Leadership Trends and Realities

Stretched Too Thin

Robert Whipple, LeaderGrow.com

We hear that the only sure things in life are death and taxes.  If you are a manager, one sure thing is that people will tell you there are not enough employees to do the job. I have yet to find an organization where the workers do not feel stretched beyond their ability.

Productivity makes an interesting study, because most behavioral scientists agree that in any organization the actual productivity is a small fraction of the capability inherent in the people. Research reported by the Gallup Organization in 2010 indicates that for average organizations, only 33% of the workers are engaged, 49% of them are not engaged, and 18% are actively disengaged. This low productivity is usually not the fault of the workers, but the result of a poor culture established by top leaders.

The paradox here is that while there is a perpetual outcry for more people in most organizations, the human resources that are available are grossly underutilized.  By establishing a culture of higher trust, managers can change the equation dramatically.

We do not need more people; we need better utilization of the people we already have. How do we solve the age-old mystery of getting higher levels of effort and engagement on the part of people? The irony is that when managers look to improve productivity, they often focus on numerous other things and forget that true productivity lies with the motivation of people.

For example, I read an interesting article on productivity in the Encyclopedia of Management 2006, which gives 17 ways to improve productivity in an organization. They are:

1. capital investments in production
2. capital investments in technology
3. capital investments in equipment
4. capital investments in facilities
5. economies of scale
6. workforce training and experience
7. technological changes
8. work methods
9. procedures
10. systems
11. quality of products
12. quality of processes
13. quality of management
14. legislative and regulatory environment
15. general levels of education
16. social environment
17. geographic factors

Notice the amazing lack of motivational aspects in this list.  The only factor in the whole list that has much to do with motivation is item 13, quality of management. True, we can improve productivity with capital investments or systems, but the real gold is changing the morale of the people doing the work. That takes an investment of a different kind. My thesis is that the missing ingredient in productivity is trust.

The Trust Across America Organization has gathered some compelling data over the past decade that shows corporations with high trust achieve 500-600% greater returns than the S&P 500. So productivity, and the resulting profits, are available if we can only educate leaders on how to build and maintain higher trust. That revelation means we can stop whining about not enough people and start focusing more effort on the skills needed to grow trust.

Improving the level of trust in an organization starts at the very top. The most senior managers must recognize it is their behaviors and the signals they send that set the tone for everything that happens in their organization. There are several groups and consultants, including myself, who specialize in helping organizations understand the pathways to higher trust.

I recommend that all top managers have a key thrust to change their behavior patterns so that trust begins to grow from the highest levels. Once started, the improvement in trust will naturally flow down through the entire organization, and the first thing you know, the outcry for more people will become muted. The employees are there just waiting to put their shoulder into the work once they are treated the right way. 

The preceding information was adapted from the book The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, by Robert Whipple. It is available on www.leadergrow.com.

Robert Whipple is also the author of Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind and, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders. Contact Bob at [email protected]

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Top Companies - Top Leaders

Jan Mayer-Rodriguez and Mike Kublin

Fortune magazine and the Great Place To Work Institute just announced the Top 100 Best Companies to work for.

259 firms and more than 277,000 employees were surveyed and asked to rate management credibility, job satisfaction, camaraderie, pay and benefits, hiring practices, communication, recognition, and diversity.

A common theme for the winners?  Making their employees their priority. 

"If this place got any better, I might not go home at night."--SAS employee

Employees are the priority . . .

Most of the top 100 companies have a voluntary attrition rate of < 5%, most are in the top quartile for compensation, and most offer domestic partner benefits.

The other big differentiator was that almost all did a variety of "things" to keep employees happy. Here are some that were highlighted:

• On-site massages, fitness centers
• Promoting a work-life balance and tracking hours to ensure there was a balance
• "Catch" and reward others for a job well done; opportunities to appreciate others
• Formal idea sharing forums and regional gatherings
• Paid hours to volunteer or for sabbaticals
• 10% of work time allowed for pursuing a work project of their choice
• Training, development, job rotation, job shadowing, mentoring
• Flexible work hours
• Having a sense of purpose; working toward shared goals

And one we thought was especially interesting, was where a CEO posted their personal development plan for all employees to see, and track results.

