that respondents identified as most important were

• Procedural Justice (Fairness)
• Collaboration
• Performance Expectations

In a follow-up question, the respondents were asked who they felt had the primary responsibility for influencing and improving each of the factors. Surprisingly, respondents identified themselves as having the primary responsibility for several of the factors. The one exception was on the factor of Feedback, where 82 percent of the respondents saw the responsibility as primarily being in the hands of the supervisor.

To see the complete survey results, download Employee Work Passion: What’s important in creating a motivating work environment and whose job is it?

“There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community.”

Establishing trusted relationships is a critical imperative for leadership success today. A key way to develop trust with those you lead is by being vulnerable. I’m not talking about getting on the proverbial therapist’s couch and telling your direct reports all of your deep, inner secrets. I’m talking about disclosing appropriate and relevant amounts of information about yourself over the course of time as relationships grow and develop.

In his latest book, Getting Naked, author Patrick Lencioni discusses three fears that keep us from being vulnerable…from “getting naked.” Lencioni discusses these fears in the context of sabotaging client relationships, but the lessons are equally relevant for leaders in regards to developing trust with their followers. Leaders sabotage trust by giving in to the following fears:

• The fear of losing followership (“business” in the context of Lencioni’s parable about client relationships) – The business of a leader is influencing others to achieve their personal goals and those of the organization. Sometimes leaders fear being vulnerable because it could be perceived as a sign of weakness, or evidence that their leadership isn’t needed. Leaders can conquer this fear by being “other-focused” rather than self-focused and remembering that their top priority is to help others succeed. When your followers believe you have their best interests in mind, they will trust you and give you the discretionary energy and commitment that is essential for organizational success.
• The fear of being embarrassed – Many leaders are afraid they will be embarrassed by not having all the right answers or being proven wrong in public. To prevent embarrassment, leaders play their cards close to the vest, don’t share information with others, and don’t allow participation in decision-making. Creating a culture where mistakes are celebrated as learning opportunities, risk taking is encouraged, and stupid or obvious questions encouraged will help allay this fear and lead to higher levels of trust in leaders’ relationships.
• The fear of feeling inferior – This fear is rooted in the leader’s ego. Ken Blanchard likes to say that EGO stands for “edging good out.” Leaders do this by focusing on their reputation and social standing and pushing all other interests aside. These kinds of leaders often derive their self-worth from the successes they achieve and the applause of adoring fans. Trusted leaders overcome this fear by cultivating an attitude of humility. Humility doesn’t mean that you think less of yourself. It means you think about yourself less. You build trust by keeping the focus on the goals of the team and the needs of your followers and not worrying about who gets the credit for success.

The bottom line effect of getting naked with your followers is that you’ll develop trusted relationships that will fuel the success of your team and organization.

This is one in a series of LeaderChat articles on the topic of trust by Randy Conley, Trust Practice Leader at the Ken Blanchard Companies. For more insights on trust, visit the Leading with Trust blog or follow Randy on Twitter @RandyConley.

That might make for an even-keel, consistent atmosphere, but that is never going to create the type of engagement and passion that so many workers are looking for today.

Why don’t more managers praise people for good work when they see it?  Here are a couple of common responses.

• “That’s what they should be doing.” 
• “They’ll expect more money if I do.”
• “I’ll say something next time I get a chance.”

That’s a lazy and short-sighted point of view.  What if your boss felt this way?  What if your boss noticed your good work and didn’t say anything because of these reasons?  How would that make you feel?  You’d probably feel unappreciated, focus only on the money, and put it on autopilot until performance review time.

Don’t let that happen in your work environment.  If you’re a little rusty with showing your appreciation, here are four tips for delivering the perfect praising.

1. Make it timely.  Praisings are most effective when they are delivered as close to real time as powerful.  Take advantage of the spontaneity and excitement of the moment.
2. Make it from the heart. Don’t over-think the praising.  Share what you are feeling. 
3. Give specific examples.  A general comment like, “You’re really doing good work,” is nice, but a comment like “That report you gave this morning was perfect, it clearly outlined our next steps, and did you see the way that the other executives responded? You really helped us to move this project forward with your work,” is better.
4. Don’t ask for more. A praising should never be used as leverage for additional good work out of an employee.  Keep it a simple expression of appreciation.

Everyone enjoys being recognized—especially from someone they look up to and respect.  Don’t be stingy with your praise.  Catch someone doing something right today.  You’ll be surprised at the difference in makes in their life—and yours.

In case you’ve gotten off- track with this, here’s a short acronym to help you remember to stop and take the time to show that you CARE about the people you work with, and who report to you.

Connect. Take the time to lift your nose from the grindstone today and check in with your people.  How’s it going?  What’s happening in their life?  What are they excited about?  You might be surprised at how long it’s been since you checked in, or how much has changed in their lives.  Take a minute to reconnect.

Acknowledge. Listen to what people are telling you.  Truly hear what they are saying.  As a leader, it’s easy to get caught up in telling instead of listening.  How are your people doing on their tasks and key responsibility areas?  Chances are that they are just as busy as you are.  Take a minute to acknowledge the work they are doing and the effort they are putting into it.

Respect—the skills, effort, challenges, and needs that your people have.  What are their strengths?  What challenges are they facing? Where do they need help?  What can you do to help them succeed?  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that your primary job is to evaluate performance.  As a leader, your primary job is to help your people succeed.

Encourage.  Everyone can use a kind word, a pat on the back, and a word of encouragement.  Who in your group has been up against it, fighting fires, chasing deadlines, and making sure that things get done?  Who seems burnt, or worn out, from all the work they’ve had to accomplish? Take a minute to show your appreciation, offer some encouragement, and let them know that you appreciate what they’ve been doing.

In today’s hectic work environment, it’s easy to neglect the people side of work.  Don’t let that happen to you.  Relationships are an important ingredient to an engaging work environment.  If you’ve been out of touch lately, use these four practices to reconnect and show people you care.

Those are the questions that researchers at The Ken Blanchard Companies have been exploring in ongoing research into the factors that create Employee Work Passion. Their findings show that an engaging work environment is comprised of many different factors. And while the rankings and impact of each factor varies from individual to individual, all must be present to some degree for an employee to feel the sense of well-being that leads to higher levels of performance and satisfaction.

Here are the factors the Blanchard researchers have identified. How many of these factors were present in the work environment of your “best job” memory?

• Meaningful Work—you understood and resonated with the organization’s purpose and believed you were working on projects that mattered and produced positive results
• Autonomy—you were allowed to choose how tasks were performed, you were trusted to do your job, and you had the authority to make decisions
• Feedback—you received adequate feedback on your performance and you were recognized for improvements and ideas
• Workload Balance—you had ample time to accomplish your work
• Task Variety—you experienced variety in both the type of tasks and the complexity of tasks you performed
• Connectedness to Leader—your boss made an effort to build rapport with you
• Connectedness to Colleagues—your colleagues made an effort to build rapport on a personal and professional level
• Collaboration—the organization encouraged the sharing of ideas, teamwork, and collaboration on projects and tasks
• Distributive Justice—resources, compensation, and workloads were fairly balanced
• Procedural Justice—policies and procedures were consistently and fairly applied
• Growth—you felt supported for current and future career growth
• Performance Expectations—your work was compared to an agreed-upon standard and you understood what was expected of you

Now that you’ve looked at your best work environment of the past, think about your present work environment. How does it compare in these twelve areas? As an individual employee, think about what you can do to improve your experience.

