No matter how you feel today, there was almost certainly a time when you were engaged and excited about your job. It may have lasted for years, or not even made it through the first week. But if you find yourself bored and disengaged on the job now, there might be a reason that has nothing to do with the job itself.
(more…)
Archive for the ‘Motivating Employees’ Category
Unbore Yourself and Get Out of Your Rut
Wednesday, January 11th, 2012Get Aboard the Happy Bus!
Thursday, March 31st, 2011One of the best changes you can make in your own job security is to choose to be happy with what you have. You HAVE a job. Sure, you may work with a few dweebs. Your boss can be a jerk. The mailroom wasn’t the destiny you had in mind when you graduated magna cum laude… but you HAVE a job. Not everyone does, so start there.
(more…)
Mastery Loves (Your) Company
Thursday, March 17th, 2011I know the expression is “misery loves company.” That’s true too. But if you want something that loves YOUR company and boosts your bottom line, it’s mastery to the rescue.
(more…)
Purpose Matters!
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011What motivates employees to the highest levels of productivity and engagement? The answer might surprise you.
(more…)
“Where Did My Idea Go?”: Employee Engagement Starts with Being Heard
Thursday, December 23rd, 2010You’re a motivated employee, a real go-getter, deeply engaged in your company and committed to its success. That’s why you take the time and effort to think of ways to improve procedures and policies.
(more…)
Work Incentives that WORK
Thursday, November 25th, 2010It’s true: money is a useful motivator. But according to a classic study at Ohio State University, it’s not the only motivator that increases employee engagement and productivity. Turns out it’s not even the most effective one.
(more…)
Having a Hoot is a Bottom Line Issue
Thursday, November 11th, 2010As our economic mess heads into its third year, business has never been more serious. It might seem an odd time to make a case for levity in the workplace. But The Levity Effect authors Scott Christopher and Adrian Gostick are doing exactly that.
(more…)
The Quietly Happy Workplace
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
© Polushkina Svetlana | Dreamstime.com
There’s a common misconception that the joyful, engaged workplace has to include a lot of waved pompoms, ringing bells, and people popping up like toast over their cubicle walls with a spontaneous WOOHOO!
While I’m all in favor of getting wild and crazy in the interest of workplace engagement, all this woohooing is only an outward expression of an inner joy. And while many workplaces can and should allow their joy to spill over into public view, some others—a hospital ICU, for example, or a funeral home—might call for a little discretion.
But not TOO much discretion. These workplaces are just as prone to dysfunctional, crazymaking behaviors as any other. And they can be even MORE prone to the negative, depressed emotions that can drag a workplace environment into the pits.
So let’s say I’m the owner of a funeral home. A few of my staffers spend half their time working and the other half making everyone else miserable—gossiping, whining, backstabbing, the works. I can’t exactly encourage my staff to put clown noses on the departed, or to woohoo and greet grieving family members with a hearty, “Hey, how’s it going, dude?” They wouldn’t be there if things were going well.
Workplace engagement is founded on mutual respect and on being of profound service to others. Both of these are as compatible with my hypothetical funeral home as they are with any other workplace.
That doesn’t mean people in these “discreet” lines of work can’t go a little crazy in celebration. You can and you should. A party in a funeral home could have a casket full of ice for the drinks and ladyfinger cookies covered with frosting and standing on end to look like tombstones. Why not? Okay, that is a little too weird.
But engagement doesn’t start with wild parties. It starts with employees who care for each other and treat each other with basic kindness. This it both a matter of what we do (“I remember your daughter wasn’t feeling well—is she better now?”) and what we don’t do (no gossiping behind someone’s back—giving OR receiving).
But it’s also a matter of reframing EVERY aspect of your daily work in terms of being of profound service to others. That, not employee cheer pyramids or conga lines through the lobby, are what transforms a workplace into a place of genuine engagement and joy.
Let’s Get It Started!
Friday, August 20th, 2010
© Gino Santa Maria | Dreamstime.com
There’s a song I love to play over the loudspeakers at my public events. The song is “Let’s Get it Started” by the Black-Eyed Peas, and we use it to call everybody back from break, to pump them up and get them ready to GET IT STARTED again!
