There was a time, more in our industrial age, when managers truly had the power in the hiring relationship. But in today’s intellectual workplace, the job interview is as much for the candidate to hear what is true about the job and to use that information to determine whether the job fits his abilities, skills, experience, plans for growth, development and future plans. To really understand this, let step back a minute and ask the all-important question – Why do we interview?

The goal of the interview, as I coach my clients, is not to hire. Rather, it is to create an environment that provides enough of the right information to determine whether to hire. And it works in the same way for the job candidate. The interview is the place where today’s job candidates gather enough information to determine whether the potential employer and role are the right fit.

So to be ready for this new shared responsibility for the right outcome, here are 4 critical questions hiring managers should ask themselves in preparation of the interview to be clear enough about what the role does, who fits it, and why it is a great thing to work for their company – in other words, to help a job candidate answer the question, “Why should I work for you?”

Consider these questions as you prepare to host any interview:

1. Why would great people be interested in this job – what does it do and how does it add value and make a difference in the organization?
2. How will this job use the employee’s unique and best abilities, and how will it help the employee develop and grow?
3. What workplace culture will this employee work in and how is it different and better than others?
4. What do others who work here love about their jobs and working for us?

Great interviews are information-gathering sessions. Both sides have information the other side needs in order to make both a sound hiring and job decision. Neither side has all the power. In fact, power is not helpful in an environment that is looking for an open and honest commentary about how things really are in the job and workplace, and what the job candidate’s unique abilities are, and how they have added value and made a difference in other workplaces.

Be sure you step into the shoes of the job applicant to see what will matter to someone in this role. Share what makes the role, company and opportunity great. Be honest. Be accurate. This gives the job applicant enough of the right information to assess “fit” from his or her perspective. Then, having created an easy, open and meaningful conversation about the role, ask your talent and behavioral questions and notice more open and honest responses from the candidate.

With a mutual commitment to job fit, the interview takes on an entirely different tone. Information is more openly shared. In my experience, this change in mindset by the hiring manager – one that sees the interview as a mutual sharing event committed to connecting the right job opportunity to the right person – changes how job candidates show up in their interviews. And when both parties have a personal stake in the decisions process, all parties are more honest, more involved and more committed to the right outcome. Before you start the interview be ready to see the role from the employee’s perspective, and have an answer for his or her question, “Why should I work for you?”

Contact me for more information on hosting powerful talent-based interviews, and to learn how to build the talent-profile needed to source people who are a good fit in each of your jobs. Also see the tools on FireUpYourEmployees.com.

Though money does play a role in what job a person may select, the more important aspect in selecting and staying in a job is purpose – of making a difference and providing an impact. We all contribute more when we do meaningful work. And the reality is that jobs that add value and make a difference inspire performance and loyalty in the workplace.

In order for managers to inspire performance and loyalty, they must first understand and recognize the three types of employees: A-level, B-level and C-level. A-level employees choose to show up to their work with an intention of bringing their best and making an impact. The Gallup Organization calls this type of employee “engaged” and states only 29 percent of today’s employees are engaged. The B-level employees comprise around 52 percent of the workforce – they are the employees who do just enough not to get fired. The final 19 percent are C-level employees. This group is disengaged and disinterested in their work.

Understanding these three types of employees is critical to know how to sustain the As, and inspire the B and Cs.

Here are four easy-to-implement ways managers can add more meaning to their employees’ jobs:

1. Hire employees who fit their jobs. Employees who have the talents, strengths and passions are the ones who show up capable and interested in their work. Because they are good at what they do, they find ways to bring their best and expand value for the organization in their areas. Contact me to show you how the Fire Up! Process can help you hire the right person for each job.

2. Provide context. Explain to each employee the importance of what they do and why it makes a difference. In many organizations, employees are given their small puzzle piece – without any idea of what the picture will look like when all the pieces come together. Without context, they lack a sense of purpose, value and contribution.

3. Communicate regularly about important things. There should be a clear and open communication between employees and management. By ensuring information moves easily in both directions, employees can consistently be updated from management, while offering their own updates. This approach also encourages new ideas, keeping a company fresh and innovative.

4. Give tasks that make a difference. Employees have jobs that matter. Not only do they understand why their job is important, but the job has intrinsic value. We all want to contribute to something of great value.

As mentioned above, though there are a number of factors in play, the greatest factor is meaningful work. In his 18-minute TED talk, Dan Ariely, a behavioral economist, says “Contrary to conventional wisdom, it isn’t just money [that makes us work]. But it’s not exactly joy either. It seems that most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling a sense of purpose.”

We all want to feel that we matter – that what we do has meaning. The more aware we are of our talents, strengths and passions, the more we can align ourselves to work we personally find meaningful. Couple this with improved communication by today’s management to build the bond and provide context about the work, and employees have the ability to know how to connect what they do best to add value, make a difference. Take away their sense of fit and job context and we’ll find the only way to meet monthly performance targets is to bribe with bonuses.

Please share this with someone who can benefit from it. And contact me to learn more about the Fire Up! Process – its programs, tools and seminars – that can help you create and retain a superstar workforce.

This approach never works.

Interviewing lets you gather information about a candidate, and lets the candidate gather meaningful information from you. Saying whatever it takes to get a candidate to say yes will undoubtedly create an enormous problem down the line. Great hiring is about fit. They fit you, they fit the job, you fit them. To reach this point, you have to be honest about what the job and company is. Employees will quickly find out the truth, and that never ends well if they were lied to about anything during the hiring process. Create an honest and empowering relationship right from the first moment.

Let me give you an example of how the “fast” approach to interviewing and hiring never works. I recently worked with a company to help improve its hiring process. They reached out to me because in the last nine months, nearly every employee they hired had left, most within the first three months of joining the company. After reviewing how they prepare to hire, I found many critical things that needed improving – the most glaring item was that they had no clear definition of the talents and behaviors they needed in each of their employees. This lead to hiring the wrong employee who was unable to succeed in the job they were hired to do. We fixed this right away.

But there was a deeper issue that showed itself when I joined two managers during their interview process for several candidates. Since I was involved in the redefinition of the job – its required talents, skills and experience – I knew the job. But few of the job’s requirements were shared with the candidate. Instead, the managers created a job on the fly to appeal to the candidate. Their problem: they were hiring employees who were told one thing about the job only to find that, after just three months, the real job had little correlation to what was explained in the interview. Short story? Employees felt lied to.

More than 51% of new employees hired in 2013 have “buyers remorse,” and 88% are looking to make a change, reports Garry Kranz in an article in the March 2013 Workforce Management magazine because the job described had little connection to their actual job.

The Gallup supports that 52% of employees are disengaged – they do just enough not to get fired. The reasons for this high percentage are not hiring the right people in the right jobs and not being completely honest about the job’s actual responsibilities with candidates. Many managers feel that once the new employee takes the job, he or she will just do the job and not complain. But statistics show this not to be the case; the engaged employee quickly becomes disengaged.

What to do about it?

1. Clearly define the behaviors, skills and experience required to do the job successfully. Know which attributes you are hiring; share this openly with candidates.

2. Clearly define the tasks and what the tasks “done right” look like. Define the daily, weekly and monthly expectations of the job so that candidates know what true is. Answer all questions.

3. Reconfirm all core expectations in writing at time of the employment offer.

4. Create a regular meeting time with new employees to check in expectations and progress. Maintain open communication.

If some of your employees say, “this isn’t the job I was hired for,” there is likely a dangerous disconnect between what you explained and what they actually do. Clarity matters. Tell the truth. Let candidates decide wisely based on all the facts. This dramatically improves whether new employees stay and thrive, or you get pulled right back into the dreaded hiring process to start again. Employees hate when you lie to them.

Contact me to share how the Fire Up! Process is helping organizations learn how to attract, hire and retain a superstar workforce. And sign up for our free “Your People Are Your Profits” web seminar. It shares how to activate and engage your employees, and introduces the powerful Fire Up! tools and resources. 

A recent Workforce Management Magazine article stated 19 million employees, or 13 percent of the workforce, are planning on changing jobs this year. Two thoughts come immediately to mind:

1. Why do employees want to change jobs?
2. Why now?

Let’s start with the second question: why now? After the past five years of recession-related working conditions (i.e., reduced staff numbers, employees expected to do more with less, fewer rewards, little or no pay increases, little or no development for job improvement), employees are tired with the way things are. Though they may understand this happens in a recession, there is an innate need to seek out better conditions.