As a leader, what can you do to improve the experience of others?

Your best job shouldn’t be just a memory! To learn more about the Blanchard research and download a free copy of the latest white paper, check out Employee Work Passion: Connecting the Dots here.

Entitled Employee Work Passion: Connecting the Dots the paper looks at how 12 environmental work factors influence five desired work intentions.

• Discretionary Effort—the extent to which the individual intends to expend his or her discretionary effort on behalf of the organization above and beyond agreed upon requirements
• Intent to Perform—the extent to which the individual intends to do his or her job well and work effectively to help the organization succeed
• Organizational Citizenship Behaviors—the extent to which the individual is committed to supporting fellow workers and behaving in ways that are respectful, considerate, and sensitive to others
• Employee Endorsement—the extent to which the individual readily endorses the organization to others as a good place to work and as a quality supplier of goods and services
• Intent to Remain—the extent to which the individual plans to stay with the organization

The paper also takes an in-depth look at the internal appraisal process employees use in determining whether a particular work environment positively or negatively impacts their sense of well-being. The paper highlights that perceptions are subjective and that employees each make sense of their environment personally based on what they experience and how they feel about it.

The paper reminds leaders and employers that employee engagement—or more specifically, employee work passion as Blanchard defines it, requires a multi-faceted approach at the job and organizational level.  Leaders looking to encourage high levels of performance need to address all 12 factors identified in the paper, but at the same time recognize that people will react differently based on their internal perceptions.

You can download a copy of this new white paper through this link.

PS: Attending the ASTD international conference in Orlando, Florida this week?  Stop by the Blanchard booth to pick up a copy in person and discuss the research with Blanchard authors!  See Blanchard’s complete ASTD schedule here.

When that happens, the net result is competing priorities, wasted effort and diminished engagement.  If that’s what you are experiencing, here are a couple of strategies to explore depending on your level in the organization.

Senior Leaders—as a senior leader, you should be in the best shape when it comes to alignment.  If you are feeling a little adrift, make sure that you know where your organization is going and what specific strategies have been put in place to get there.  Senior leaders play a key role in setting the overall vision for the company.  Without a bigger vision to serve, people will default to focusing on personal needs.  As a senior leader, make sure that people have something greater than themselves to align with.

Middle Managers—you’ve got the biggest challenge—but also the most experience—in dealing with multiple priorities. Keep one eye on senior management for new directions, while also keeping an eye on direct reports to make sure they know what is expected of them.  Your challenge here is to avoid falling into an either/or trap.  Who do you serve?  Both groups.  Ask questions of senior leaders to make sure you understand strategic directions clearly.  Encourage questions from direct reports to make sure they have the direction and support they need to bring those plans to life.

Frontline Contributors—you share some of the same challenges as middle managers wondering if you should focus on your boss’s agenda or meeting customer needs.  In the best organizations, these goals should be one and the same.  If they are not, don’t fall into the either/or trap yourself.  Find a way to serve both groups.  And if you find yourself feeling out of step, talk to your immediate manager about connecting the dots between your work and department initiatives.  You don’t want to find yourself spinning your wheels on low value work that doesn’t make a difference.

The bottom line

At all levels, people need (and want) to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  When the organization isn’t aligned, self-serving behavior starts to seem like a reasonable alternative to fill the gap.  Don’t let that happen in your organization. As a leader it is important to create a strong vision and show people how their role contributes. Nip any either-or thinking and remind people that it is possible to focus on customers, supervisors, and yourself at the same time.

1. The player is in control of their environment.
2. The player receives rewards and recognition on a regular basis.
3. The player experiences a sense of growth and mastery as they continue playing.

Employers can learn a lot about creating motivating work environments by studying video game design. Let’s take a closer look at each of these factors and how they can be incorporated into today’s workplace setting.

In control of the environment.  Better known in business circles as Autonomy, this is a key component to creating a motivating work environment.  People need to be allowed the freedom to choose how and when work tasks are performed.  Once goals are set, managers need to provide direct reports with the tools and resources they need to get the job done.  What people don’t want—and what they find demotivating—is a manager who wants to control every detail and use the employee as just a pair of remote hands.  Not much fun in that type of game.

Rewards and recognition on a regular basis.  In any good video game, players are constantly achieving objectives and receiving rewards.  Whether it is a new asset, a pot of jelly beans, or a cool new weapon, game programmers build constant opportunities for self-achieved rewards along the way.  Employers can learn a lot from this approach by building in small opportunities for reward and recognition into the work environment.  As simple as this sounds, the reality is that most employers do just the opposite.  As long as an employee is succeeding, they rarely get feedback.  In most organizations the only time you hear something about your performance is when you are off-track or not achieving your goals.  How long would you play a video game like that?  My guess is that it would not be a very popular game.

Growth and mastery.  The final aspect of a motivating environment that we can learn from video games is the importance of growth and mastery.  Both are important to employees.  People need to feel a sense of growth and accomplishment, especially if they are to perceive that their current job is in alignment with their overall career goals.  While achievement at work may never equal the kick you get from achieving the next level in Angry Birds, it can probably get a lot closer.

On one of those occasions, the president slipped through a side door in the church and took a seat in the minister’s study, located just to the side of the sanctuary. There he propped the door open, just wide enough to hear Dr. Gurley.

During the walk home, an aide asked Mr. Lincoln his appraisal of the sermon. The president thoughtfully replied, “The content was excellent; he delivered with elegance; he obviously put work into the message.”

“Then you thought it was an excellent sermon?” questioned the aide.

“No,” Lincoln answered.

“But you said that the content was excellent. It was delivered with eloquence, and it showed how hard he worked,” the aide pressed.

“That’s true,” Lincoln said, “But Dr. Gurley forgot the most important ingredient. He forgot to ask us to do something great.”

As leaders, it’s important that we remember to ask our people to do something great.  People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.  It’s a basic human need.  Too often, as leaders we hesitate in asking our people to do a little more, try a little harder, push a little extra.  The fear is that we are asking too much.  Is it possible that the real problem is that we are asking too little?

People perform best when they are working toward meaningful goals that are difficult, challenging, and worthwhile.  Leaders don’t do their direct reports any favors when they reduce job roles down to easy-to-perform tasks that can be accomplished with a minimum of effort.  Set hard goals for your people and watch them shine.

You’ve Set Challenging Goals, Now the Hard Part

Why don’t leaders set hard goals for their people and hold them accountable for achieving them?  Why is everyone so skittish about confronting sub-par performance?   The answer lies in another Lincoln quote I ran across last month.

“He has a right to criticize, who has a heart to help.”

Leaders cannot just set hard goals, call it a day, and consider their job done. Leaders also need to be willing to step up to the bar with a servant’s heart and be willing to provide the direction and support that people need when they are stretching themselves to achieve difficult goals.  This is the leader’s half of the equation and this is the part that has caused so many people to back away from accountability.

If the leader doesn’t feel right about the amount of time they’ve spent meeting with their direct reports, spending time with them inquiring about progress and providing direction and support on a regular basis, it is pretty embarrassing to ask the employee how they are doing.

