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…
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…
When you look at all of the stats pointing to the low levels of employee engagement in the US and around the world, you might start to believe that people are naturally lazy and disengaged—or that people wouldn’t work if they didn’t have to. But that’s not true. In fact, that kind of misinterpretation of…
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…
Like most people, chances are that you were enthusiastic about your current job when you were first hired. You were excited about the new role, its challenges, and the people you would be working with. But now for various reasons, you or your direct reports may be struggling to stay afloat. Perhaps as a manager…
Everyday the spirits of millions of people die at the front door of their workplace. There is an epidemic of workers who are uninterested and disengaged from the work they do, and the cost to the U.S. economy has been pegged at over $300 billion annually. According to a recent survey from Deloitte, only 20%…
Motivation expert Susan Fowler believes that leaders are spending too much time trying to fix disengagement after it occurs instead of questioning the approaches to motivation that may have led to it in the first place. In a new article, Missing the Point on Motivation, Fowler stresses not to wait until people have become disengaged…
Employee engagement is at an important crossroads. After years of conducting engagement surveys, organizations are finding that improving employee engagement is a lot more difficult than measuring it. 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…
While employee engagement continues to be a hot conversation topic in the HR press and throughout organizations, moving from knowing to doing has proven difficult—and even counterproductive in some cases. In many organizations, shining a light on engagement has only made matters worse—especially when an organization has surveyed employee perceptions and then made very little effort…
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.…