Abraham Maslow illustrates this in his Hierarchy of Needs. When our fundamental needs (physiological, food, safety) are not met, we are fixated on improving them. But this also means we’re distracted, in a way, focused on finding ways to improve our situations before we can advance to self-actualization (great performance). And if we are unable to make any change or improvement, we move. We seek out other places. The slight improvements we’ve seen in the economy has been just enough to empower today’s workforce to think they may find something better out there, and they think it will be worth the effort. After all, the grass is always greener, right?

So this gets to the real reason why employees want to change jobs – beliefs: they no longer believe management is leading effectively. They no longer believe in the mission, or the work, or the people. Employees want to change jobs because they don’t have the confidence that their management can make things right for them.

Before your teams head out to search for greener grass, win them back. Show them your company and you as managers are the best. Here are some suggestions to do this successfully:

1. Increase the communication about everything. When times are difficult, many managers feel that sharing the difficulties will be a sign of weakness or ineffectiveness. But sharing this information lets employees have context on what’s true in their workplace, empowering them to be regularly involved in identifying the solutions that exist. Get their input on how to keep work meaningful, valuable and important. Excluded employees check out, then they leave. Keep them in the know.

2. Focus more on what you can do for your employees (not on what you can’t do for them). The employees that stick around have weathered a tremendously difficult period. You know it, and they know it. And they’re getting tired. So what can you do to show your appreciation for their decision to stay, show up and tough it out? What does this show them about your belief in them? How can you use this moment to show your gratitude, humanity and personal interest in each employee? We are quick to share what we can’t or no longer offer for employees. What if our focus changed to what we can do instead?

3. Give them a reason to stay. One of the reasons our best people leave is that we don’t have a discussion with them on why they should stay. We just imagine that employees will stay and be loyal, but that is a naïve belief. Even before the recession, employees changed jobs every 18-36 months. Despite the recession, the underlying problem still exists: we don’t have career conversations with our employees on where they are going and why they should stay. Start a development discussion with employees once or twice a year that connects what employees do best with high value applications in the company. Help them see a reason to stay that is built around their talents, values and interests. Make it personal.

It is human nature to always think there is something better in some other place. Why not make that “something better” in your place? Reconnect with employees in a meaningful way to encourage them to choose to stay – to rekindle their belief in their company, their work and their management. Not only do you build a more powerful and engaged team, but you also show great continuity and consistency to your customers as they see the same team here today, here tomorrow.

To learn more about creating a greater workplace culture to help retain your best employees, visit FireUpYourEmployees.com or sign up for our free 1-hour teleseminar titled, Your People Are Your Profits. We’ll show you how we guide organizations and their managers in how to engage and inspire a superstar workforce.

Notice I didn’t say what “would” you do – I ask, what couldyou do? I was just asking for possibilities. Possibilities are limitless – they allow for greater thinking, inventing and imagination. I didn’t want a plan, I wanted to see how big they could think. And I wasn’t impressed by the responses.

Virtually every response was something already done, or, something that would not have a profound effect on the customer. So my question was, if CEOs can’t think big, why do we expect it from our employees?

What are the things that an organization can do to help employees learn how to think big, invent possibilities and move from good to great? Here are some thoughts:

1. Have all employees submit 2 “great” ideas a week. Make a requirement of all employees to submit 2 unconventionalideas each week on how the organization can create loyal customers (or operate more efficiently, change more seamlessly, hire the best employees, create a more powerful culture… you decide the issue). By asking for unconventional ideas, you give employees permission to dream, invent and push the limits. If the focus is only on solving instead of inventing, employees play it safe and the ideas remain small.

2. Host a monthly creativity event. Empower employees to define how the monthly event will be run and what it will ask employees to do. The goal is not only to deal with a company challenge or opportunity, but to do it in a think-big way. Create a culture that thrives on creative and innovative thinking in all it does. This encourages greater “go-for-big” ideas anytime ideas are needed.

3. Study what other big-thinking companies do. Choose a company whose approach is big (Zappos in customer service, Google in workplace environment, Southwest Airlines in workplace culture, Sam Adams in employee engagement, etc). What do think-big companies consider? What moves them to think and act this way and how can it be developed in your organization? One of the great things about today’s technology is that we have access to the brilliant things others are doing. Challenge or assign to your team to identify companies who focus on greatness or are think-big companies. Review what they find and look for immediate applications in your organization.

Today, we don’t pay employees to “do” a job. Instead, we pay them to think about the best, most efficient and most profitable responses to each event they encounter in the workplace. In short, we pay them to think. So imagine the impact on the business if they moved from just thinking to “big thinking” – of continually looking for better, more significant and more profound responses.

Challenge your employees to not only pack their brains when they pack their lunches. Challenge to always think big in each event they encounter. This is how the good companies became great – they make it easy and expected for their employees to think big. Imagine what a think big approach and attitude could do for your business.

Need help getting employees out of small thinking to big thinking? Contact me to learn more about the Fire Up! programs and our unusual and effective greatness approach to workplace teaching and coaching, and how it is activating big thinking in our clients. More information atFireUpYourEmployees.com.

An organization’s most significant asset is the intellectual capital of their employees – how they think, invent, create and respond. Therefore, every organization needs employees who are the right fit for the job – employees who have the right talents, skills and experience – they connect to customers and drive results. This makes the sourcing and selection process both more critical and more difficult.

Because fit matters, organizations now need to be more selective in the hiring process. This requires having a larger selection of job canididates to choose from – a fuller pipeline of viable candidates. And one of the greatest ways to fill the talent pipeline is to use your workforce’s connections and sourcing ability.

Consider the following ways to use your workforce to identify, find and recruit A-level (the right fit) employees:

• Clearly identify the talent profile of for each role (this should identify the talents, skills and experience needed to be effective in the role). Share this information with all employees. Now employees know the attributes needed to be effective in each role.
• Have all employees take a talent assessment, to be better aware of their natural abilities (talents and strengths) and to become familiar with the nomenclature of talents. Having a common language of talents allows the organization to better define, discuss and understand what attributes are key for each role, and what attributes must be sourced.
• Provide talent scout business cards to all employees;these cards have the employees’ name and “Talent Scout” as their role. Coach employees to give cards to those people they see in their normal day who exhibit the talents and attitudes needed in company roles. Invite these people to find out more about the company. This starts to fill the talent pipeline so that when openings do happen, the organization has already started to source good fit candidates.
• Have employees talk about open company roles to their (social and professional) networks.

No longer can management be the only party responsible for sourcing talent. Employees see and talk to (talented) people all day. They are connected to personal and professional networks. Be sure they know what attributes (behaviors) encourage a great “fit” in each role and send them out to the world to scout for (the right) talent.

Contact me (Jay.Forte@humanetricsllc.com) to learn how the Fire Up! Process can help you define the required behaviors needed in all jobs to help your team of scouts go out and bring in those who fit. More information at FireUpYourEmployees.com.

Most of the time, managers see the hiring process as an interruption in business, and something that just has to be done to get a new employee. But a well-done interview using the three steps below helps to create an open and safe environment that helps the job candidates share their honest perspectives. This is the way to gather enough of the right information to be able to make a sound hiring decision.

Consider these ways to go from good to great with your job interviews:

1. Develop your interview team. Successful interviewing takes practice. Just asking questions does not make an effective interviewer. My recommendation, depending on the role, is to have a team of 3 people involved in the interview (and never host a group interview). Select people who are effective at listening and connecting with others. Develop a list of questions that each interviewer will be responsible for. Practice asking the questions, and determine what successful answers will sound like. Not everyone is a good fit for interviewing. Determine who is, and practice to develop the skill.

2. Be clear how this job must add value and make a difference in the organization. I find most interviewers haven’t taken the time, or the company has defined, the real value of the job. Review the job’s core responsibilities and impact. The purpose of the interview is to assess the candidate’s ability to add value. Verifying that someone has done the job before, doesn’t mean he will add the right value. Clarity about value building and performance expectations will change the entire approach to interviewing.