When leaders are doing their part, when they are exhibiting a willingness to help as Lincoln identifies, then they have the right to hold others accountable.  That is the second half of the equation that makes Lincoln so well-loved around the world.  People recognize that Lincoln expected the best from people, but was also willing to go to the extra mile to help them.  One without the other is only half the story. Great leadership means asking people to do something great—and then being there with the direction and support people need to succeed.

• Establish goals, objectives and performance standards. “People need to know what is expected of them,” he explains. “All good performance starts with clear goals. If employees don’t have dear expectations, they sit and quit, meaning they show up for work but do not give their best because they are unsure of what to do.”
• Provide day-to-day coaching—or what Ridge calls execution. This is where a manager observes and monitors the performance of his or her people, praising progress and redirecting where necessary. At WD-40 this process includes a series of formal, quarterly conversations during which employees sit down with their supervisors to discuss how things are going.
• Take a partnership approach to performance reviews. As Ridge explains, “What we do is have a one-on-one conversation during our quarterly meeting and review each person’s assessment of himself or herself. If the leader disagrees outright with an employee’s self assessment, we always ask, ‘What’s going on in your life and your business that is not allowing what we expected to happen? How can I help?’ No finger-pointing is tolerated. It’s a partnership. We don’t play the blame game, because we know leaders are accountable and responsible, too.”

When Leaders Help People Win At Work, Both the Organization and the Employees Benefit

Is employee performance a shared responsibility in your organization?

“When employees have clear expectations, meaningful work and day-to-day support, it impacts their level of engagement,” Ridge explains. ”At WD-40, our engagement score is 93 percent, which means that 93 percent of our people globally get up every day and go to work doing meaningful work–work they find is adding value to them and the company on a daily basis.”

To learn more about Ridge’s approach to performance management, be sure to check out Building a Performance-Based Culture in this month’s issue of Chief Learning Officer.

1. Be a bearer of hope
2. Make your people your business partners
3. Become a servant leader

In this short video Ken describes how re-establishing trust, creating a compelling picture of the future, and getting everyone aligned and moving in the same direction is the quickest path to accelerated growth.  To see Ken’s full presentation on this subject, check out Healing the Wounded Organization.

In the latest issue of The Ken Blanchard Companies’ Ignite newsletter, co-founder Ken Blanchard shares how the recession of the past two years put many organizations into a position of having to decide between people and profits in order to stay in business. Some of those decisions were painful, and in some cases, the way decisions were made had an adverse impact on the human side of the organization. The facilities and the equipment are intact, but the people are not present in the same way as before.

As a result says Blanchard, “People are looking for clues to see if their organization is only interested in the bottom line, or if they are equally concerned with the people side of the business.”

For leaders looking to rebuild trust, commitment, and morale in their organizations, Blanchard recommends senior leaders focus on creating a compelling vision, while immediate managers work to implement plans by connecting individual work to overall goals. 

As Blanchard explains, “Senior leaders need to create a compelling vision that defines or redefines the organization’s business. The key here is to have a clear focus on the customer and make that everyone’s goal. During the past recession, people saw what looked like self-serving behavior on the part of a lot of leaders. In many organizations, it seemed as if top leaders saw the organization only as a way to achieve personal ends. In contrast, when senior leaders identify a compelling vision of the future and align the organization’s goals and values toward this vision, everyone can move in the right direction and focus their energy on the customer.

“Frontline managers need to make sure that each and every employee’s work is connected to an overall department or organizational goal and that the employee can see how their work has an impact. To build trust and respect with direct reports, frontline managers should schedule regular one-on-one meetings with their people. Managers should use these sessions to clarify expectations, solicit input, answer questions, and provide feedback. Nothing shows that you care and respect a person—and their work—more than spending time with them, checking on their progress, and providing help when necessary.”

To read more about Ken Blanchard’s thoughts on rebuilding trust, commitment, and morale, be sure to check out the complete article here.  To participate in a complimentary webinar Ken Blanchard will be conducting on this topic visit the information page for Healing the Wounded Organization.  The webinar is free and hosted by Cisco WebEx.  Click here for details.

The three men are all doing the same work, but each with a different perception of its relative worth. Which man do you suppose is coming to work happier and more engaged?

The first man sees his work as a job, the second man sees his work as a task, but it’s the third man who sees his work as a worthy calling, because he is clear about the bigger picture and how his work connects and adds value.

And it is that man who, according to Blanchard employee work passion research, has more positive intentions about

• performing at an above-average level
• being a good organizational citizen
• using more discretionary effort on behalf of the organization
• remaining with the organization
• endorsing the organization and its leadership to others

In a new monthly column for Fast Company, Scott and Ken Blanchard look at the power of meaningful work and alignment. For leaders looking to rekindle a “cathedral” point of view in their people they suggest:

• First, remember why you got into business in the first place. Without an occasional reminder, sometimes it really can seem like the only reason the organization exists is to make money for shareholders.
• Second, connect the dots between an individual’s work and the organization’s overall goals. Make sure that individual tasks and roles are aligned to current initiatives by regularly reviewing what people are working on and how it is contributing to overall performance.

Helping people see and understand the meaningfulness of their work is one of the most powerful things you can do to create strong and powerfully motivated employees. To learn more about creating a sense of meaningful work in your organization, check out Scott and Ken’s new column at Fast Company here.  To learn more about Blanchard’s research into employee work passion, follow this link to Employee Passion: The New Rules of Engagement or From Engagement to Employee Work Passion: A Deeper Understanding of the Employee Work Passion Framework

Each year, the Super Bowl gives sports fans everywhere a chance to experience the process that employees go through when they are identifying whether a particular company is a good place to work or not.  That’s because most people, unless they happen to live in one of the two competing team’s home cities, have a decision to make.  Who to root for? 

Because most of the people who are watching the game are not necessarily fans of either team before the broadcast, people have to evaluate the environment, compare it against their beliefs and past experiences, and then make an emotional decision that wraps it all up.  For example:

• Big Ben and I both graduated from Miami of Ohio
• Because Mrs. Shumate, my second grade teacher liked the Packers
• Because Pittsburgh’s minor league baseball team plays here in Bradenton
• Because my daughter lives in Pittsburgh
• Because Packers are in same division as my team

And so everyone has to decide which team they’re going to root for. It’s the same process when an employee looks at a new work environment and decides whether it is a good place to work or not.  For example, at work, people look at a variety of different factors in deciding whether a particular company is a good fit for them including:

• Pay and benefits
• Growth opportunities
• Culture

It will typically be a combination factors, some logical and some emotional, but always individual and personalized because each individual looks at their work environment differently and makes a decision based on their own experiences.  What is motivating for one employee is not the same for another.

So what’s a manager to do? 

1. First, recognize that everyone is different.
2. Have conversations with your people.
3. Ask them what motivates them and what creates a personally engaging work environment.

You’ll find out that the answers are as diverse as the reasons people have for choosing which team to root for.

To learn more about the process that people go through in determining whether a particular work environment is engaging or not, check out the white paper, From Engagement to Work Passion.  It will show you eight of the factors that people typically look at and the process they use in deciding.

“Our study shows that emotion suppression takes a toll on people,” said Dr. Daniel Beal, assistant professor of psychology at Rice University and co-author of the study.

