Posts Tagged ‘Employee Engagement’

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Thank You, Thank You, Thank You

Monday, September 6th, 2010

* Transcription

Thank God it’s Monday!™ One of the best ways to improve your happiness is to decide to move to a state of gratitude. That’s right. Appreciate what you have, every day. I know, I know, you have college tuition payments coming and you’re short, you have a boss who is asking more than is humanly possible, and you don’t have a clue how to keep it all together.

Well, breathe and begin to appreciate what you have. You have a job. You have a boss who cares enough to coach you. You have two arms and two legs that function. Your heart is beating and your white blood cells are working to keep you alive. You get the point.

There is always so much to appreciate, so be in a state of gratitude.

Start by approaching five people in your workplace and letting them know what you appreciate about them. I guarantee you will feel closer to them and enjoy them more just by having done this experience.

Gratitude changes results, so step on up and indulge by wildly giving gratitude.

Have a great Monday!

Roxanne

Roxanne Emmerich’s Thank God It’s Monday! How to Create a Workplace You and Your Customers Love climbed to #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list and made the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists—all in the first week of its release. Roxanne is renowned for her ability to transform “ho-hum” workplaces into dynamic, results-oriented, “bring-it-on” cultures. If you are not currently receiving the Thank God It’s Monday e-zine and weekly audios, subscribe today at www.ThankGoditsMonday.com.

Love this audio message? You may also download the MP3 version and PDF transcript below:



Download Instructions: Right-click the download button(s) and
choose ‘save link as…’ to save the file to your computer.

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Employee Engagement

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

True employee engagement occurs when individuals apply the full measure of their creative energy and talent to performing work that wholly supports achievement of the organization’s goals. And while perfect engagement is not achievable, our experience and the Gallup Organization’s research reveal that a clear, forward-looking strategy aligned with the organization’s vision, values, and mission goals and translatable to the day-to-day activities of all organization members combined with inspiring leadership is absolutely essential to maximizing employee engagement.

Check out the resources and articles around Employee Engagement on the Strategy Driven website at their Employee Engagement Center of Excellence.  There are some written by yours truly, but many articles by other experts as well!

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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.

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Turning Workplace Clark Kents into Superheroes of Service

Tuesday, May 11th, 2010
© Dmitroza | Dreamstime.com

© Dmitroza | Dreamstime.com

Someone’s late for a meeting. Nobody calls the person on it. Next week, three people are late.  You try to convince yourself it’s a coincidence. Eventually, there won’t be a meeting in the entire organization that starts within 15 minutes of the scheduled time. Before you know it, everyone’s repeating the mantra that “starting late is the ABC Company way!”

You create sales reports to make sure the right people are called on and the right process is followed. Then some sales reports aren’t done accurately or aren’t timely. But it’s your top producer so…what can you say?

Then the top achiever stops doing the reports all together.  The rest of your team members follow the leader. Sales take a nosedive. Your sales team blames the economy and the competition.

Yeah, right.  It’s somebody ELSE’S fault.

Everybody knows the rules—but no one is calling others on it when they break the rules.  Your organization descends into lazy anarchy.  How could it not?

Look at any successful organization and you’ll see a group in which EVERY team member cares enough to call every other team member on it whenever a service standard is breached, a deadline missed, a sales process isn’t followed, or an honor code value violated.

Struggling organizations have folks who just want to be “nice.”  Think Clark Kent. When they see standards breached, they let it all slide.  Why?  So others will let THEM slide when THEY mess up. Eventually they’re all scratching each others backs, watching the iceberg pass by, and wondering why their socks are wet.

People need to understand that it isn’t “mean” to challenge each other—it’s uncaring and unloving to NOT challenge each other for falling short of what’s required. It keeps others small.

A leader’s role is to lead people to a level of greatness they thought was reserved for others—to tear the shirts off these Clark Kents, revealing the ‘S’ of the superhero below.  Your role is to help ordinary people get extraordinary results by using the most basic fact of human psychology:  People move away from pain and toward pleasure.

If somebody doesn’t do what they’re supposed to do and there is no immediate pain, that behavior continues. If there is no pleasure, that behavior isn’t reinforced.

Your job is to celebrate the many wins with rituals of pleasure and to let ALL your people know that celebrating those wins is part of their contribution to the team. It is also your job to make sure that when people don’t do what they’re supposed to do, they experience the pain of addressing the slip-up directly.

A balance of pain and pleasure serves as twin guardrails to guide continuous improvement in behaviors and results.

The ultimate job of a leader is to run an organization in which every person calls every other person “tight.” Only then do you know your people have the maturity both to challenge and to be challenged. When in the history of time has there been a profound result without a profound challenge?

Creating an extraordinary organization doesn’t mean finding extraordinary people. It means helping ordinary people discover that they can be extraordinary.

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Putting Procrastination on the Back Burner

Monday, April 26th, 2010

* Transcription

Thank God it’s Monday!™ Put procrastination on the back burner. Procrastination is more than a time thief…it robs you of your self-respect and the respect of others. It costs people their jobs, businesses their profits, and it shuts out opportunities for a bright future whenever it becomes a pattern.

Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, in his book The Power of Positive Thinking, describes how procrastination nearly “swamped” him until he did something about it. Here’s his formula for conquering that monster:

  1. Pick one area where procrastination plagues you, and conquer it.
  2. Learn to set priorities and focus on one problem at a time.
  3. Give yourself deadlines.
  4. Don’t duck the most difficult problems.
  5. Don’t let perfectionism paralyze you. IF you put everything off until you’re sure of it,
    you’ll never get anything done.

So it’s time to put procrastination ON the back burner.

Have a great Monday!

Roxanne

Roxanne Emmerich’s Thank God It’s Monday! How to Create a Workplace You and Your Customers Love climbed to #1 on Amazon’s bestseller list and made the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller lists—all in the first week of its release. Roxanne is renowned for her ability to transform “ho-hum” workplaces into dynamic, results-oriented, “bring-it-on” cultures. If you are not currently receiving the Thank God It’s Monday e-zine and weekly audios, subscribe today at www.ThankGoditsMonday.com.

Love this audio message? You may also download the MP3 version and PDF transcript below:



Download Instructions: Right-click the download button(s) and
choose ‘save link as…’ to save the file to your computer.

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Posted in TGIM Weekly One-Minute Audios | No Comments »

Seven Secrets of a “Thank God It’s Monday” Workplace

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010
© Vgstudio | Dreamstime.com

© Vgstudio | Dreamstime.com

What accounts for the difference between “Oh crap, it’s Monday” and “Thank God it’s Monday”?  It all boils down to seven habits that can change everything about the culture of your workplace:

1. Show up fully and commit with all your heart
At work, we think of home.  At home, we think of work.  Time to stop that.  The first step toward a TGIM workplace is being present and accounted for at work.  Thinking about being elsewhere leads to resenting where you are. 

While you are at work, commit to work with all your heart.  This is what I call throwing your heart over the bar—committing 100 percent to the moment and task before you.
 
2. Communicate clearly
Use powerful and positive language about what you will do and the attitude you expect from others.  If a TGIM workplace is your goal, take the time to make your communications clear on every level.

3. Go beyond the job description
Going beyond the job description happens when you pitch in and help others at work without expecting reward. Willingly share the load. If you’re caught up on your tasks, help someone else who is crunching for a deadline.  Instead of an extra burden, you actually feel more a part of things than ever.

4. Don’t tolerate dysfunctional behaviors
Establish a zero-tolerance policy for talking behind another person’s back, then give each other permission to address conflict head-on, out loud, courageously and honestly. Create a trusting and open environment and watch the dysfunction ebb away.

5. Clean up your messes
Relationships are built on trust. Without that foundation, there is no basis for a relationship.  We breach the trust each time we don’t do what we said we would do.  But here’s the thing—that breach can be healed quickly IF you come back and clean up the mess.  Acknowledge that the results are not okay, then make a commitment to put things right and prevent a recurrence.

6. Live a life of profound service
Once you place yourself in the service of those around you—your family, your colleagues, your customers—every moment becomes imbued with purpose and significance, and you feel GOOD. 
As you drive to work, begin thinking about how the work you do is serving others, contributing to their success and happiness.  This is the essence of true service, and the key to a workplace that draws you happily back, Monday after Monday after Monday.

7.  Celebrate
Every project consists of little steps, little victories along the way.  Recognize and celebrate them in ways large and small.  Build a system of celebrations and rewards—quarterly, weekly, daily—and follow through like your company’s life depends on it.  Because (psst) it does.

Acquire these seven habits and spread them through your workplace, then be sure to notice the first Monday your hand reaches for the alarm—and you smile.

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Dealing with the Low Performer

Friday, December 4th, 2009
© Elenathewise | Dreamstime.com

© Elenathewise | Dreamstime.com

No doubt the phrase “low performer” brought someone bubbling up from your past.  Right?  Let’s call him Frank.  Maybe you were a youngster, learning the business, working your way up the best you could—and there was Frank, working as hard as he could to avoid working as hard as he could.

He knew all the shortcuts, Frank did.  He was the one pulling his coat on at 4:56 one day and 4:55 the next, putting in the absolute minimum effort required to get by, watching the clock and complaining endlessly about…well, everything.

What about the Franks hiding out in your organization today—low performers sucking the energy (I call these energy vampires) and profitability out of your company?

Not everyone can be a star, you might say.  True enough.  But did you know that low performers are the #1 cause of the downfall of unsuccessful CEOs, and that leaders who keep and coddle low performers are 13 times more likely to be fired than those who address the problem?

Low performers drain resources, create additional work for the high performers, and poison the culture.  Worst of all, they send the message that low performance is an acceptable path through your organization.

It isn’t.  If success is really important to you, it CAN’T be.  So let’s assume you agree.  How can you take the low performers by the horns?

1.  Confront the problem directly and immediately.  Don’t suggest, don’t imply, and don’t delay.  Once you have solid evidence of a habitual low performer, schedule an immediate meeting.

2.  Be specific and clear.  Tell the person (1) what you have observed, (2) that it is unacceptable, (3) what you expect in its place, and (4) what consequences will follow if corrections are not made.