3. Ask talent- or behavioral-based questions. This is critical. Today’s workers are paid to think their way through the situations the workplace creates. Since not everyone thinks the same way, the interview questions must look to assess how the candidate thinks (to see if his thinking matches the thinking needed to be successful in the job).Talent-based questions are successful because they are non-standard (this forces the candidate to respond in the moment), they are looking for a particular behavior (one of the behaviors required to be successful in the job), and involve actual workplace events (this is so the interviewer can see how the candidate would respond to a true life situation). The power of the interview is in these questions – these are how enough information can be gathered to make a sound hiring decision. Notice that having a trained team and knowing the value of the role are required to be able to create and ask talent- or behavioral-based questions.

So back to my opening question, “Why do you interview?” To gather enough of the right information to be able to determine whether the candidate will add value and make a difference in your workplace. If at the end of interviewing the candidates, the answer is no, the process must continue. Not all interview processes end with hiring. They may require a revision to the requirements and start again. The goal is to hire the right employee, not to hire just any employee.

Contact me to learn about our program on talent-based interviewing – how to write talent-based questions and to train your employees to be exceptional at determining how (and whether) a job candidate will add value and make a difference in your workplace. More tools at FireUpYourEmployees.com. Be exceptional at interviewing.

This is the first of The Four Agreements by Don Angel Ruiz, a must read for all managers (and this week’s recommended read). This starts the process of all successful relationships because if trust and integrity is missing, the other agreements will automatically fail. Here are all four of his Agreements:

1. Be impeccable to your word
2. Don’t take anything personally
3. Don’t make assumptions
4. Always do you best

Just this week I have had situation after situation where others have not been impeccable to their word; I saw it in my clients, as a customer, and in my personal relationships. I guarantee I don’t always get this right, but it is now posted on my computer to remind myself of how critical it is in work and life to live to one’s word. I am committed to it and to its ability to improve all of my relationships.

This blog is all about managing for big bold results. That kind of result can only happen when managers live the agreements and earn the loyalty of their people. And it is also fair to share these agreements with your employees and hold them to the same standards.

So I thought I would share a couple of situations I have seen lately to share the impact of managers, leaders and people who don’t keep their word. Sometimes we learn best by what not to do. Consider Ruiz’s four agreements as you review these situations and just ask yourself if any of this behaviors sounds like your behavior:

• A CEO has made a promise to pay his sales team a bonus for achieving a particular result; cash is tight so she ignores the issue. The sales team is frustrated with never getting an answer. They have just given up on it.  What is this doing for employee loyalty and effort?

• A friend of mine has promised for the past several months to get together to work on a project that would benefit both of us. Planned dates get ignored without any correspondence. Emails sometimes get returned. He runs his business the same way. I am done with the project and nearly done with the friendship.

• A manager ignores his company requirement to spend 1 hour a month with each employee to review progress, performance and development. He tells his manager he is hosting these sessions but has not held one since he started 9 months ago. Employees now have no interest in any performance conversations with this manager.

• A manager in a distribution location had a significant increase in sales due to the creative efforts and outstanding service by two new employees. At the corporate headquarters, the manager took the praise personally instead of sharing that the success was from the new employees. Word got back to the location. Respect for the manager is gone.

Be impeccable to your word. Live your agreements. Not only does it earn the respect and loyalty of your people, but you create your own moral compass for every aspect of life.

In coaching we regularly ask, “How do you want to show up today?” So, how do you show up and win the respect, loyalty and support of your team? Live the agreements. Be impeccable to your word. Ensure your employees know that what you say you will do, you will do. Have integrity – whether it is easy or difficult. And in the process you inspire others to do the same.

Contact us for more information about the Fire Up! programs, tools and resources we have to help you connect to your employees, and to connect your employees to performance. We provide practical tools to help build a superstar workforce.

Your people are your profits. Your business is successful (or not) because of the energy and engagement level of your employees. And as managers and leaders, you have the ability to influence this. You can’t control your employees’ energy and engagement, but you can inspire both.

Consider that “energy” is the degree of effort, and the attitude and outlook that an employee chooses to bring to work (it is a choice). Consider that “engagement” is the degree of interest, willingness and ability that an employee has in his work. So performance is then equal to the energy times the engagement – or, the effort times the interest.

Notice that we as managers have a greater ability to affect engagement more than energy because we can realign employees into roles to better connect them to their abilities.  Employees, however, choose their energy levels. Improving this takes more specific effort than improving engagement.

To see how these attributes impact performance, draw a graph where the horizontal line is labeled “energy” and mark it low on the left, high on the right. Label the vertical line “engagement” and mark low on the bottom, high on the top. This is the engagement and energy grid that can be divided into four quadrants.

Quadrant 1: low energy, low engagement. These employees bring little to the job. They show up with neither effort nor interest – they have low energy about the job and don’t have the right abilities to do the job well. This is generally due to a job and culture that doesn’t fit the employee, and an employee who may be more negative, cynical and complaining – not just about the job. Which of your employees are here?

Quadrant 2: high energy, low engagement. These employees have a positive outlook and bring great energy to the workplace but they don’t succeed because their abilities don’t fit the abilities of the job (right attitude, wrong talents). Employees become disengaged when they don’t feel capable and competent (this can move them back to Quadrant 1 – low energy, low engagement). Realigning this employee to a job that better fits his abilities can make a significant different in performance. Which of your employees are here?

Quadrant 3: low energy, high engagement. These employees still have average performance because their effort level is low, though they connect with the work – they are interested in and likely good at it. These employees fit the job, but don’t have strong powerful personal energy. As in Quadrant 1, these employees are more negative, cynical and complaining – despite the fact that they like their jobs. Coaching is a sound response for these employees as it has the ability to help the employee change his energy level. Which of your employees are here?

Quadrant 4: high energy, high engagement. These are actively engaged employees. These employees have an anabolic and positive attitude, energy and personal standard of excellence, and are a good fit for the job. They show up ready to make a profound difference and should be coached to support their need to constantly learn, improve and add value. Which of your employees are here?

Working with employee energy shortages requires a different response than with an engagement shortage. Because employees choose their energy level (in work and life), many times the primary way to help a low energy employee is through coaching (with the manager or an outside coach). Coaching looks to identify and create responses to blocks to positive energy; an employee must see the need and commit the effort to change.

Engagement, on the other hand, can be addressed by realigning employees to roles that better suit their talents, strengths and passions. Engagement increases when employees feel capable, competent and interested in what they do.

Energy times engagement equals performance. Know how to help your employees increase their energy and their engagement. Increase both and performance rises.

Contact me to learn how coaching can help move your employees to Quadrant 4. More tools and ideas are at  WorkFiredUp.com, your resource for hiring and retaining an A-level workforce.

The start of the workday in the US: you create your personal to-do list, check your e-mail, get a coffee and get to work. Not much communication. Even less interaction. There is very little reconnection with others or to the commonality of mindset and purpose. Get to work.

At the center of all work is the “person” – the feeling, emotional and (we hope) thinking person. Work happens because of the people. They generate the ideas, the approach, the response, the energy, the attitude and the connection. Your people are your profits.

Customers connect best with people, not technology. Customers are loyal or leave because of people. Improvements and efficiencies happen because of people.Your people are your intellectual capital – the thinking, inventing, and solution-providing engines – of the company. And these engines need fuel – that fuel is emotion.

In today’s interpersonal and service workplace, the personality of your employees is the personality of your business. Customers are now face-to-face and phone-to-phone with employees. These are thinking, feeling and emotional employees who bring their lives into the workplace (and bring their work into their lives). Emotions are a critical component of the personality and connection between employees, and between employees and customers. Emotions are not just for home anymore.

Studies presented in the book Human Sigma by Dr. John Fleming and Jim Asplund indicate that loyalty (something greater than “satisfaction”) in customers is inspired by an emotional connection to a brand, product, organization or person. Emotions drive loyalty. Loyalty drives results. So I guess if I remember my transitive property from high school geometry accurately (If A = B, B= C, then A=C), then if emotions drive loyalty and loyalty drives results, then emotions drive results.

Here are two ways to activate your employees’ emotional connection to and emotional investment in their work:

1. Job sculpt – customize jobs around what matters to employees. Get to know your employees – particularly their talents, interests and values – and build these into their roles or responsibilities. If the employee loves to write, involve him in the social media of the company. If the employee is great at coordinating events, charge her with the next company retreat. Add meaningful responsibilities that appeal to the employee and make a difference for the company to their existing roles. This activates their emotional connection to, and emotional investment in, their work.