“It takes energy to suppress emotions, so it’s not surprising that workers who must remain neutral are often more rundown or show greater levels of burnout. The more energy you spend controlling your emotions, the less energy you have to devote to the task at hand.”

The research also found that customers who interacted with a neutrally expressive employee were in less-positive moods and, in turn, gave lower ratings of service quality and held less-positive attitudes toward that employee’s organization.

Are You Trying to Be Neutral?

What’s the culture like in your organization and what is your role in influencing it in a positive or negative direction.  Sometimes employees want to stand outside of the fray, not getting involved. Their attitude is that they are neutral—neither acting in a positive or negative manner. But what type of signal does “being neutral” really send to fellow employees? 

This research shows that being neutral is actually perceived as being negative. Take a more proactive approach to influencing the culture in your organization. Every person who joins a company, department, or team changes the personality mix. Don’t buy into the myth of neutral. Instead, actively promote a positive mood! 

To read the entire article, Neutral Disposition at Work May Take Toll, check it out here at PsychCentral.

At Southwest Airlines, (NYSE stock symbol LUV) the rank ordering may surprise you.  Employees are first, Customers are Second, and Shareholders are third.  The reasoning behind this is based on the Golden Rule—do unto others as you would have done unto you. 

Treat your people right, and good things will happen

As Colleen Barrett, president emeritus at Southwest, explains in her new book, Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success, “When we talk to our People, we proudly draw a pyramid on the chalkboard and tell them: You are at the top of the pyramid.  You are the most important person to us.  You are our most important Customer in terms of priority.”

As a result, managers at Southwest are expected to spend approximately 80 percent of their time treating employees with Golden Rule behavior and trying to make sure that employees have an enjoyable work environment where they feel good about what they do, about themselves, and about their position within the company.

But this managerial focus on employees also sets an expectation that employees will demonstrate the same behavior with customers.  As Barrett goes on to explain: “But if I do that, what I want in exchange is for you to do the same thing by offering our Passengers—who are our second Customer in terms of priority—the same kind of warmth, caring, and fun spirit.”

At Southwest, the belief is that if leaders take care of their people, then their people will take care of their customers. This in turn will create a loyal customer base which comes back often and recommends Southwest to other travelers which pleases the third Customer—shareholders.

What’s your ranking?

At Southwest, leaders put their employees first, their customers second, and their shareholders third.  It’s a winning formula that has resulted in superior customer satisfaction ratings and financial performance in a notoriously competitive industry.  How does your top management prioritize these three groups of people?  Could your company benefit by creating a high support, high expectations “Golden Rule” environment for employees?

PS: To learn more about the benefits of putting people first, be sure to check out Barrett’s new book (coauthored with Ken Blanchard) Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success.  Also check out a free webinar she is conducting together with Ken Blanchard on January 26.  Over 1,400 people have registered for this complimentary event, but online seats are still available. 

Click here to learn more.

Even under the best of circumstances, creating a business plan and getting others to actually buy into it is a difficult task.  Don’t make things three times as hard by trying to do everything yourself.  That’s the advice from Jesse Stoner in a recent article on Creating a Vision Statement that Works.

Stoner explains that too many executives try to do everything on their own.  They don’t leave room for other people.  As a result, people don’t feel like they own the vision and so they are less likely to follow it.

For executives looking to create a strong picture of the future for their company that will guide planning and decision-making in the coming year, Stoner recommends paying special attention to what she calls the three “hows.”

3 “Hows” of Creating A Successful Vision

1. How it’s created.  Resist the temptation to huddle together with a small group of executives at an off-site retreat to create a vision for the organization.  While part of leadership entails setting a strategic direction for the company, the key is to make space for all of the people who are going to be responsible for implementing the vision.  If you want them to buy into the vision, give them a chance to be a part of the process.
2. How it’s communicated.  Avoid the urge to laminate your latest vision statement, frame it on the wall, and distribute copies among the rank-and-file.  Instead, ask managers to share the new vision in small group settings, discuss what it means, answer questions, and gather feedback.
3. How it’s lived.  This is something that a leader can do personally.  Actions speak louder than words and employees will be watching a senior leader’s behavior to see if the vision is really a new direction or just words on a paper.  Make sure that your behavior is consistent with the stated direction of the company.  Nothing does a better job of bringing a vision to life.

Don’t lead in a vacuum—involve others in the process for better buy-in and greater results.

To learn more about what Stoner has to say on creating a clear direction for 2011, be sure to check out Creating a Vision Statement that Works in this month’s Ignite newsletter.  Also, learn more about a free webinar Stoner is conducting this Wednesday on Creating Engagement and Alignment through a Shared Vision. Over 700 people are registered already!

For many leaders, the first inclination is to think about what can be done on a corporate-wide basis. But this would be a step in the wrong direction. According to research from The Ken Blanchard Companies, employee engagement is a personal affair and people see their environment differently—even when they are experiencing the same thing.

Here’s an example:  All employees want a collaborative work environment to some degree.  But the degree of contact that satisfies that need varies widely from person to person.  For some employees, meeting on a quarterly basis feels like the right amount of interaction.  For others, anything less than daily interaction can feel isolating. 

How can you find out the right amount of collaboration your employees need to help feel connected?  Ask them.  Encourage your managers and supervisors to include a question about collaboration, or growth, or any other problem area that has come up on your survey in their next one-on-one conversation.  Adding an employee engagement question or two into the discussion is a great way for managers to discover the diversity of experience among their direct reports and also begin to open the door for strategies that can help to improve each employee’s work environment going forward.

PS: To learn more about the Blanchard approach to improving employee engagement in your organization, check out the white papers Employee Passion: The New Rules of Engagement and From Engagement to Employee Work Passion. They can help to shed some additional light on the individual appraisal process all employees go through and also show you some of the areas to focus on.

“There is more engagement level variation within companies, than between companies.”

This fact has largely been forgotten as leaders, consultants, and practitioners have focused more on measuring against industry benchmarks than on practical ways to create an engaging, high-performing work environment.

What Gallup found that bears repeating is that within any organization there are tremendous differences in the way people are experiencing their work environment.  Some units in any organization will rank as best-in-class examples of high engagement, while other units within the same organization will rank among the lowest. 

While identifying an engagement score at an organizational level is a good place to start, it is important to go beyond that initial number and look at what is happening within the organization at a department and individual level.  That is where the richness and opportunity for change will be found.  A systemic approach has a lot of merit for large organizational issues, but do not let that blind you to everything that can be accomplished at a department and individual level.

Systemically—senior leaders should focus on the areas that must be addressed organization-wide.  These will usually be issues related to fairness (such as compensation and benefits) or growth (job opportunities and career advancement).  What can be done at an organizational level to make sure that the company is treating employees fairly in both of these key areas?

Department level—unit leaders and managers should look at how they are implementing organizational objectives within their separate units.  What type of sub-culture is being created?  Also what can be done at a local level to connect employees to meaningful work, creating a collaborative work environment, or providing feedback and recognition? 

Individual level—individual employees should look at their current work environment and ask, “To what degree am I engaged at work?”  “What would create a more engaging work environment for me?” (For eight key components check out Employee Passion: The New Rules of Engagement.)

