Things That Motivate Employees More Than Money
1. Be generous with praise. Everyone wants it and it’s one of the easiest things to give. Plus, praise from the CEO goes a lot farther than you might think. Praise every improvement that you see your team members make. Once you’re comfortable delivering praise one-on-one to an employee, try praising them in front of others.
2. Get rid of the managers. Projects without project managers? That doesn’t seem right! Try it. Removing the project lead or supervisor and empowering your staff to work together as a team rather then everyone reporting to one individual can do wonders. Think about it. What’s worse than letting your supervisor down? Letting your team down! Allowing people to work together as a team, on an equal level with their co-workers, will often produce better projects faster. People will come in early, stay late, and devote more of their energy to solving problems.
3. Make your ideas theirs. People hate being told what to do. Instead of telling people what you want done; ask them in a way that will make them feel like they came up with the idea. “I’d like you to do it this way” turns into “Do you think it’s a good idea if we do it this way?”
4. Never criticize or correct. No one, and I mean no one, wants to hear that they did something wrong. If you’re looking for a de-motivator, this is it. Try an indirect approach to get people to improve, learn from their mistakes, and fix them. Ask, “Was that the best way to approach the problem? Why not? Have any ideas on what you could have done differently?” Then you’re having a conversation and talking through solutions, not pointing a finger.
5. Make everyone a leader. Highlight your top performers’ strengths and let them know that because of their excellence, you want them to be the example for others. You’ll set the bar high and they’ll be motivated to live up to their reputation as a leader.
6. Take an employee to lunch once a week. Surprise them. Don’t make an announcement that you’re establishing a new policy. Literally walk up to one of your employees, and invite them to lunch with you. It’s an easy way to remind them that you notice and appreciate their work.
7. Give recognition and small rewards. These two things come in many forms: Give a shout out to someone in a company meeting for what she has accomplished. Run contests or internal games and keep track of the results on a whiteboard that everyone can see. Tangible awards that don’t break the bank can work too. Try things like dinner, trophies, spa services, and plaques.
8. Throw company parties. Doing things as a group can go a long way. Have a company picnic. Organize birthday parties. Hold a happy hour. Don’t just wait until the holidays to do a company activity; organize events throughout the year to remind your staff that you’re all in it together.
9. Share the rewards—and the pain. When your company does well, celebrate. This is the best time to let everyone know that you’re thankful for their hard work. Go out of your way to show how far you will go when people help your company succeed. If there are disappointments, share those too. If you expect high performance, your team deserves to know where the company stands. Be honest and transparent.
How to build customer loyalty
1. Have a sales philosophy that emphasizes relationship building.
2. Define a unique niche and become the customer’s expert on it.
3. Help the customer build the customer’s own business.
4. Translate what you offer into the customer’s business results.
5. Value the relationship more than making your quota.
6. Think end-of-time friendships, not end-of-month totals.
7. Achieve a perfect job of delivering what you’ve promised.
8. Provide absolutely impeccable service after the sale.
source: http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/8-ways-to-build-customer-loyalty.html
Why Appreciation Matters So Much {secrets to motivate people}
The single highest driver of engagement, according to a worldwide study conducted by Towers Watson, is whether or not workers feel their managers are genuinely interested in their wellbeing.
Feeling genuinely appreciated lifts people up. At the most basic level, it makes us feel safe, which is what frees us to do our best work. It’s also energizing. When our value feels at risk, as it so often does, that worry becomes preoccupying, which drains and diverts our energy from creating value.
1. As the Hippocratic oath prescribes to physicians, “Above all else, do no harm.” Or perhaps more accurately, do less harm, since it’s unrealistic to do none. The costs of devaluing others are so great that we need to spend far more time thinking than we do now about how to hold people’s value, even in situations where they’ve fallen short and our goal is get them to change their behavior for the better.
2. Practice appreciation by starting with yourself. If you have difficulty openly appreciating others, it’s likely you also find it difficult to appreciate yourself. Take a few moments at the end of the day to ask yourself this simple question: “What can I rightly feel proud of today?” If you are committed to constant self-improvement, you can also ask yourself, “What could I do better tomorrow?” Both questions hold your value.
3. Make it a priority to notice what others are doing right. The more you work at it, the better you’ll get at it, and the more natural it will become for you. For example, start by thinking about what positive qualities, behaviors and contributions you currently take for granted among the members of your team. Then ask yourself, what is it that each of them uniquely brings to the table?