2. Provide constant feedback. Spend the time with employees to catch them doing something great and provide (high-five) feedback; or catch them needing to improve, and support them with a process to get better. This creates constant contact between manager and employee in a supportive and “human” way. It helps the employee feel important, respected and valued (this feeds our emotional side). It also creates a bond with management that improves our personal connection.

How do you encourage your employees’ emotional commitment to and investment in their work? Do you treat them as critical valuable assets (things of value) to the organization or are they perceived as expenses (disposable and replaceable)? Remember, how you care for your employees (as people) determines how your employees care for your customers (as people).

Please share this with someone who can benefit from it. And contact me to learn how the Fire Up! Your Employees book and process has been created into 6 interactive learning modules to help every manager learn how to attract, source, interview, hire and retain today’s best people. Learn how once – and then bring this success approach and tools to your workplace.

Let’s set the stage to be fair: If you hire just anyone for a job, not someone with the appropriate talents and passions to do the job, then much of your communication with the employee will be corrective. The employee is just not as capable in the job as someone who has the talents, aptitude and interest to do the job. So when employees are improperly hired, management takes the offensive – watching for when employees are not doing what they should. This confirms in managers’ minds that all feedback should be corrective.

Let’s say, instead, you know that we are in an intellectual workplace (where employees are paid to think – and not everyone thinks the same so not everyone is a good fit for every job) and you have the right employees in the right jobs. These employees are naturally good at what they do and for the most part, are more engaged and passionate about doing the work. This dramatically reduces the need for corrective feedback. Employees who are good at what they do and love doing it are not shirkers – they step up and own their work. This doesn’t mean they don’t need feedback. This means they will need a different type of feedback.

Feedback is a recurring dialog between managers and employees about performance – successful and unsuccessful. If you have wisely invested in your employees, but their performance is below standard, you quickly work with the employee to improve it. True, this is corrective feedback but it not adversarial – it is supportive and performance focused. You dialog, assess and build a plan to improve.

If the wisely chosen employee’s performance is outstanding, you must provide the appropriate feedback to applaud the performance to encourage its repetition.Employees respond to the attention and support of their management – particularly for well timed supportive feedback. Whether corrective or supportive, feedback is the right response.

Hire wisely and performance feedback is a motivational dialog between a willing employee and a caring manager to improve performance challenges and applaud performance successes. Hire poorly and you will indeed find your communication with your employees will be almost exclusively corrective and adversarial. Invest wisely in the right people and use feedback for performance improvement discussions.

Need help learning how to provide outstanding employee feedback? Contact me to hear about Performance Feedback and the other powerful tools of the Fire Up! Process, a process that can help you not only attract and hire the best people, but once hired, retain and engage them. More information at WorkFiredUp.com.

“It gets pretty messy out there,” one of the employees said as Bill came through the front door.

Bill, unable to control his anger at the employees seeing the trash and not making any effort to pick it up, raises his voice and says, “If you see it out there, why don’t you pick it up? How can you let the parking lot look like this? And moreover, why do I have to do this?”

One of the employees look right back at Bill and said nonchalantly, “Our job is to wait on customers, not to pick up trash. Trash pickup is not in our job description.”

If you are like most managers you may be ready to use your “you’re fired” speech. These kinds of situations happen to managers everyday. But before you miss the optimal learning and behavior-changing opportunity, stop and consider these potential responses instead:

1. This is a teachable moment. How will you use this moment to do more than vent your frustration and anger? How can you change employee behavior?

Each moment we have with our employees can be used to positively influence, engage and inspire. Though most of us may have lost our cool in this situation, don’t let a heated response interrupt the potential for learning and growth.Consider sharing the importance and value of customers and their loyalty is what pays these employees’ salaries. Or, share the need to take pride in the appearance of the business. Or emphasize that it is everyone’s job, whether written or not, to personally commit to making each customer’s experience exceptional, including how the facility looks. After the feedback, hold these employees accountable for an immediate change in behavior.

2. What does this tell you about job descriptions? How can they be meaningful in a constantly changing workplace?

Job descriptions are guides – they share the tasks required to achieve the performance expectations. In changing times, these need to be flexible to accommodate what employees encounter in the workplace. I find what works better is to clearly define the performance standard or expectation – to hold the employee accountable for the end results. Then allow the employee some freedom in how to approach the task to achieve the required outcome. Though the issue in this example may be lazy employees (who then need on the spot performance feedback), it could also be an outdated understanding of what a job description is and what they mean in the company. Add the clarity and make it a teachable moment.

Never miss an opportunity to educate employees that it is everyone’s job to provide consistently exceptional service to both internal and external customers. And in the same moment, be the wise manager that can use every situation to influence, persuade and inspire employees to do stand out work.

Need to improve your effectiveness with your employees? Contact me to share how greatness coaching can expand your impact as a manager and improve ability to get the results you want and watch in the next 2 weeks for Work Fired Up!’s new 2013 live and teleclass programs – practical tools to help every manager achieve big, bold results.

To date, you have prohibited employees from accessing the Internet and any of their social networks from the workplace. You have heard of horror stories about employees downloading porn, spending hours chatting with their friends and critiquing their companies, all during the workday and don’t want to create the temptation for your employees. Though you say you trust them, you continue to insist that employees should not have access to the Internet.

The seminar you attended introduced you to a more significant role of social media in the business, and thatemployees could be involved in both creating it and maintaining it. This would of course require them access to the Internet. This also could help them focus more on productive and business supporting Internet activities.

Some questions to consider:

• How can you change your Internet access policy?
• How can you use your employees to develop your social media response or hire an outside expert and maintain the controls over Internet access in the company?
• What are three immediate benefits you would see by making these kinds of changes?
• What concerns will you have to address if you make these kinds of changes?
• Who will you have this discussion with employees about how to help employees use their connections to advance the business? 

Your people are your profits. Withholding tools from your profit drivers doesn’t help them, or you, be successful. So, in a changing world, it is critical for managers to discuss and offer guidance in how to use the new tools that appear. After all, if you have hired employees who are good at and passionate about their jobs, they are already looking for ways to add value and make a difference. Include them in this discussion and you may discover other ways that your employees (and who and what they know) will advance your business. Talk about important things. Stay connected to your world. Hold your employees accountable for performance.

Contact me to learn about our new program titled, How to Move From Good To Great – Using your Unique Abilities to Step Up and Stand Out in the Workplace. This program helps employees discover their talents, strengths, and passions, then guides them to discover opportunities in their workplace to do what they do best to improve performance and company results.

Here is how I would redefine the term “work” and how to achieve “performance.”

Work – for the longest time this was defined as the result of us doing our jobs –  or, what we pay our employees for. Work related to the things we got done each day, based on a job description or a set of expectations. But all this changed as we moved from an industrial workplace to today’s intellectual workplace. Today, we no longer pay employees to just get things done. Instead, we pay them to think about the best, most efficient and most profitable response in the moment, then to implement that response. In short, we pay our employee to add value and make a difference for both internal and external customers. Today’s work rarely follows standard job descriptions anymore – our “work” days are not really routine. Instead, employees have to show up and be present – watching, thinking and assessing – to determine how to react to add value and make a difference in the changing events that fill our days. If we don’t share this as the definition of work, our employees only focus on work tasks, not on adding value and making a difference to the organization.

Performance – this has always been defined as how you do your work or the quality of your work. I think the definition is still the same but how to achieve performance has changed. In the industrial age, great performance was based on developing proficiency with repetitive tasks – soexperience was key to successful performance. But in today’s intellectual workplace, where great performance is now created by building strong emotional connections with internal and external customers, performance now requires that employees are both good at (have the right talents and strengths) and interested in (are passionate about) doing the job. Experience is no longer the lead criteria for great performance – talents and passion are.Just become someone has done the job before doesn’t mean  he is good at it and likes doing it. Again, if we don’t use this approach to attract, source and hire employees who fit the roles, performance suffers.

We must regularly challenge the foundations we build our businesses on, otherwise we find ourselves unintentionally doing things that undermine our success. Hiring people based on experience without an assessment of talent and passion will not create a team of high performers. A lack of understanding of how each job adds value and makes a difference will limit how each employee thinks about and approaches his work.