Everyone within an organization has a role in creating a high-performing, passionate work environment.  Senior leaders, mid-level managers, and front line supervisors shouldn’t get caught in the trap of averages.  Instead, think at a more local level when it comes to engagement. People are all experiencing the organization uniquely.  Find out what that individual experience is and how you can help.  And for senior leaders, check out Marcus Buckingham’s original piece on this concept from Fast Company —and be sure to check the date of publication.  I think you’ll see that we might have overlooked something important.

Fowler explains that “Relatedness” is a primary nutrient for individuals to thrive in the workplace.  In a complimentary webinar later this week, Fowler will show how a focus on strengthening relationships translates into higher morale, engagement and satisfaction at work.

Drawing on research from a wide variety of resources, Fowler will explore what managers and leaders can do to create stronger relationships. 

Over 1,200 people have already registered for this free October 20 online event, but space is still available if you would like to participate.  For more information see Creating Effective Work Relationships at The Ken Blanchard Companies web site.

To test a theory they had developed, the researchers used a ring-toss game and gave each group the following instructions.  “Take these 3 rings and go into the adjoining room.  You will find a stake on a stand in the center of the room.  Your task is to get the rings on the stake.”

The researchers then watched through one-way glass as members of each group took a turn at the task.  They noticed a striking difference between the two groups.

The group identified as low performers exhibited extreme behaviors when it came to their approach to the task.  For example, some members of the group saw the stake in the center of the room, walked right up to it and placed all three rings on the stake and left the room.  At the other end of the spectrum, other members of the low performing group saw the stake in the center of the room, moved away from it as far as they could and tried to toss a ringer from all the way across the room.  To the researchers, it was obvious that the members of this group were setting their goals way too easy or way too hard.

Next, the researchers watched the group identified as high performers take their turn with the task.  Now the behavior was distinctively different.  The members of the high performing group saw the stake in the middle of the room and placed themselves a couple of feet away for their initial toss.  If they missed, they tried again, or moved a little closer.  If they made it, they moved a little farther away for their next toss.  This group went to great lengths to make the task just the right amount of difficulty.

I’ve been thinking about this story again while I’ve been reading Hundred Percenters.  It’s a great book by Mark Murphy that recommends leaders challenge their employees to set HARD goals (Heartfelt, Animated, Required, and Difficult).  What Murphy has found out is that when people are challenged, they respond with higher levels of engagement and performance.

To learn more about Murphy’s book, check out what others are saying at Amazon.  In the meantime, take a look at your own goals.  Are they the right amount of hardness, or have they become a little too easy and routine?  Challenge yourself—and others—to higher levels of performance.  You might be surprised at the effect it has on your level of engagement.

As I reviewed Deloitte’s recent Trust in the Workplace – 2010 Ethics & Workplace Survey, I was reminded of the dire consequences faced by organizational leaders who don’t get the right answer when it comes to understanding and appreciating the critical importance of trust in today’s workplace.

Is a Lack of Trust Hurting Your Performance?

Deloitte’s survey revealed that 48% of Americans who plan on looking for a new job once the economy improves cited a loss of trust in their employer as a reason for leaving. When you look at that statistic from a different angle you realize that those individuals have already “quit” their employers but have chosen to stay in their current job until a more opportune time to jump ship comes along. This lack of trust results in employees looking out for their own best interest rather than that of the organization or its customers. The consequences of low trust include lower profitability, productivity, efficiency, creativity, and employee morale, just to name a few.

“Trust” can be an elusive concept to define if we don’t have a common frame of reference. To illustrate this, pause for a moment and form a mental picture of what trust means to you. Did you picture the strong roots of a redwood tree? Maybe you imagined the anchor of a large ship? Or perhaps you pictured a parent holding a child’s hand? The reason each person views trust differently is that trust is based on perceptions of behaviors.

The TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model provides a common language individuals can use to build and nurture trust in relationships. The ABCD’s of trust are:

Able – Demonstrate Competence. Do you have the expertise needed for your job? Do you achieve results? Do you facilitate work getting done in the organization? Demonstrating competence inspires others to have confidence and trust in you.

Believable – Act with Integrity. Are you honest with others? Do you behave in a manner that is consistent with your stated values? Do you apply company policies fairly and treat people equitably? “Walking the talk” is essential in building trust in relationships.

Connected – Care About Others. Being connected means focusing on people, having good communication skills, and recognizing the contributions of others. Caring about others builds trust because people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

Dependable – Maintain Reliability. Are you organized in your work habits in such a way that it allows you to follow through on your commitments? Are you responsive to others and hold yourself accountable? One of the quickest ways to break trust is by not doing what you say you’ll do.

For a more thorough discussion on the importance of trust in relationships and organizations, and the TrustWorks!® ABCD Trust Model, I suggest you download Building Trust, a recently published white paper from The Ken Blanchard Companies.

In today’s economy leaders need to recognize the value of trust or be ready to face the consequences. When it comes to building trust, here’s to hoping that all your consequences are happy ones!

But do high employee engagement levels translate into better bottom line performance?  Not necessarily.  There is one additional component that has to be in place in order to drive bottom line impact.

Gallup was among the first organizations to discover this when they took a deeper dive into their engagement research.  One of the surprising discoveries they made early on was that work groups with the highest employee engagement scores didn’t always outperform those with average engagement scores.  In taking a closer look, they discovered that in addition to high levels of employee engagement, organizations also needed to create a high level of customer engagement.  It was only when work groups scored high in both of these areas—meeting the needs of both employees and customers—that companies saw the big jump in performance they were looking for. Be sure to read How Employee and Customer Engagement Interact to learn more about this important finding.

What This Means for Leaders

When beginning an employee engagement initiative, remember that the reason for taking care of employees is so they can, in turn, take care of customers. When employee engagement becomes the end and the means, the result might be a happier organization, but not one that necessarily creates the higher levels of customer devotion that drives bottom line profits.

For best results, leaders need to maintain a dual focus on meeting the needs of employees and customers.  It’s a two-step approach that will generate the results organizations are looking for.

PS: Interested in learning more about the relationship between leadership practices, employee work passion, and customer devotion?  Be sure to check out the Blanchard white paper, The Leadership-Profit Chain, which takes a more in-depth look at how strategic and operational leadership behaviors impact bottom-line results.

According to Dr. Pat Zigarmi, Founding Associate of The Ken Blanchard Companies, and Randy Conley, the Trust Practice Leader at Blanchard, a self-centered, “What’s in it for me” attitude robs an organization of the best that employees have to offer. When employees perceive that an organization—or its leaders—are less than forthcoming, employees become unwilling to contribute any discretionary energy or make any commitments to their organization’s well-being beyond the absolute minimum.

Conley adds that, “Often, the result is that employees will stay with the organization and do their job because they need a paycheck, but not much more. It becomes purely a transactional relationship with employees asking themselves, “If the organization does not do right by me, why should I do right by them?”

Four Areas to Focus On

For leaders looking to turn things around in their organization, Zigarmi and Conley recommend that leaders take a hard look in the mirror and examine their own behaviors. Here are four key areas that leaders have to be aware of when they are looking at building or restoring trust with the people they lead:

Able is about demonstrating competence. Do the leaders know how to get the job done? Are they able to produce results? Do they have the skills to make things happen—including knowing the organization and equipping people with the resources and information they need to get their job done?

Believable means acting with integrity. Leaders have to be honest in their dealings with people. In practical terms, this means creating and following fair processes. Believability is also about acting in a consistent, values-driven manner that reassures employees that they can rely on their leaders.