4. Be appreciative. The more specific you can be about what you value — and the more you notice what’s most meaningful to that person — the more positive your impact on that person is likely to be. A handwritten note makes a bigger impression than an email or a passing comment, but better any one of them than nothing at all.
source: http://blogs.hbr.org/schwartz/2012/01/why-appreciation-matters-so-mu.html
Productivity Paradox – how get more by demanding less
Solution:
Energy management trainin implemented by Sony Pictures seems to be giving great results in this area.
- establish rituals-such as shutting down your e-mail for a couple of hours a day so you can focus on priorities
- taking a daily 3 p.m. walk to get a breather-that renew your physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual energy
- change of behavioral to set a tone where people feel safe taking time out of the day on a regular basis
Results:
- 88% of participants say it has made them more focused and productive.
- 90% say it has helped them bring more energy to work every day.
- 84% say they feel better able to manage their jobs’ demands and are more engaged at work.
Problem:
- crisis in employee engagement
- pressure companies are putting on employees to produce
- workers are trying to get more done in less time-and are burning out
- workers energy is not finite; people can increase their reserves of personal energy.
source: http://hbr.org/product/baynote/an/R1006C-PDF-ENG?referral=00505
If You’re An Average Worker, You’re Going Straight To The Bottom.
The way we do business is changing fast and in order to keep up, your entire mentality about work has to change just as quickly.
Unfortunately, most people aren’t adapting fast enough to this change in the workplace, says marketing guru Seth Godin in an interview with the Canadian talk show “George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight” (via Pragmatic Capitalism).
According to the founder of Squidoo.com and author of 13 books, the current “recession is a forever recession” because it’s the end of the industrial age, which also means the end of the average worker.
“For 80 years, you got a job, you did what you were told and you retired,” says the former vice president of direct marketing at Yahoo! People are raised on this idea that if they pay their taxes and do what they’re told, there’s some kind of safety net, or pension plan that’s waiting for them. But the days when people were able to get above average pay for average work are over.
If you’re the average person out there doing average work, there’s going to be someone else out there doing the exact same thing as you, but cheaper. Now that the industrial economy is over, you should forget about doing things just because it’s assigned to you, or “never mind the race to the top, you’ll be racing to the bottom.”
However, if you’re different somehow and have made yourself unique, people will find you and pay you more, Godin says.
Instead of waiting around for someone to tell you that you matter, take your career into your own hands. In other words, don’t wait for someone else to pick you and pick yourself! If you have a book, you don’t need a publisher to approve you, you can publish it yourself. It’s no longer about waiting for some big corporation to choose you. We’ve arrived at an age where you choose yourself.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/if-youre-an-average-worker-in-this-forever-recession-youre-going-straight-to-the-bottom-2012-1?utm_source=twbutton&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=warroom#ixzz1kUKnXsaC
Multitasking makes us more prone to making mistakes
Multitasking makes us more prone to making mistakes, but also check off more things on our to-do lists.
It is clear to say than that we loosing quality of tasks by multitasking. But that is not all.
Also when multitasking it is more likely we will miss important information and cues, and less likely to retain information in working memory, which impairs problem solving and creativity.
Not everything is lost. Brain can learn to ignore distractions, making you more focused, creative, and productive.
1. Tame your frenzy. Frenzy is an emotional state, a feeling of being a little (or a lot) out of control.
- What can you do? Try to improve your balance of positive and negative emotions over the course of a day.
- What can your team do? Start meetings on positive topics and some humor. The positive emotions this generates can improve everyone’s brain function, leading to better teamwork and problem solving.
2. Apply the brakes.
- What can you do? To prevent distractions from hijacking your focus, use the ABC method as your brain’s brake pedal. Become Aware of your options: you can stop what you are doing and address the distraction, or you can let it go. Breathe deeply and consider your options. Then Choose thoughtfully: Stop? or Go?
- What can your team do? Try setting up one-hour distraction-free meetings. Everyone is expected to contribute and offer thoughtful and creative input, and no distractions (like laptops, tablets, cell phones, and other gadgets) are allowed.
3. Shift Sets. While it’s great to be focused, sometimes you need to turn your attention to a new problem.
- What can you do? Before you turn your attention to a new task, shift your focus from your mind to your body. Go for a walk, climb stairs, do some deep breathing or stretches.
- What can your team do? Schedule a five-minute break for every hour of meeting time, and encourage everyone to do something physical rather than run out to check email. By restoring the brain’s executive function, such breaks can lead to more and better ideas when you reconvene.