The most successful organizations are those who understand change and use change to make meaningful decisions. Get comfortable challenging everything. If after the challenge it is still true, allow things to continue. If it is no longer true, redefine and rebuild. A new year is a great time to challenge the status quo.

Send me an email if you would like a summary of the Driving Success in A Changing World program – and how to bring it to your organization in 2013

Both the service event and the workplace now are “human-based” – these events are personal and emotional – both benefit from questions that determine our level of connection, our sense of importance and our sense of belonging.

Consider asking these questions to both customers and employees to assess and ultimately activate their emotional connection. Emotional connection inspires loyalty.

1. Would you recommend us to a friend? To a customer, is your service so exceptional you would put your reputation on the line to recommend the company? To an employee – is the workplace dynamic, engaging and personalized enough to suggest your friends work there as well?

2. What is the best thing we do for you? For both, knowing this allows the organization to repeat successful behaviors.

3. What is not working for you right now? For both, inviting the discussion to share unproductive things that may not be addressed without the prompting.

4. At our company, we focus on making others feel like family; how have we made you feel like our family? For both, activating the sense of connection to family and belonging is key to creating personal relationships and activating loyalty. Behaviors identified in the responses can be repeated.

5. What information do you hear from your connections and from the world around you that would help us be a better company? Customers and employees are the eyes and ears of all companies. Loyal employees and customers openly share what they hear, think, value and see. Organizations dramatically expand their connection to their world by using engaged and loyal customers to observe and assess their worlds. This keeps companies informed, current and aware of what is truly important.

Customers and employees both require a personal and emotional relationship to activate their best performance and loyalty. The more connected management is to employees, and employees are to customers, the more important and valued both feel.

In a service workplace, success is built through relationships. Valued employees create valued customers. Disconnect from employees and customer and performance, innovation and loyalty suffers. Develop a culture that constantly asks great questions of each, and uses the information to improve, engage and activate loyalty.

Please forward this to someone who can benefit from it and contact me to show you how to build a workplace that activates both customer and employee loyalty. Loyalty is a bottom-line issue. More information at www.WorkFiredUp.com.

Your employees are the heart and the performance power behind all that happens at your organization. How could they not be included in some holiday appreciation, celebration or gift?

But before you feel more overwhelmed by the additional names that just got added to your holiday shopping list, let me help. I have a suggestion for the best holiday gift ever for your employees. Here it is: clearly-defined 2013 performance expectations. Happy Holidays!

Wait. Hear me out. Let me tell you why working with an employee to clearly define his performance expectations is the best gift you can give him.

Clearly defined performance expectations:

1. Give an employee a roadmap of how to be successful – because knowing how to succeed in your job is a great gift.

2. Allows an employee a voice in how to complete his work so he feels capable, competent and confident – because feeling the 3 Cs in the workplace is a great gift.

3. Build time together with the employee and manager – because feeling connected to and important in the eyes of your manager is a great gift.

4. Show employees how they help the organization improve and grow – because feeling like you matter at your company is a great gift.

So, it’s not a Starbucks card, a tower of fruits and nuts, or a bottle of Cabernet. Those gifts, to me, are nice but are not a gift that keeps giving.

Since the gift is to be more about her receiver than the giver, what is it that employees want from the workplace?They want to know where they are headed, feel successful, have a good relationship with their manager and feel like they matter. When they achieve these, they create the potential for promotions, development and incentives because they drive the organization’s results and influence its success. A gift that is good for them and good for you.

What if this year you give your employee a success plan for the holidays? This plan would share expectations and would provide the support for the employee to excel at what he does (the feeling of being great at what we do is powerful – and last longer than a $10 Starbucks gift card).

You don’t have to take my holiday gift idea – but as you get your employees ready for 2013, at least consider spending time with each to clearly define the daily, weekly and monthly expectations so they know how to step up and stand out. In the absence of this clarity, the new year may start out with a bang, but fizzle very quickly.

For help in creating Performance Expectations, get a copy of Fire Up! Your Employees. I devote an entire chapter to showing the performance expectation process (including the hands-on forms), so that all employees can show up each day at work clearly understanding what has to be done and have a voice in determining how to do it.Confidence, clarity and success in the workplace – all great gifts. And every manager has the ability of sharing these gifts with each employee.

So stop – just for a moment. You actually have two choices in how to respond:

1. Blow your stack. Curse, scream, swear and throw things (and we all know managers like this).

2. Maintain your cool and realize one of the best teachable moments has just presented itself. Use the event to raise the understanding, learning, awareness and expectations of everyone involved.

The workplace provides some of the best teaching and coaching opportunities for managers. The most difficult aspect of this is being able to manage our emotions well enough to how to find and use the value of the event. Though we don’t regularly want these events, we should never miss these opportunities to successfully influence performance.

So consider these three things to move from meltdown to meaningful dialog:

1. Master self-control. The best tool I use to manage my emotions is to first detect the emotional response and immediately do the opposite behavior. If you clench, then unclench. If you speak quickly, then slow down. If you curse, then say something else. Easy? No. But it is essential that you be present and rational to be able to be the other side of a teachable moment.

2. Seek to understand. Ask questions – meaningful and powerful questions. Find out the circumstances, events – in short, the “why.” Knowing the context allows for a greater teaching and solutions. As the great author and speaker Simon Sinek says, “start with why.”

3. Involve the employee in determining a better way to respond and to take ownership. Managing your cool and creating a teachable moment doesn’t mean you don’t hold the employee accountable. Get and share ideas. Mutually create a plan to improve. Redefine the standards. Shake hands. Move on.

Having humans in the workplace means sometimes disasters will happen. Consisently doing dumb things probably means the employee doesn’t fit the role and should probably go.But the infrequent show of “humanity” should just remind us to stop, think, coach and train to advance a better level of performance, not respond with a manager meltdown.

Make your New Year’s resolution to be a more inspirational manager in 2013 – to learn how to better engage your employees to bring their best to the workplace. Contact me to learn how.

Here is a great line use by nearly every educator: “Telling isn’t teaching.” But telling is the way many managers approach teaching and guiding their employees. There is no sustainable learning in this approach. All effective learning is a partnership between teacher and learner – manager and employee – that specifically focuses on the needs, motivations and values of the employee.

Consider these 3 ways for managers to become better teachers:

1. Stop talking and start listening. Listening allows you to understand where an employee is in his skill development and subject knowledge. Also listen for the employee’s talents, values and interests – for what inspires and motivates the employee. Knowledge without motivation gets little done. For learning to stick, employees must emotionally connect to both the learning and the reason for learning.

2. Work with employees to develop a learning plan. This mutually-determined plan should be based on what employees need to be successful in their day-to-day work, an area that will advance the employee in the future, and an area that is of personal interest to the employee. This makes it practical and personal (and comes from listening to the employee). Include completion dates, incentives for completion (if any) and planned improvements in performance. Creating the plan together is critical for its success.

3. Get good at performance feedback. In addition to a formal learning plan, on-the-job training must be part of employee education. Spend more performance time with employees to assess their work as it happens; reinforce successful behaviors, train and coach unsuccessful behaviors. On-the-job training is accelerated training as it reviews both skills and skill applications – what to do and how to do it. It is effective because it is real-time learning.

In a world where information doubles every couple of years, creating a workplace that constantly learns (and wants to learn) is critical to its success. And behind a learning workplace are managers who are adept at listening, observing, coaching and teaching their employees. How do you inspire your employees to want to learn more and to use what they know to improve, invent, add value and make a difference?

At a time when most company’s conversation with their employees is about just surviving today, this company is actively talking about the future – their future and how their employees are part of it. They have and share a vision of success, and a plan to get there. This doesn’t mean they are going through tough times – they are. But their employees are more focused on the long view of work. Here is how they bring this about:

1. They create opportunities to provide recurring feedback about current performance; positive performance is applauded; poor performance is coached and corrected. Feedback is a daily event. This is a rapport builder and relationship builder between managers and employees.
2. They create performance expectations for employees; employees know what is expected and are held accountable for results and performance. They have a culture of accountability and no excuses.
3. They regularly meet with employees to talk about the future. The include employees’ talents, values, interests and career aspirations in their discussions; employees have a voice in their career direction. They are honest about opportunities, even if the right response for the employee is they have outgrown the organization or there are no roles that match what employees want and need for their career path. Employees know where they are headed; they are connected to both a vision and a plan for the future.