Connected is about demonstrating care and concern for other people. It means focusing on people and identifying their needs. It is supported by good communication skills. Leaders need to openly share information about the organization and about themselves. This allows the leader to be seen as more of a real person that a follower can identify with. When people share a little bit of information about themselves, it creates a sense of connection.

Dependable is about reliably following through on what the leaders say that they are going to do. It means being accountable for their actions and being responsive to the needs of others so if leaders promise something they must follow through.

You can learn more about what Zigarmi and Conley have to say about trust by following this link to their recent article in Blanchard’s Ignite newsletter.  Also be sure to see more information about a free webinar that Zigarmi and Conley will be conducting on Building Trust and Transparency in Your Organization.

First, the employees’ ranking

1. Job security
2. Benefits
3. Opportunities to use skills and abilities

Next, the HR professionals’ ranking

1. Relationship with immediate supervisor
2. Job security
3. Communication between employees and senior management

While both lists have job security in their respective rankings you’ll also see that benefits are only on the employee list while “relationship with immediate supervisor” and “communication between employees and senior management” are only on the HR professionals list.

What accounts for this discrepancy?  The difference is perception.  While benefits are certainly important to employees the issues that HR professionals are hearing about in their offices are relationships with immediate supervisor and overall communication.

What does this mean?  Two things.  One, as an HR professional, don’t let data summaries distract you from the most important message.  People are unique, with unique needs and desires.  Every individual perceives their work environment differently.  Survey results should never take the place of one-on-one conversations.

Two, as a manager, remember that you are on the front lines in making sure that everyone has a voice and feels listened to and heard.  Don’t assume you know what your employees want and how they feel about the way that things are going.  Take a minute to sit down and find out where your employees stand personally with each of the issues identified in this year’s SHRM report. To see all of the data collected along with some ideas for action steps, be sure to check out the complete report here.

Take, for example, the idea of Connectedness with Colleagues, one of twelve factors identified in the research as contributing to a motivating work environment.  For some team members, sharing updates on a monthly basis meets their needs for feeling informed and in the loop.  For others, meeting anything less than once a day leaves them feeling isolated.  If a group has a team norm of meeting once a week—a pretty standard practice—how do people from each camp feel about the team’s performance in staying connected?  Chances are that members of the first group feel that that the team is excellent at connectedness because it communicates four times more than they personally feel is necessary, while members from the second group rate the team low on this aspect because it only meets once a week, which is less than what they are expecting.

So how does a leader deal with all of the different expectations that people have in the workplace?  The answer is to see colleagues and direct reports as distinct, individual people with different needs and expectations.  Here are three tips for getting started:

1. Recognize that people have different needs, desires, and expectations.  There is a tendency to believe that everyone perceives the environment the same and has the same needs and desires.  The reality is that each of us sees things differently based on our beliefs and past experiences. 
2. Explore these differences.  Build some time into your next one-on-one discussion to discover the degree to which your people are personally experiencing growth, autonomy, connectedness, and collaboration in the organization.  For team members, include an agenda item to discuss these elements of an engaging workplace at an upcoming meeting.
3. Look for early wins.  While some factors will be best addressed at an organizational level, there are still many factors that can be addressed locally inside of a department or team.  Identify what those factors are and how they can be addressed.

Employee engagement is a hot topic these days and there are a lot of ways to approach it.  For leaders looking at improving overall engagement in their organizations, it’s important to keep in mind that the process is also intensely personal.  To learn more about the Blanchard research on this topic, be sure to check out Employee Work Passion: A New Look at Engagement in this month’s Chief Learning Officer magazine.

LOST was famous for rabbit trail plots, untold secrets, and being the proverbial puzzle wrapped in a mystery inside a conundrum. But when all was said and done, the underlying narrative to LOST was the relationships formed among all the characters and the life they shared together.

I couldn’t help but see the leadership implications of the show’s theme, and in particular, the line of dialogue in the series finale between Christian Shephard and his son Jack, the “leader” of the group of survivors. Christian is speaking to Jack (both of whom are “dead”) about the purpose of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 being gathered together in the “afterlife.”

“The most important part of your life was the time you spent with these people. That’s why all of you are here. Nobody does it alone, Jack. You needed all of them and they needed you.”

The premise is clear for leaders – It’s all about relationships!

As leaders we sometimes get LOST. We begin our leadership journeys with excitement, flying high over the ocean with idyllic dreams of leading people to accomplish great things. But then something interrupts our trip and we find ourselves dealing with all sorts of challenges that can become distractions if not placed in the proper perspective. Whether it’s the impending budget deadline, scheduling the next meeting, or completing the latest project, it’s easy to lose focus of what is most important – people!

In The Leadership Pill – The Missing Ingredient in Motivating People Today, Ken Blanchard and Marc Muchnick make the point that leadership is the process of getting everyone to the place they are supposed to go. That assumes that you are relationally connected with your people so that you understand where each one is at in their own particular journey in your organization, and where all of you need to go as a group to accomplish the organization’s goals.

Considering the average person spends a third of their life at work, leaders need to remember that one of our highest callings is to nurture and develop those under our care and that we are mutually dependent on each other to get where we need to go, both individually and corporately. Don’t get LOST!

Sometimes organizations operate as though they’ve forgotten the human element of business, and that people have strong feelings about the way they are treated that translates into subsequent behavior. Zigarmi and Blanchard remind us that leaders need to see employees as more than just assets to be maximized.

5 Recommended Leadership Behaviors

For leaders looking to treat people right and provide employees with the direction and support they need to succeed, here are five ways the authors recommend getting started:

1. Provide strong strategic leadership that includes setting an overall vision for the organization, coordinating the efforts of employees toward that purpose, and keeping them prepared to adapt to changing conditions as necessary.
2. Identify and focus the organization on key strategic imperatives that have purpose for the customer or meaning for the greater community. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
3. Send consistent messages based on a clear vision and the type of culture the organization wants to create. Behaviorally define the values that guide the way employees interact with customers and each other.
4. Identify employee needs and strive to meet them. Day-to-day leadership is the linchpin that drives the ways that employees engage with clients.
5. Don’t make profit your only goal. Profit is a byproduct of serving the customer, which can only be achieved by serving the employee. Don’t fall into a trap of thinking that an organization can’t focus on both people and results. Organizations can focus on both at the same time and should.

If leaders create the right environment and engage in the right behaviors, employees will give their best to the organization. This leads to a greater sense of excitement and passion at work that leads to better customer service and retention.

You can access the full text of The Leadership-Profit Chain article here.  Also be sure to check out the Key Factors Influencing Employee Passion which identifies 12 components of an engaging work environment.

Most leaders believe that focusing on people versus focusing on performance is an either/or decision.  The belief is that you can’t have both.  Still for some reason, Southwest and WD-40 have been able to pull it off.  They have been able to create a caring culture and industry leading results year after year.  How are they able to strike this perfect balance?  It all begins in an important two foot space within each organization—the distance between managers and their direct reports.  By holding their managers accountable for creating an environment that features equal amounts of trust, respect, and accountability, they are able to drive results and create an environment where people feel proud and cared for. 

Would you like to build some of that same spirit into your organization?  Here are three tips for getting started.

Take the time to connect.  Find out a little bit more about your direct reports.  Share a little bit more about yourself.  Create a people-based connection.