Depending on the company you work for, and your individual role, you may be in the position to influence some, and actually implement others. Which do you already have in place? Which are you willing to influence or implement? 

Michael W. Kublin is the founder and President of PeopleTek, Inc., a leadership coaching and development company specializing in helping leaders and organizations thrive.

By examining behaviors, leveraging preferred styles, and by removing fear from leadership, organizational growth occurs and results improve. Prior to founding PeopleTek, Michael worked for Electronic Data Systems and American Express in a variety of leadership roles managing technical teams and interfacing with internal and external business partners and vendors.

Jan Mayer-Rodriguez is editor-in-chief for PeopleTek's weekly leadership tip, assists with developing and enhancing business relations, and identifies developmental opportunities for organizations and individuals. Prior to joining PeopleTek, Jan had a 27 year career at American Express where her positons focused on enhancing internal/external customer satisfaction levels, delivering superior products, and building effective cross team behaviors. 

Motivation Mistakes

Robert Whipple, LeaderGrow.com

How many times a week do you hear, “We’ve got to motivate our people?” This is usually followed by an idea or two to try to entice people to be more productive.  Seeking to motivate employees is a thought pattern leaders use every day, so what’s wrong with it?

Trying to motivate workers shows a lack of understanding about what motivation is and how it is achieved. Leaders who think this way rarely get the increased motivation they seek.  Reason: Motivation is an intrinsic phenomenon rather than something to be impressed upon people.

The only person who can motivate you is you.  The role of leaders is not to motivate workers, rather it is to create the kind of culture and environment where workers are inspired and choose to motivate themselves. An example is when a leader sets a vision and goals, then allows people to use their initiative to get the job done as they see fit.

Why do many leaders try to motivate people by using either incentives (like bonuses) or threats (like penalties)? 

1. Poor understanding of motivation - The notion that by adding perks to the workplace we somehow make people more motivated is flawed. Over 50 years ago, Frederick Herzberg taught us that increasing the so-called “hygiene factors” is a good way to reduce dissatisfaction in the workplace, but a poor way to increase motivation. Why? – because goodies like picnics, pizza parties, hat days, bonuses, new furniture, etc. often help people become happier at work, but they do little to impact the underlying reasons they are motivated to do their best work.
2. Taking the easy way out - Many leaders believe that by heaping nice things on top of people, it will feel like a better culture. The most direct way to improve the culture is to build trust. By focusing on a better environment, managers enable people to motivate themselves.
3. Using the wrong approach - It is difficult to motivate another person. You can scare a person into compliance, but that’s not motivation; it is fear.  You can bribe a person into feeling happy, but that’s not motivation; it is temporary euphoria that is quickly replaced by a “what have you done for me lately” mentality.
4. Focusing on perks - Individuals are willing to accept any kind of treat the boss is willing to dish up, but the reason they go the extra mile is a personal choice based on the level of motivational factors, not the size of the carrot.

A better approach to create motivation is to work on the culture to build trust first. Improving the motivating factors, such as authority, reinforcement, growth, and responsibility creates the right environment for motivation to grow within people.

How can we tell when a leader has the wrong understanding about motivation? A clear signal is when the word “motivate” is used as a verb – for example, “Let’s see if we can motivate the team by offering a bonus.” If we seek to change other people’s attitude about work with perks, we are going to be disappointed frequently. Using the word “motivation” as a noun usually shows a better understanding – “Let’s increase the motivation in our workforce by giving the team the ability to choose their own methods to achieve the goal.”

For an organization, “culture” means how people interact, what they believe, and how they create. If you could peel off the roof of an organization, you would see the manifestations of the culture in the physical world.  The actual culture is more esoteric because it resides in the hearts and minds of the society. It is the impetus for observable behaviors.

Achieving a state where all people are fully motivated is a large undertaking.  It requires tremendous focus and leadership to achieve.  It cannot be something you do on Tuesday afternoons or when you have special meetings. It is not generated by giving out turkeys at Thanksgiving.  Describe motivation as a new way of life rather than a program or event. You should see evidence of motivation based on trust in every nook and cranny of the organization. Focus on improving the culture rather than using carrots or sticks to create true motivation.