This works well because their managers are held responsible for building and sustaining relationships with their employees. This daily focus on personally connecting to employees creates a rapport that facilitates a discussion about many issues that other organizations can’t discuss – including career development and the future. This not only allows employees to have a longer vision of employment and direction, but it supports the organizations succession planning process.

Knowing the strength of your people and knowing where they are headed, allows the organization to plan for its growth and how to staff it. It allows them to better manage their intellectual capital and talent.

At a time when most organizations are talking about today, this organization regularly talks about the future. The development of your greatest asset – the performance power of your people – must be a regular discussion. Help employees choose to be here, here tomorrow. 

So, in a period of epic change, how does management learn to engage without overwhelming? Consider these four approaches:

1. Clearly define the organization’s direction, mission and vision. Explain with laser precision what the organization does, is great at, what matters and its route to success. This way all employees can start to associate which of their daily behaviors are in line with this direction and which are not. This empowers employees to take control of their workday.
2. Set reasonable performance expectations. Even outstanding employees can’t achieve some of today’s excessive expectations – so they just check out.   Divide each new initiative into small success-focused components. Keep advancing – just advance with smaller, more achievable components to engage and not overwhelm.
3. Educate. In a world that constantly changes, knowledge is performance power. Constant practical education encourages employee engagement by helping them feel capable, competent and confident. As with number 2 above, even education presented should be in smaller, bite- (byte-) sized components.
4. Celebrate all progress. Small recurring victories keep the performance spirit alive. Make celebration and acknowledgement part of the culture to help employees see the impact of their work and to feel personally important to the organization.

Today’s economy is hard on everyone. Managements need to be more clever and more opportunity-focused; employees need to be more resilient and more engaged. Finding a successful blend requires some management finesse or employees quickly become overwhelmed. And being overwhelmed is the first step to employee disengagement and departure.

Even as management, we are still employees. That means we are aware that the only we qualify for a raise is to add value to our organization. Showing up each day (though a good start) does not justify a pay increase. Doing the job the same way day-in-and-day-out does not justify a pay increase.

What can, however, justify a change in pay is actively making a difference in the workplace (in efficiency, in effectiveness or in doing something extraordinary).

• Efficiency improvements include reducing the time spent on a task or reducing the costs in the business while improving the results.
• Effectiveness improvements include knowing what (internal and external) customers expect (knowing and doing “done right”) and constantly developing ways to deliver flawless performance – every time – no exceptions.
•  Extraordinary relates to the personal choice to stand out in what and how work is done – to do the extras.

These behaviors create value. These behaviors can justify pay increases.

Managements also have a role in perpetuating employees’ expectations for annual pay raises. They frequently take the easy way out by giving all employees the same increase percentage. Nothing dilutes the important connection between value contribution and pay more than applying the same raise percentage (if any) to all employees. Each pay adjustment (again, if any) should be customized around the particular employee’s ability to add value and make a difference. Sometime this additional value is not empirical – instead of a specific dollar amount, it may show up as an exceptional amount of effort, innovation, tenacity in tough times, learning new roles, teaching others, or taking on more responsibility. The point is pay is for value provided.

Here is the coaching about raises and performance I offer to both employees and managers:

Employees: Don’t come to a payroll review without specific examples of how you have added value and made a difference. If you can’t identify it, neither can management. And if you can’t identify how you made a difference, why are you entitled to greater pay?

Management: Know who your strong and weak performers are. Reward each employee based on his/her ability to be committed, think through the day, grow and develop, positively influence the bottom line, have a personal standard of excellence, make the company better and live the company’s core values.

Teach employees how to provide and measure the value they provide. Help them connect value/effort provided and pay. After all, employee compensation is nothing more than an investment (in the employee), and from that investment, we expect a return. You wouldn’t invest in something that has little or no return – why should your company?

I have asked hundreds of employees in my years of consulting and teaching what is expected of them – then asked their managers the same question. In most cases (if the employee knew their expectations) their responses didn’t agree. This creates two enormous problems:

1. Employees don’t know what is expected and therefore cannot be held accountable for specific performance.
2. Management is not achieving the results they want, need and expect because employees are not clear of what management needs them to do.

Here are three ways to get everyone on the same page when it comes to performance expectations:

1. Link employee performance to specific company strategies.
2. Ensure all employee performance expectations can be quantified, measured and managed.
3. Review performance expectations monthly with employees; work with them to develop a strategy to achieve their expectations. Coach, mentor and educate as needed. (This is actually today’s management’s real job).

Practical example:

Company strategy:  Increase sales volume of a new product line by x%.

Link employee performance to company strategy (examples):

• Create marketing materials for email distribution about new product by x date.
• Create internal training program to improve how sales force sells the product; ensure all sales employees participate in training and pass assessment with a score of x% or greater by x date.

Review expectations monthly:

• Meet regularly with employees to review their plans to implement their component of the strategy, progress, successes and obstacles. Respond to performance level with coaching, education and/or applause.

Performance expectations take away excuses, drive performance and show skill challenges (to be corrected). Performance improves when employees know what is expected and management coaches, guides and educates employees to achieve their expectations. Get on the same page. Be sure employees know what “done right” is.

Here is a great line use by nearly every educator: “Telling isn’t teaching.” But telling is the way many managers approach teaching and guiding their employees. There is no sustainable learning in this approach.  All effective learning is a partnership between teacher and learner – manager and employee – that specifically focuses on the needs, motivations and values of the employee.

Consider these 3 ways for managers to become better teachers:

1. Stop talking and start listening. Listening allows you to understand where an employee is in his skill development and subject knowledge. Also listen for the employee’s talents, values and interests – for what inspires and motivates the employee. Knowledge without motivation gets little done. For learning to stick, employees must emotionally connect to both the learning and the reason for learning.
2. Work with employees to develop a learning plan. This mutually-determined plan should be based on what employees need to be successful in their day-to-day work, an area that will advance the employee in the future, and an area that is of personal interest to the employee. This makes it practical and personal (and comes from listening to the employee). Include completion dates, incentives for completion (if any) and planned improvements in performance. Creating the plan together is critical for its success.
3. Get good at performance feedback. In addition to a formal learning plan, on-the-job training must be part of employee education. Spend more performance time with employees to assess their work as it happens; reinforce successful behaviors, train and coach unsuccessful behaviors.  On-the-job training is accelerated training as it reviews both skills and skill applications – what to do and how to do it. It is effective because it is real-time learning.

In a world where information doubles every couple of years, creating a workplace that constantly learns is critical to its success. And behind a learning workplace are managers who are adept at listening, observing, coaching and teaching their employees to constantly improve, invent, add value and make a difference.

Everyone was surprised by my move. I explained that I did this primarily to better understand their worlds – what they deal with successfully and unsuccessfully – to better know now to coach, mentor and teach them. “Hiding” in my office kept me disconnected from what mattered most to my employees (and ultimately for customers and results).

Sure, I miss the privacy and the ability to close my door and think, but I have exchanged it for building a strong connection with my people and getting better at being a “trench instructor” and a “trench manager.”  And I think most days my employees really appreciate this new approach.

Here are some of the things that happened when I have moved out of my office and into my employees’ space:

1. Employee discussions are now turned into learning events. When two employees are sharing ideas of how to handle a client, I can step in and guide the discussion to be productive, respectful and solutions-based (no one did this with them before). With a department of strong personalities, it was not uncommon for these employee discussions to migrate to raised voices and unproductive arguments. They are now starting to solve their issues, not just talk about them. They are learning to keep the discussion about the topic and behaviors, not about personalities. Practical, on-the-spot learning.
2. We started watching more for and celebrating successes. Many times great ideas were glossed over and never noticed or applauded – nobody drew attention to them or learned from them. (Most organizations I know spend more time looking for problems than looking for successes – both are teachable events.) This way, I was able to catch employees doing great things and post it on our Brag Board. An example from this week is a senior sales employee joined a call with a junior sales employee to fill in the missing details and close an excellent account. The senior employee shared great ideas; the junior employee learned how to handle a tough client situation – and the organization earned a new client. Success on all fronts.
3. Employees who spent a bit too much time texting and chatting (and there were some of these), have stopped the habit. Call it intimidation or call it learning, the behavior changed.
4. Our meetings just became significantly more effective. Weekly meetings that used to review changes/challenges/opportunities now become more effective with actual events, data and information from the front line. The workplace became a learning environment.