Demonstrate trust.  Trust is an important component in any relationship.  Cultivate trust by being transparent in your thinking.  Demonstrate trust by doing what you say you’ll do.  Show that you are consistent and can be relied upon.

Have high expectations.  Expect a lot from your people and encourage them to expect a lot from you in return.  Once you’ve set up a foundation of trust and respect you have the ability to ask for more from your employees and to hold them accountable for delivering on it.

Too many organizations today act as if the human element is unimportant.  Leaders and managers don’t take the time to build connections or demonstrate trust.  But this short-cut comes back to haunt them when it’s time to set goals and hold people accountable for achieving them.  Without a relationship in place, it’s hard to ask people to give their best—and even more difficult to have a conversation when performance comes up short.  Don’t let this happen in your organization.  Follow the example set by great companies like Southwest Airlines and WD-40.  Practice trust and respect-based relationships that get results and creates a winning, people-based spirit.

The story of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and its devastating impact on the city of New Orleans has been well chronicled. In March 2006, Drew Brees joined the Saints football team having just come off major shoulder surgery that threatened his playing career. Brees has been quoted as saying that he felt his decision to join the Saints was a “calling” – a higher purpose that he needed to fulfill, not only to resurrect his own career, but also to help the people of New Orleans resurrect their city. This deep connection to his own personal purpose and that of the city at large created a culture change within the Saints organization which ultimately led them to achieving the greatest prize in their profession.

After the game Brees was quoted as saying, “We played for our city. We played for the entire Gulf Coast region. We played for the entire Who Dat nation that has been behind us every step of the way.”

Teams of all kinds, whether in the sports world, corporate America, or the non-profit sector, can take a lesson from the Saints and the power of purpose. When chartering a team, one of the first priorities is to establish a clear purpose. “Why do we exist?” and “What are we trying to achieve?” are key questions that need to be answered.

Once a team is clear on its purpose, it can establish the values that will guide team members’ behaviors and decisions and in turn establish goals that will help them achieve their purpose. Finding a way to connect each team members’ personal purpose to that of the team will exponentially increase the productivity and morale of the team, allowing the team to achieve more than any one individual possibly could. When the team faces adversity, it will be their firm belief and commitment to their purpose that will carry them through.

“Just to think of the road we’ve all traveled, the adversity we’ve all faced,” Brees said.

“It’s unbelievable. I mean, are you kidding me? Four years ago, whoever thought this would be happening? Eighty-five percent of the city was under water. Most people left not knowing if New Orleans would ever come back, or if the organization would ever come back.

“We just all looked at one another and said, ‘We’re going to rebuild together. We are going to lean on each other.’ That’s what we’ve done the last four years and this is the culmination in all that belief.”

That sounds like the power of purpose to me.

It’s a great list that highlights some of the best employers, but sometimes the publicity that accompanies the list’s release gives people the wrong idea about what makes up an engaging work environment. While the consultancy that scores the companies, Great Place to Work Institute, goes to great lengths to measure each company on five serious organizational factors, the follow up stories tend to get reduced down to a series of unique perks and benefits that are fun to read and easy to describe.

That’s unfortunate because there are some very strong cultural concepts common to each of these organizations that can get lost in the shuffle. Here are the five items that each of these best employers has in common:

• Credibility—managers communicate the company’s direction and plans while involving others.  Leaders “walk the talk” when it’s time for action.
• Respect–the organization provides employees with a professional work environment that includes the equipment, resources, and training they need to do their job well.
• Fairness—compensation, benefits and rewards are distributed fairly and equitably.
• Pride—the company maintains a good standing in the industry and in the community.  The organization structures jobs so employees have individual work that they can be proud of.
• Camaraderie—the organization creates a hospitable work environment that is friendly, welcoming, and where people feel that they are part of a team connected by common values and purpose.

As we celebrate these great companies, it’s important to remember what makes them great. On-site saunas, concierge service, and a game room are all nice perks, but the real definition of a great place to work is an environment where employees experience trust, have pride in what they do, and enjoy the people they work with.

To help with the process, Blanchard recommends that leaders help their people make this shift by providing leadership in three key areas: defining reality, setting a clear direction, and managing people’s energy. 

Defining Reality—acknowledge the present situation and fill people in on where the company is. People are probably unsure of exactly where the company stands financially.  Without accurate information, people usually imagine the worst.  Share what you know as completely as possible. People understand the challenges of today’s economy, and it is reassuring to know that their leader is on top of it too. 

Setting a Clear Direction—the second step is to share the company’s plans and key objectives for the coming year. Charting a course, or setting up a plan, is vitally important because leadership is about going somewhere. In order to get people out of the inertia of their worry, leaders need to point to the direction that the organization is going. The good news is that there is tremendous opportunity in recovery from a recession. But in order for that to happen, there needs to be a plan in place and that plan needs to be communicated clearly. 

Managing People’s Energy—the final step to getting people back on track is to pay special attention to how people are feeling. It’s important to acknowledge where people are at individually and at the same time give them hope and get them excited about the direction the organization is going. 

Find out how people are feeling by encouraging managers and supervisors to schedule one-on-one conversations with their direct reports.  Discuss organizational objectives and individual roles.  Ask about employee concerns and challenges, both at work and in general. During these conversations managers can identify individual needs and look at ways to provide direction and support. In addition to showing that you care, authentic conversations leave people feeling good about you as a manager, as well as good about where the company is going.

You can read the full article here.

PS: Interested in learning more about the role that leaders can play in creating an energized and focused organization?  Join Ken Blanchard for a complimentary webinar on January 19.  Details here.

The article focused on a concept that Ben Zander, the highly regarded conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra shared with our company a couple of years ago. Ben had spoken at our annual Week of Excellence all-company meeting and encouraged all of us to replace “downward spiral thinking” with “possibility thinking” instead.  Ben also cautioned us not to fall into the trap of thinking that leadership is just for those people at the top of the organization.  For an organization to truly move forward together, everyone has to be involved and feel that they play a role. 

To illustrate his point, Ben told the story of an accomplished cellist in his own orchestra who was disappointed when she found herself ranked as the 11th cellist among the twelve seats available.  It was the kind of position where it would be easy to get lost and feel insignificant.  Zander knew it was important not to let that happen and so he made a special effort to reach out to this woman. At Ben’s urging, she eventually volunteered an idea of how to play a certain section of a symphony the orchestra was scheduled to perform. 

“From then on,” he continued, “this cellist who sat in the 11th seat played like a completely different person.”  Instead of just being technically correct, her playing took on an added dimension that she hadn’t displayed before.  When Ben asked her about this, she explained that ever since that night when she first saw the possibility that she could influence the orchestra from her modest position in the 11th chair, she felt like she had been leading the orchestra every night since then. 

Would that type of attitude be helpful in your organization?  Is your company encouraging people to seek out and lead from their position in the company?  If not, you’re missing a great opportunity for innovation, alignment, and passion.  No matter where we sit in the organization, we all have an opportunity to contribute.