We could use just about any high-energy song to get people’s attention, but this one has something special, and its right there in the title––Let’s get it started. It doesn’t say, “Let’s hope somebody else gets it started.” It’s about US, you and me, getting started and making things happen.
Maybe you’re playing a waiting game in your company, waiting for management to get the memo and start making a positive culture change happen. You’ve filled out enough suggestion cards to fill the old card catalog at the New York Public Library. Maybe you’ve even dropped a few heavy hints in person. Nothing. Ever. Happens.
Time to stop waiting. It’s time to get it started.
Culture change is first and foremost about a change in attitudes. It’s about making people feel appreciated, giving them a common goal, and helping them to have fun in the process. NONE of these requires a lot of money or time, and best of all, NONE requires the involvement of the head honchos.
Still, you don’t have to do this all alone. Certainly there are two or three other people who would like to see your workplace transformed. Put together an informal group––a “coalition of the willing”––and brainstorm ways to turn the place around. There is nothing more fun than taking the bull by the horns and watching as you turn around not just a workplace, but the lives of the people who spend half of their waking hours IN that workplace.
Here are three ways to get it started:
1. Create your own contest. If you know your company has an objective to sell 750 widgets a month, create a contest. Split your staff into teams. Have them report daily and put points for sales up on a white board. Hoot and holler, give out prizes for individuals and teams. Prizes don’t have to be expensive—people will knock themselves out for a chocolate kiss.
2. Start a low-key campaign against dysfunctional behaviors. Quietly enlist as many co-workers as possible in a pact to not engage in gossip, backstabbing, whining, or nay-saying, and to gently call others on it when they hear it in action.
3. Connect. It’s easy to crawl into our shells, keep our eyes on the floor, and forget that we’re surrounded by actual no-kidding people all day. Make an effort to meet the eyes of your co-workers. Smile and say hello. Ask about the family. This isn’t rocket science––but these simple connections can do more for transforming a workplace culture than the most elaborate system of incentives.
At the end of the first month, pull the team together to take a reading. Odds are very good that you’ll see evidence everywhere that things will never be the same.
The Shackleton mindset—a refusal to fail
Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010
© Velora | Dreamstime.com
For sheer jaw-dropping drama, it’s hard to beat the story of the three-masted sailing ship Endurance, which left England in August 1914 under the command of Ernest Shackleton with twenty-eight men determined to cross Antarctica by sled.
The Endurance ended up trapped and crushed to splinters by ice floes. The men lived on the Antarctic ice for another two years.
Total survivors out of the original twenty-eight men? Twenty-eight.
What if you approached every challenge in your life and in your work as if you simply HAD to overcome it? I’ll tell you what—you would do it. You would find a way, and you would get it done.
Whenever I hear the expression, “Failure is not an option,” I think of Ernest Shackleton and the men of Endurance. I picture them confronting these utterly impossible situations and saying, “Well, lads, let’s see what our options are.”
I then picture them reaching into a pocket and pulling out a scrap of paper. Under the title OPTIONS are two words: SUCCESS and FAILURE.
Like heck. Why would failure EVER be an option? So why not take it off the list entirely?
We’ve all heard the hundred or so reasons such and such a thing simply cannot be done, the many, many reasons failure is the only option.
Tell Shackleton about the insurmountable obstacles you face. Just let me watch.
Better STILL—why not just take FAILURE off that list of options?
I have a friend who I dearly love but who always used to explain why something couldn’t be done. Excuses came easy to her. Then one day her boss gave her a priceless saying to remember: Don’t tell me about the labor pains—show me the baby.
Before a project begins, I don’t want to hear all the reasons it can’t be done. After the project is done, I don’t care how many hours you worked. I don’t care how many obstacles you hit. Save it for your memoirs. Just show me the baby.
Decide now that whatever project or challenge you currently have before you simply cannot be allowed to fail—that you must use the fortitude of the Endurance crew to make it happen. It’s a completely different way of thinking.
But be careful—this powerful way of thinking is addicting. Once you get a taste of achieving the impossible, it’s hard to quit!