To be a successful intellectual-age manager requires you to be in the trenches with your team, clearing obstacles, educating in the moment, and inspiring each member to contribute at his/her best level. After all, the goal of management is to transform human capital into financial capital. And you can’t do that by hiding in an office, not knowing first hand what life on the lines is like.

Average performance – there seems to be an epidemic of it. Average service, average work, average thinking. What happened to all the great employees?

The great employees are here, hiding under average performance in jobs that don’t make sense for them. Nothing can turn a great employee into an average one more than putting that employee into a job that does not use his particularly talents, strengths and passions. Employees who aren’t (intrinsically) good at the job, and like doing it, will never be more than average in the job. So management has a role in creating average or exceptional performers.

Consider these three ways to help get employees into the right job and to raise their performance – so they do more than just show up, looking to collect a paycheck:

1. Define the performance success attributes (abilities) needed in the job to be successful; use these attributes to source the right people. Knowing the profile of success attributes needed to be successful in each job clearly defines the profile of a “good fit” employee. This allows for improved sourcing of candidates resulting in a more significant and meaningful talent pipeline by job.
2. Redevelop the interview process to be behavioral- or talent-based. Phrase your questions around the success behaviors needed in the job, coupled with your real life environment. For example if you are looking to assess a candidate’s abilities in building rapport with a customer, you may ask the following question that affects both the behaviors needed in your actual workplace: “In our workplace, it is not unusual to have customers waiting for service and on phone at the same moment. How do you handle this situation where both phone and live clients feel valued and the behaviors you need to prove exist Use real life environments in your questions to assess candidate fit. These will be the most telling ways to determine if the candidate will show up and be both good at what the job needs done and interested enough to do it well.
3. Set “non-average” performance expectations for each employee. Sometimes the reason employees do average is we don’t tell them that we expect something more than average. Be clear about the performance standard in the organization – and its focus on greatness and exceptional performance. Setting clear high expectations makes sense for employees who are well hired into roles that need what they do best. Miss steps 1 and 2 and you’ll not be able to do step 3. You can’t ask people who excel in one thing to step up and stand out in something that is not part of the abilities, passions or strengths.

Great employees don’t just show up – they are aligned to the right role, constantly trained, clear about their expectations and focus on “exceptional” over average.

Transforming human capital into financial capital requires understanding what behaviors and abilities drive performance in each role, how to determine if a candidate has the right combination of abilities, and what level of daily performance is expected.

For more information, go to www.WorkFiredUp.com and click products for the step by step performance guide, Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition.

As we explain this process to our candidates, they look at us in disbelief. Few companies share what really happens in the workplace in the workday. Fewer companies are honest about the expectations, challenges and opportunities of the role. And we win candidates in right away with our process. We set the stage that we base all decisions on learning and using the facts.

Sure, there is more to it – we first use a talent matrix to create a talent and skill profile for the role. We use this to craft our job descriptions and ads – we are up front and honest about the core abilities needed to be successful in the job. We require candidates to take a talent assessment and we use talent-based interview questions to determine whether the required talents and skills exist in the candidates we consider. It’s a logical and very effective process.

Here’s the point. We tell it like it is; there are no surprises when a candidate starts with us. This set the stage for a powerful relationship between the candidate, management and the organization. Candidates know we are straight with them and that we have the same expectation of them. And if they make it through our process, they then know that we expect the same behavior – to tell it like it is – as they encounter the things in their jobs.

Employees who feel they are lied to or are given only half of the truth, disengage quickly from companies. And with the contact power of social networks, this information quickly gets around. Better the world know you for your honesty, integrity and accuracy than for your inaccuracy and untrue embellishments.

We tell it like it is when it comes to performance expectations. Every employee knows what he needs to do.

We tell it like it is with our core values – what behaviors we expect and insist on in the workplace.

We tell it like it is with our customer service expectations – what “done right” is and how to build customer loyalty.

We have found that we can’t be successful basing any part of our business on smoke and mirrors – from hiring to daily employee performance. We need (and insist) that our employees (and management) tell it like it is. Otherwise, how can any of us consistently determine the best response?

Dear Employees,

Your manager

Marie consistently lost her temper with customers who did not know how to order, had questions or required a second explanation of a product solution. She did not accommodate any changes to how she provided service – no personal touch – all customers were dealt with in the same efficient, but impersonal, manner. As Marie openly said, “I don’t really like people – but I’ll deal with them to get the job done.” Quite a first impression for a customer.

Marie may have been a great person (I’m sure her parents love her), but she is a misfit for this role; the role needed certain consistent behaviors that were not part of her core abilities. Fit didn’t happen.

Time after time I see organizations relying on candidates’ past skills or experience as the exclusive method for hiring. And though there may be mandatory role skill requirements, it is critical to also assess a candidate’s “fit” for the role – what the talents, strengths and passions are to be successful in the role.

Regardless of what our parents may have told us, we are not great at everything. But we are great at some things. When we discover these personal areas of greatness, we then can assess our world – what roles need what we do best – and can find our fit. Fit happens.

I find there are two primary problems in recruiting today’s A-level talent:
1. The organization does not clearly define the core abilities needed to be successful in the role,
2. Job seekers do not know themselves well enough to know their unique talents, strengths and passions.

Hiring managers must better define the required attributes in each role, and state them in their sourcing process. They must also require job seekers to spend time discovering and articulating their unique abilities. Only then can the two sides meet in the middle for a meaningful process committed to finding the right person for the right job. Then, fit happens.

In a period of exponential change, the most successful organizations are flexible and opportunity-focused; they empower their employees to constantly learn, involve them in new tasks/responsibilities and require them to try new things.

These organizations constantly gather new ideas, perspectives and opportunities – the key to developing a responsive and successful performance strategy. The more today’s managers help employees learn, grow and try new things, the more they encourage more robust employee thinking which is critical to sustainable company results.

I come from a large Italian family. Being both a large family, and Italian, we rarely went out for dinner (there were too many of us and besides, our food at home was terrific). However, I do remember one time when we went out to a smorgasbord – a buffet. My siblings and I descended on the amazing food tables and started to fill our plates. Dad called us back to our table, took our large plates away and gave us small plates instead. We were then instructed to follow him two times around the food tables – not taking anything – we were just to see what was available. The third time around we could help ourselves to small portions of things we had never tried before. He promised that if we did this, we would discover at least one new favorite food – we would change the way we think. He was right. I discovered artichoke hearts – and still love them today.

The point? Great managers constantly guide their employees to “walk around the company table” and let their employees explore and try things – through both formal learning and on-the-job learning. This expands not only what employees know, but it encourages broader and more strategic employee thinking – employees find areas of greater abilities, develop greater skills and bring stronger performance to the organization.

Additionally, an organization focused on constantly growing and educating its employees significantly influences employee loyalty. And the key to a powerful, high-performing organization is a stable, consistent and free-thinking workforce.

This parent moved her daughter to teams she thought would win, paid for personalized coaching, browbeat coaches to increase her daughter’s playing time – all the signs of a parent living her life through the life of her daughter. There is a great preoccupation of being THE best versus being YOUR best.

What made this particularly poignant is that most days on the way home from the games, this kid would have an emotional meltdown on the way to the car – for all of us to see. She just didn’t want to be the best – she just wanted to play and make a difference. What struck me most was that the daughter was wiser than the mom.

To me there is always more value in being our personal best than being “the best.” Maybe it’s because I’m not a real competitive person. Or maybe because, for me, the only thing in life that really matters is living to our own potential – of living who we really are – done in our best way possible. My standards for me should be in terms of my capabilities, not others’ criteria.

I believe we are each born with unique abilities – unique talents, strengths and passions. Our focus should be to use our life to identify which abilities we have and how to develop them to be happy, successful and impact our world. To be the best is not the same as to be our best.

My job (Chief Performance Officer) has me managing performance for a company – this includes hiring, developing and engaging employees. What stops most employees from achieving their personal best is their lack of understanding about what they have as talents and gifts; they are unaware of their capabilities and constantly look for others to define success for them. Though in a company we can create performance expectations to define performance success, what I really want most from my people is their commitment to achieve their personal best.