The preceding information was adapted from the book The TRUST Factor: Advanced Leadership for Professionals, by Robert Whipple. It is available on www.leadergrow.com.

Robert Whipple is also the author of Leading with Trust is like Sailing Downwind and, Understanding E-Body Language: Building Trust Online. Bob consults and speaks on these and other leadership topics. He is CEO of Leadergrow Inc. a company dedicated to growing leaders. Contact Bob at [email protected]

Is This a Bad Attitude or What?

Jonena Relth, TBD Consulting

Wow, what a Flash Back reminder I got this morning from a current webinar being advertised on employee attitude adjustment. 

The promo states that, "If they don’t get the rewards most of us associate with stardom, they whine and complain. When you see this kind of behavior, look beyond the individual employee. The real problem is probably the employee’s boss, who has most likely been sending all the wrong messages to employees, tolerating negative attitudes, turning a blind eye to bad behavior and fostering an entitlement mentality. All of which damages your company’s culture, spirit, productivity, profitability and competitiveness." 

This might be true of some employees in some companies, but most of us have encountered many more reasons causing poor employee attitudes than "self-absorbed employees and lousy bosses."

I used to teach a workshop on Attitude for state government employees. It was a fun class with lots of "ah ha's" going on, but it was also one of the most challenging subjects I ever taught.  One of the requirements SHOULD have been that employees attend with their supervisors, but I wasn't able to pull that off.  That would have helped on more than one occasion, for sure! 

One day I had a grumpy, middle-aged gentlemen sitting in the back.  His chair was tipped back against the wall and his hands were behind his head as if to say, "OK, just try to fix my attitude!"  You might guess -- his boss sent him to my class that he obviously didn't want to attend.  He was told that he must learn skills to change his poor attitude or he would be fired. This is no joke!  At the first break, I had to escort the man out into the hall and call his supervisor.  I asked that he be removed from the class because his negative behavior was disrupting the class.  Yep, he won -- he got to leave the class!

I have no idea if or when he was discharged.  After all, he was a government employee with years under his belt at a public servant, so he might have remained in his job until he reached retirement.  That's a whole other subject I might tackle in another blog...

And sadly, I have no idea what triggered this employee's poor behavior (bad attitude) in my class.  It might have been because of an ongoing issue with his job, his boss, or even that he was a burned-out caregiver for a terminally ill relative.  He may have even been suffering from an illness himself.  As managers and leaders, we have to be careful to protect our employees' privacy, but sometimes it helps to just reach out and show the person some compassion.  I wish I had the opportunity to do so with this gentleman, but the situation just didn't lend itself to it.  I had to protect the environment of the class for the rest of the participants to learn the skills they felt important enough to take the day off from their regular jobs to learn.

Much psychology goes into successful leadership.

Understanding adults and what make them tick, is a plus. Understanding the theories behind DiSC tells us that people are similar in some ways and very different in many others.  We act and react differently to our environment and communication -- verbal and non-verbal. 

For instance: If you want to see a High "D" Low "C" react negatively [perceived: poor attitude], just keep spewing details without taking a breath.  She's jumped to the solution way before you mentioned the type of creamer in your coffee that day. She doesn't really care how you take your coffee. She wants you to get to the bottom line of your issue so she can guide you in figuring out the problem.  Or if you want to frustrate a High "C" who needs lots of details to make an informed decision, tell him only the high level information, no details.  You'll get your answer, but it might come with a huff and scowl.

As leaders, I hope we give all our employees the benefit of the doubt. 

Most people want to do their best for our companies.  Most leaders want to do a good job, too. Perhaps we see negative behavior (poor attitudes) not because of self-absorbed employees or lousy bosses, but rather because of a myriad of underlying issues that we simply need to uncover and try and resolve.

Jonena

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TBD Consulting has a 21-year, proven track record for ensuring employee performance improvement which translates to employee performance success. Whether you need help developing an in-house training organization, create a Lean Academy, or simply need "extra hands" to meet your deadlines or ROI goals, please contact Jonena. She and her qualified staff are here to assist you with your organizational development, coaching and training initiatives.

Corporate Office 602-263-1961.  Email Jonena today!