Organizing your mind, and your team members’ minds, will yield a solid payoff in the year ahead. Adding “high-quality focus” is a great place to start. Try holding a no-multitasking meeting and see what happens when everyone in the room gives their undivided attention.
Micromanagement NO, Communication YES
Micromanagement is a management style where a manager closely observes or controls the work of her or his subordinates or employees. Micromanagement generally has a negative connotation.
Signs of micromanagement
What follows are some signs that you might be a micromanager – or have one on your hands. In general, micromanagers:
- Resist delegating;
- Immerse themselves in overseeing the projects of others;
- Start by correcting tiny details instead of looking at the big picture;
- Take back delegated work before it is finished if they find a mistake in it; and
- Discourage others from making decisions without consulting them.
What should you do instead of micromanage?
What drives employee engagement? This is my spring board when it comes to deciding what you should do at work in any scenario. Engaged employees produce amazing results, there is no doubt about it. Look at Zappos, look at Southwest Airlines, look at any other great company; employee engagement is the main building block of a winning culture. Lack of employee engagement is like building a tower on water, you might manage to build a large one, but it won’t go as high as it would with a good foundation.
Keyword: Trust
Trust is important to drive employee engagement. Have faith in your employees and leave them room to perform. You will soon see an increase in productivity. Trust will also give you valuable feedback, as MM leads to employees shutting down the communication lines to you. If you are satisfied with the overall performance and you want to keep the employee in the future, implement trust.
Keyword: Time
You spend a lot of time micromanaging, is it worth it? Could you be better at time management? Should you focus on growth strategies instead of being detail oriented?
Keyword: Communication
When you micromanage you are shutting down communication lines. Your employees will stop talking to you in fear of becoming micromanaged. Laying low will become a strategy in your office, resulting in no communication, no engagement, no growth and you will not have enough information to do your own job good enough.
Implement Trust, Free Time and Communicate
Display trust, become a better communicator. Try to motivate performance and use positive feedback to accomplish your desired outcome. Be clear about what you want in results. Engage the employee in conversations, and LISTEN, ask questions and listen. Talk with the employee and display trust until you are sure that the message is understood. You need to know that MM is damaging on the work environment and micromanagement is a result of unhealthy communication skills.
source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromanagement
http://www.nevermindthemanager.com/2010/07/consequences-of-micromanagement/
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_90.htm
Google Will Change in 2012
Google is poised to completely alter how websites market themselves over the next year. While easing users into changing search results pages, Google has also designed a new method for websites to structure data so that its crawler can better pull information. This is a tremendous strategy. Google doesn’t need to own all of the information in the world, but does own the methods of accessing that information — as well as the ability to advertise to people who use that access.
Search results will include more direct information. Early in 2012, Google will expand how it incorporates data into its search results. For search queries that are direct questions, it will no longer be necessary to click through to a website. In Google’s parlance, it’s like getting both the search results and the immediate result of the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button at once. It’s not hard to see how this is better for the average Google user. Questions will be answered faster and more simply. No parsing of information will be required. This change, however, will take value away from marketers who rely on visitors clicking through to deeper pages.
Google is looking to collect more data by providing ways for website owners to structure their information so that it can be easily read by a computer. Google’s plans revolve around metadata (literally, special data encoded in the page) that will allow it to access more rich data about a topic, including hours of business, names of products, and virtually anything else that you can think of. Marketers will see better search rankings if they document information using this new format.
Google is entering new industries and markets. The expansion of data into search results pages is also breaking into markets where Google is not yet a force. Google acquired ITA Software in 2010, a software company that created airfare and travel management software for airlines and resellers. Since then, they have worked to become a powerful competitor in the travel industry by promoting their own offers and packages directly on the search results page ahead of other providers. To see this in action, try searching for “BOS to SFO” in Google. This is a tremendous advertising presence that others cannot match.
If you’re a marketer working on making sure your site is visible in an area where Google is competitive, remember that you may need to do more than an organic search or paid advertising in order to be successful. Google has created a system where people must pay in order to compete against it. Regardless of whether the information and options available to searchers are free or paid for by marketers, people will continue to use Google in overwhelming numbers as long as Google continues to have the best results for a given search.
The data that Google makes available will be reduced. Google now sees its ownership of data as a competitive advantage to be protected from marketers and other advertising networks. In the latter half of 2011, Google began to roll out changes that have taken data away from marketers, specifically about how and where visitors found their website. Since October, between 10-15% of visits to websites from Google have no longer sent information to webmasters and marketers. It is safe to assume that Google will continue to expand these changes, further limiting the data available to marketers unless they’re willing to pay.