3.  Make expectations crystal clear.  It’s easiest to hold someone to a standard that has been clearly spelled out, both verbally and in writing.

4.  Base your comments on measurable things.  Vague criticisms about “not pitching in” or “dragging your heels” are too easily deflected.  “You are expected to produce X leads per quarter and you produced less than half that amount for two quarters running”—hard to wiggle out of that one.

5.  Follow through.  If the person’s performance turns around, a word of appreciation can go a long way to keeping it on track.  But if there’s little or no improvement, you MUST follow through on the consequences you promised. 

Remember that there’s always an audience for these things—other low performers testing your resolve, and high performers silently cheering you on.  Consistency is crucial.  Ramp up the consequences for the next infraction, and follow through again.  You’ll not only correct the behavior of one person, but establish a “no excuses” culture that benefits everyone.

And when its time to terminate the low performer, make sure your ducks are in a row, then PULL THAT SWITCH.  It’s never easy, but knowing when to say ENOUGH is one of the marks of a genuine leader.

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Values As Your True North

Tuesday, November 24th, 2009
 
© Dusanzidar | Dreamstime.com

© Dusanzidar | Dreamstime.com

I had an old friend who was a software programmer in San Jose.  At the time I knew him, he’d held several jobs in a few years. He told me he wasn’t happy in his newest job and wanted to find a new one.  Again.

“Are you moving toward a new job,” I asked, “or running away from your current mess?”

“Well,” he said, “if I’m honest with myself…I suppose I’m running away.”

“That’s too bad,” I said, “because there was obviously some lesson you missed while there, some mistakes you’ll probably repeat. I suggest you stay and learn the lesson so you can move toward something—otherwise, we’ll be having this exact same conversation in another year when you’re looking for your next job.”

Despite my sage advice, he left anyway, and started a new job…which he recently lost.

Same story, different day.

The trick here is to be honest with yourself. If you’re getting married, it’s easy to say you’re moving toward a relationship—but you might be moving away from being alone. That’s a very different reason to get married, and not a very good one. How many divorced and/or miserable people are out there raising their hands on this one?

You will find that almost EVERY bad decision follows from a violation of a value—a moving away from a fear instead of moving toward something you love.

So you’ve made some good decisions, and you’ve made a few lousy ones. Welcome to the human race. But what can you learn from your personal history to improve the ratio of good to lousy?

Let’s do an autopsy on the decisions you’ve made that have killed deals, killed relationships, reduced your success, and otherwise created general chaos in your life:

You needed to meet a goal or quota, so you did the wrong thing by the client. You thought the client and your boss wouldn’t notice. That didn’t work. You violated your value of always doing the right thing by the customer, and a bad result was your reward.

You had to get home early to meet with friends, so you didn’t double-check that project before sending it out to the client. You lost the deal because you didn’t uphold your value of quality work. Again, bummer result.

You were in a pinch to fill a position, so you hired someone you knew just didn’t share your values. Twenty-four hours after the start time, you know you have a problem.

In each of these cases, you made a decision that deep in your gut felt wrong before you even made it. That butterflies-swirling-like-a-flush-down-the-porcelain-bowl feeling is all that’s needed to know for certain that we blew it.

Let’s make this easy. Psychologists tell us that all emotions are rooted either in love or in fear. Anger, for example, is a symptom of fear. You can’t be angry if you’re not afraid. Joy is based in love. You can’t feel bliss without having love at the core. Fear is a “moving-away-from” emotion. Love is “moving-toward.”

Analyze the disastrous decisions you’ve made, and a pattern of “moving away” from something will generally emerge. 
• Moving away from missing a quota.
• Moving away from confronting a problem.
• Moving away from one company or boss as opposed to moving toward a bigger calling—thus, the saying, “Out of the frying pan, into the fire.”

So the next time you need to make a decision, ask yourself if you’re moving away from something or moving toward something.  Once you master that assessment, it’s amazing how much better your decisionmaking, and your results, will become.

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Woohoo! Thank God Its Monday Hit #1 Overall

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Thank you to everyone for all the help of spreading the word about Thank God It’s Monday. It hit number 1 overall as of all books sold! It is experiencing the second week as the number one business book and it’s also sold out in the U.K. and made the best seller list in Canada as well.

Pinch me!!!

Again, thank you to everyone who have sent the massive amount of emails saying you’ve bought 10 plus copies for all your friends. Now THAT is a commitment to a healthy workplace.

Thank you for being a part of this movement.

Only a few days left until Monday!!!

Cheers,

Roxanne

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Great News…Thank God It’s Monday Just Hit Amazon’s #2 Overall

Wednesday, May 20th, 2009

This is SUCH great news. My new book, Thank God It’s Monday, just hit #2 overall of all books on Amazon a few minutes ago and has been the #1 selling business book for two weeks in a row!

It also hit The Wall Street Journal list last week.

Why?

I think it’s because people are tired of not loving their work. With all the layoffs, those who are “left behind” with twice the work and half the friends are so disheartened and don’t know how to get their rhythm back.

Here’s a few tips on getting that “new job” feeling back… (more…)

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