In his book, Punished By Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise, and Other Bribes author Alfie Kohn points out that when reward and recognition is conditionally based, it can actually undermine performance by: 

• Setting up a competitive atmosphere where some people win while other people lose 
• Discouraging risk taking when employees fall back on what has worked in the past instead of trying new things which may or may not work 
• Eroding natural interest by replacing intrinsic motivators with extrinsic ones

Perhaps most importantly, improper use of rewards and incentives can sometimes get in the way of good management.  This happens when managers rely to heavily on the use of rewards and incentives instead of drilling down on the reasons why employees may not be performing up to level. 

For organizations looking to improve the creativity, innovation, risk-taking and intrinsic motivation of their employees, Kohn recommends that leaders focus on three areas: 

1. Rethink financial incentives.  Instead of putting so much emphasis on pay-for-performance, pay people a little more than industry norms and then do everything in your power to help them put money out of their minds. 
2. Reevaluate evaluation. Make performance evaluation an ongoing process instead of a once-per-year event.  Make sure that it is a two-way conversation that is separate from conversations about compensation. 
3. Create the conditions for authentic motivation.  Kohn recommends focusing on collaboration—helping employees work together, content—design meaningful jobs and help people find the value in their work, and choice—wherever possible, give people the opportunity to determine how the task will be accomplished.

Kohn is a provocative thinker in this area. For leaders looking for the complete picture on the use of rewards and recognition in their organizations, he offers a great alternative viewpoint on the use of incentives.  I highly recommend him to you and invite your thoughts and comments here.

To participate in the online discussion, stop by http://www.leaderchat.org  beginning at 10:05 a.m. Pacific Time.

Instructions for Participating in the Online Chat

If you have a question that you would like to ask Mark Paskowitz, just click on the COMMENTS link above.  Then post your question and push SUBMIT COMMENT.  Mark will answer as many questions as possible during the 30-minute online Q&A.  (Be sure to press F5 to refresh your screen occasionally to see the latest responses.)

If you can’t stay for the entire 30-minute chat, but would like to see all of the questions and responses, you can always stop by later.  You can also click on the RSS FEED button in the right-hand column to receive updates automatically through email.

Instructions for “Catch Someone Doing Things Right” Twitter Contest

At the conclusion of the webinar Mark Paskowitz will also be announcing a special Twitter contest that The Ken Blanchard Companies is holding this week.  Starting on Tuesday and lasting for 72-hours, The Ken Blanchard Companies will give you a chance to “catch someone doing things right” by entering that person in a drawing for a copy of one of Ken Blanchard’s latest books. The book will contain a personalized inscription congratulating the winner on being caught doing things right.  The contest ends on Friday at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time and you can enter as many people as you would like.  Here’s how to participate:

1. Go to www.twitter.com  and post the name of the person you would like to catch doing things right along with a very short description of why. Include the following code in your message @leaderchat

For example: @leaderchat  Nick Peterson—for doing an outstanding job all year and helping to make this our best year ever! 

2. Push the UPDATE button

It’s as simple as that.  Every day between now and Friday we’ll randomly choose one lucky person among those entered to receive one of the personalized books.  Each day’s winner will be posted at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time at www.leaderchat.org

Don’t miss this chance to say “thank you” to someone who really deserves it.  Participating is a fun, low-cost, and very thoughtful way to let someone know that you appreciate them!

PS: If you don’t have a Twitter account yet, you can sign up at Twitter when you get there.  Just follow the instructions and you’ll be online in minutes.

This finding is based on survey data gathered from 520 business organizations in 17 countries designed to test if a CEO’s primary focus on profit maximization resulted in employees developing negative feelings toward the organization. The result? Employees in these companies tend to perceive the CEO as autocratic and focused on the short term, and they report being somewhat less willing to sacrifice for the company. Corporate performance is poorer as a result. 

But when the CEO makes it a priority to balance the concerns of customers, employees, and the community while also taking environmental impact into account, employees perceive him or her as visionary and participatory. And they report being more willing to exert extra effort, and corporate results improve. 

These results aren’t surprising. When the definition of leadership focuses only on profit what tends to fall by the wayside is the condition of the human organization. Leaders wrongly believe that they can’t focus on both at the same time. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.  As this research points out, organizations perform best when they balance financial goals with respect, care, and fairness for the well-being of everyone involved. 

The Four Keys to Better Leadership 

In looking at all of the great organizations that The Ken Blanchard Companies has worked with over the years, we have found one thing that sets these organizations apart from average organizations. The defining characteristic is leaders who maintain an equal focus on both results and people. In these organizations, leaders measure their success with people (customers and employees) as much as they measure their financial performance. 

In these organizations, leaders do four things well. 

1. They set their sights on the right target and vision. Great organizations focus on three bottom lines instead of just one. In addition to financial success, leaders at great organizations know that measuring their success with people–both customers and employees–is just as important as measuring the success of their financial bottom line. In these organizations, developing loyal customers and engaged employees are considered equal to good financial performance. Leaders at these companies know that in order to succeed they must create a motivating environment for employees, which results in better customer service, which leads to higher profits. 
2. They treat their customers right. To keep your customers today, you can’t be content just to satisfy them. Instead, you have to create raving fans–customers who are so excited about the way you treat them that they want to tell everyone about you. Companies that create raving fans routinely do the unexpected on behalf of their customers, and then enjoy the growth generated by customers bragging about them to prospective clients. 
3. They treat their people right. Without committed and empowered employees, you can never provide good service. You can’t treat your people poorly and expect them to treat your customers well. Treating your people right begins with good performance planning that gets things going in the right direction by letting direct reports know what they will be held accountable for–goals–and what good behavior looks like–performance standards. It continues with managers who provide the right amount of direction and support that each individual employee needs in order to achieve those goals and performance standards. 
4. They turn the organizational chart upside down. The most effective leaders realize that leadership is not about them and that they are only as good as the people they lead. These leaders seek to be serving leaders instead of self-serving leaders. In this model, once a vision has been set, leaders move themselves to the bottom of the hierarchy, acting as a cheerleader, supporter, and encourager to the people who report to them. 

The way to maximize your results as a leader is to have high expectations for both results and relationships. If leaders take care of the people who take care of their customers, profits and financial strength will follow. The result is an organization where people and profits both grow and thrive.

The 2009/2010 U.S. Strategic Rewards Survey by Watson Wyatt and WorldatWork found that “employee-engagement levels for all workers at the surveyed companies dropped 9 percent since last year — but the number was nearly 25 percent for top performers.”

In addition, “more than one-third (36 percent) of top performers said their employers’ situation had worsened during the past 12 months and the percentage who would recommend others accept jobs at their companies had declined by nearly 20 percent.”

Although HR leaders may be limited in what they can do financially, the article recommends getting creative in looking at other ways to help high performers feel valued.  While money is important, and high performers need to feel that they are being treated fairly in this area, there are other factors to consider including reward, recognition, and growth opportunities.

Ryan Johnson, vice president of research at Scottsdale, Ariz.-based WorldatWork, says that “one of the easiest things to do in an environment like this is to sit down with someone and have a discussion about their career development and where they’re headed in the organization.”

Johnson also suggests that, “simply letting high performers know that their performance is recognized and that they’re important to the company can be motivating.”

For more ideas on how you can let your high performers know that you care about them during tough economic times, be sure to check out the entire article.  For more information on other factors that lead to increased levels of engagement, also take a look at Employee Passion: The New Rules of Engagement on The Ken Blanchard Companies website.  Both of these resources can help you identify ways to build (or rebuild) engagement levels in your organization.