Google’s activity in the second half of 2011 represents just the beginning of the changes that it will be pushing throughout 2012 as it establishes even stronger relationships with its partners, affiliates, and advertisers. While this happens, every marketer on the web will need to carefully consider and revisit how they are positioned with the search giant and its interests.
source: Brian Whalley
Reasons why companies fail to keep their best talent
1. Big Company Bureaucracy. This is probably the #1 reason we hear after the fact from disenchanted employees. However, it’s usually a reason that masks the real reason. No one likes rules that make no sense. But, when top talent is complaining along these lines, it’s usually a sign that they didn’t feel as if they had a say in these rules. They were simply told to follow along and get with the program. No voice in the process and really talented people say “check please.”
2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion. Big companies have many moving parts — by definition. Therefore, they usually don’t have people going around to their best and brightest asking them if they’re enjoying their current projects or if they want to work on something new that they’re really interested in which would help the company. HR people are usually too busy keeping up with other things to get into this. The bosses are also usually tapped out on time and this becomes a “nice to have” rather than “must have” conversation. However, unless you see it as a “must have,” say adios to some of your best people. Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people.
3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews. You would be amazed at how many companies do not do a very effective job at annual performance reviews. Or, if they have them, they are rushed through, with a form quickly filled out and sent off to HR, and back to real work. The impression this leaves with the employee is that my boss — and, therefore, the company — isn’t really interested in my long-term future here. If you’re talented enough, why stay? This one leads into….4
4. No Discussion around Career Development. Here’s a secret for most bosses: most employees don’t know what they’ll be doing in 5 years. In our experience, about less than 5% of people could tell you if you asked. However, everyone wants to have a discussion with you about their future. Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up. Our best clients have separate annual discussions with their employees — apart from their annual or bi-annual performance review meetings — to discuss succession planning or career development. If your best people know that you think there’s a path for them going forward, they’ll be more likely to hang around.
5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities. I applaud companies trying to build an incubator or “brickhouse” around their talent, by giving them new exciting projects to work on. The challenge for most organizations is not setting up a strategic priority, like establishing an incubator, but sticking with it a year or two from now. Top talent hates to be “jerked around.” If you commit to a project that they will be heading up, you’ve got to give them enough opportunity to deliver what they’ve promised.
6. Lack of Accountability and/or telling them how to do their Jobs. Although you can’t “jerk around” top talent, it’s a mistake to treat top talent leading a project as “untouchable.” We’re not saying that you need to get into anyone’s business or telling them what to do. However, top talent demands accountability from others and doesn’t mind being held accountable for their projects. Therefore, have regular touch points with your best people as they work through their projects. They’ll appreciate your insights/observations/suggestions — as long as they don’t spillover into preaching.
7. Top Talent likes other Top Talent. What are the rest of the people around your top talent like? Many organizations keep some people on the payroll that rationally shouldn’t be there. You’ll get a litany of rationales explaining why when you ask. “It’s too hard to find a replacement for him/her….” “Now’s not the time….” However, doing exit interviews with the best people leaving big companies you often hear how they were turned off by some of their former “team mates.” If you want to keep your best people, make sure they’re surrounded by other great people.
8. The Missing Vision Thing. This might sound obvious, but is the future of your organization exciting? What strategy are you executing? What is the vision you want this talented person to fulfill? Did they have a say/input into this vision? If the answer is no, there’s work to do — and fast.
9. Lack of Open-Mindedness. The best people want to share their ideas and have them listened to. However, a lot of companies have a vision/strategy which they are trying to execute against — and, often find opposing voices to this strategy as an annoyance and a sign that someone’s not a “team player.” If all the best people are leaving and disagreeing with the strategy, you’re left with a bunch of “yes” people saying the same things to each other. You’ve got to be able to listen to others’ points of view — always incorporating the best parts of these new suggestions.
10. Who’s the Boss? If a few people have recently quit at your company who report to the same boss, it’s likely not a coincidence. We’ll often get asked to come in and “fix” someone who’s a great sales person, engineer, or is a founder, but who is driving everyone around them “nuts.” We can try, but unfortunately, executive coaching usually only works 33% of the time in these cases. You’re better off trying to find another spot for them in the organization — or, at the very least, not overseeing your high-potential talent that you want to keep.
source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2011/12/14/top-ten-reasons-why-large-companies-fail-to-keep-their-best-talent/
