The relationship you have with your boss is one of the most important relationships you will ever develop for the advancement of your career. Discover how you can:
– Move up in an organization
– Get a raise
– …and many other great things
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In today’s video discover how you can maintain integrity and accountability on your team and do it in a way you’ll feel good about. Watch the video now…
Good to Great author Jim Collins argues that the most successful companies put massive focus not just on bringing good people in, but on getting them all in the right positions. The most successful employees are those who seek and stay in positions that match their skills and interests.
This not only ensures that jobs are done well but that the people IN the jobs are happy and engaged in their work. Though constant growth and acquiring new skills are good things, Gallup research shows that people are most engaged when they apply the strengths they already have to the position they are in.
That’s where you come in. Are YOU currently in the right seat for your skills and your passion? Don’t wait for management to see a poor fit and fix it. No one is impacted more by your disengagement than you and your downwardly spirally career that comes with that attitude.
Then there’s the flipside. Sometimes employees who love what they do and where they are seek “the next thing” and end up being promoted into misery. If you’re climbing the ladder yourself, make sure you aren’t leaving the perfect seat on the bus to climb out a window! Understand your emotional intelligence scores and align your career to the work that best fits you.
The legendary Jack Welch once named three keys to business success: cash flow, customer satisfaction, and employee engagement. And guess where he put engagement?
Right on top.
He said, “No company, small or large, can win in the long run without energized employees who believe in the mission and understand how to achieve it.”
All the shiny products and dazzling services in the world fade into the background in comparison to a workforce that is engaged and fully on board with the company’s mission and vision.
As a member of your workplace community, you can’t assume that smiles in the hallway mean your colleagues are engaged. Companies need to measure employee engagement through regular anonymous surveys in which people feel completely safe to speak their minds.
Our clients show definitive improvement in the culture scores using our assessment every year without exception.
An anomaly? I don’t think so.
It’s because they use their assessment as an action plan to make things better the next year and to get all team members to understand that THEY create the culture and own the improvement of that situation.
Motivation is a racket! Let me tell you what I mean by that. We say, “I’m not feeling motivated right now” because of this or that outside circumstance.
If motivation is something that relies on the circumstances around you, it’s not worth a nickel. You become a slave to things you can’t control, a puppet of your environment. If all you want is an excuse, you’ll be all set.
But if you want a happier, more productive life, you need a better way of meeting the world.
What you need is not motivation but inspiration. If I choose to make things happen, regardless of circumstances, that’s when transformative results begin to happen.
I saw this in action a few weeks ago when I was going through airport security. There were two guys from TSA working next to each other. One was like a surly robot. He was completely unmotivated, entirely in the control of his circumstances, counting the hours and minutes until the end of his shift, and making sure that everyone around him suffered right along with him.
But the other guy, wow! Same circumstances, same number of hours until the end of the shift, and he was blowing me away with his decision to be extraordinary. He greeted each person like a long-lost friend, joked, laughed, and still got his job done. But in the process, he managed to make airport security the best part of my day.
At some point this man had decided, “I’m gonna have a hoot every day, and at the end of every day I’ll know I made a huge difference in people’s lives.”
So forget motivation. Find the inspiration to make that difference, every day.