At our organization, we focus on hiring the right employees (their natural abilities match those needed to be successful in the job, and they like doing the job), then help them realize their full potential – to add value and make a difference. I want my employees to know what their capabilities are and maximize them.

The only trophy anyone should ever get is one that applauds them for reaching their potential. If we all strived to reach our potential, there would be more “winners” in life and less of a regard for “superstars.” After all, each of us has superstar abilities just waiting to be discovered and lived. And being “the” best doesn’t mean you achieved “your” best.

In an economy that constantly changes a significant rate, all organizations must have a change strategy – a strategy for dealing with change to be successful and responsive. Many times we see organizations offering outdated “value” because the world has changed and they have not.

This process should not be limited to management. Employees have perspectives; they are also connected to networks. Today’s employees are now the eyes and ears of the organization. They are a critical component of a successful change strategy.

All employees should be regularly requested to share their perspectives of what they see and hear, and how it impacts the company. Creating a culture of constantly reviewing the world, the economy and workplace, to understand it and then to develop a powerful response, is now an urgent priority for management.

Here are a couple of things I suggest to the companies I work with to encourage them to clearly understand their world, their company, and how they fit with each other:
1. Identify any significant change going on in the world, economy, local environment or other area that could impact the business.
2. Assess the impact of the change. Gather input and ideas from everyone in the organization (there is no role too junior to be excluded from this process). All employees have ideas, input and connections.
3. Review your current strategy to determine if your strategy will respond to this change in a successful way; if not, brainstorm ideas for change.
4. Review all ideas for change; management then decides the right course of action (if any).
5. Share the change or response with the organization – be clear about how it impacts each employee’s work and the direction of the company.

Nothing stays the same. What makes it more urgent in today’s workplace is that the speed of information movement makes us all aware of the changes. Those who have a mechanism to assess change, related it to the organization, and quickly and nimbly respond, are those who will lead instead of follow. And to do this just takes a new attitude about how we welcome and use change.

Today’s workplace in an intellectual or service workplace – much of manufacturing has moved offshore. Most employees are now face-to-face with customers, not hiding behind machines or out of view. This changes everything about performance as employees must now be good at what they do and interested in doing it (because if not, customers know it). Today, talents and passions impact performance – and these are resident in our employees “filling” – in their minds and in their hearts – not in their “candy coating.”

Think about M&M’s as you start your hiring and job interviewing process:
1. Hire for filling – hire for a candidate’s unique abilities. Since we are all unique, there is no way to judge the caliber of the talents, strengths and passions by reviewing the exterior candy coating. Be clear about the talents, strengths and passions that drive success in the role, and hire those. Get past the candy coating and hire what really matters – filling.

2. Appreciate the candy coating – the candidate’s ethnicity, age, gender, religion, etc. are all the added value that accompanies the right “filling.” Hiring older employees may bring stability and greater loyalty; hiring younger employees may bring greater technology and energy. And the right combination of talents and passions for a particular role could be resident in either.

3. Mix them up for the greatest impact –blending the right thinking (filling), with a diverse combination (candy coating) creates a workforce that emulates the true consumer population, encourages greater idea and opportunity thinking (because of diverse backgrounds) and helps the workforce learn to appreciate differences.

M&Ms remind us that in today’s thinking workplace, “filling” matters most. It is in how employees think and respond that inspires customer loyalty and adds value for the organization. Not only does this approach eliminate any bias against protected classes, it offers organizations the best workforce in today’s diverse economy.

Most organizations could benefit from a similar process of clearly defining their core values – what they stand for. Company core values can do the following:
1. They clearly define the behaviors the organization commits to in its day-to-day activities – it defines beliefs and performance commitments.

4. Distinguishes the organization from others and openly shares its commitment to excellence.

Core values are so critical that in the Zappos culture, all job interviewing includes an assessment of the candidate’s talents/skills as well as an assessment of values fit. Both components are required for an employee to not only get the job but also to keep the job.

Here are the 10 core values of my organization:
1. Consistently deliver an extraordinary client “experience.”
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Be creative, solutions-focused and open-minded.
4. Build a positive team and family spirit.
5. Always learn and grow.
6. Communicate openly, honestly and respectfully.
7. Be accountable – do your share.
8. Add value and make a difference.
9. Be a force for good in the community.
10. Have fun and keep it real.

Values create organizational culture; culture inspires employee performance and customer loyalty. At least once a year, like my Italian family, go through an exercise of defining (or redefining) your guiding beliefs and values.

What are your values and what do they tell the world about your organization, workplace, client experience and focus on excellence? Why should the best work for you or buy from you?

An organization’s most significant asset is the intellectual capital of their employees – how they think, invent, create and respond. Therefore, every organization needs employees who are the right fit for the job – employees who have the right talents, skills and experience – they connect to customers and drive results. This makes the sourcing and selection process both more critical and more difficult.

No longer will most any employee be able to do any job. Fit matters. And to find employees who fit the role, the organization now needs a greater list of candidates to select from – to ensure the attributes needed to drive performance exist within the candidate. This focus on fit now requires a fuller pipeline of viable candidates. And one of the greatest ways to fill the talent pipeline is to use your workforce’s connections and sourcing ability.

Consider the following ways to use your workforce to identify, find and recruit A-level (the right fit) employees:

1. Clearly identify the talent profile of for each role (this should identify the talents, skills and experience needed to be effective in the role). Share this information with all employees. Now employees know the attributes needed to be effective in each role.

2. Have all employees take a talent assessment, to be better aware of their natural abilities (talents and strengths) and to become familiar with the nomenclature of talents. Having a common language of talents allows the organization to better define, discuss and understand what attributes are key for each role, and what attributes must be sourced.

3. Provide talent scout business cards to all employees; these cards have the employees’ name and “Talent Scout” as their role. Coach employees to give cards to those people they see in their normal day who exhibit the talents and attitudes needed in company roles. Invite these people to find out more about the company. This starts to fill the talent pipeline so that when openings do happen, the organization has already started to source good fit candidates.

4. Have employees talk about open company roles to their (social and professional) networks.

No longer can management be solely responsible for sourcing all talent. Employees see and talk to (talented) people all day. They are connected to personal and professional networks. Be sure they know what attributes encourage great “fit” in each role and send them out to the world to scout for (the right) talent.

I was recently at a Starbucks. I watched as one of the staff danced around the store to some really upbeat and fun music, handing out samples of this week’s coffee. It was fun and completely extraordinary.

I was at a great Italian bakery this week – artisan bread and pastries that are incredible. Yum! I asked about one pastry I did not recognize. The woman behind the counter took it off the plate, cut it into pieces and offered one to me and to the others in line, then told us with great passion how it was made. Extraordinary.

I was talking to colleague whose child has an amazing teacher. As they study geography, this teacher brings in authentic food, plays the country’s music and introduces some of the language. The kids are captivated and interested. They learn. Extraordinary.

Notice that I did not bring up the ordinary events – I don’t remember them. They are bland, boring and leave no impression. If you want to get noticed in the workplace, you have to do something “extraordinary.” If you blend and are boring, you lose. Your business loses. No one remembers. They expect you to get it right; what they don’t expect is that you do some form of Wow! They remember the Wow.

The employees in the above situations chose to do extraordinary things. In fact, they did far more and far better than anything management could have suggested. They chose to make the service event personal, engaging and extraordinary. They chose to show up, step up and stand out. Doing the extraordinary is rarely about spending more; it is almost always about contributing greater effort, creativity, interest or passion. It is about choice.

Management can inspire employee greatness when they define the outcome (“do extraordinary things for our customers”) but not the steps to achieve it. Micromanaging the response takes all the life, energy, and “extraordinaryness” out of it – and stops employees from thinking through (and having some fun in) their workday. Hire the right employees then have them go impress your customers. Don’t impose limits – create expectations.

A client of mine travels extensively. He couldn’t always do this. There was a time when he was too concerned to leave because he didn’t have a team capable of handling the business in his absence. They would goof off and do as little as possible. So he never left. And the business suffered.

So here is what I worked on to help him get out of the office and get focused on adding greater value to his business:

1. We defined the performance attributes of every job (what attributes are necessary for an employee to be successful in the job). This gave us a clear picture of which jobs had people who were a good fit, and those who were not adding any value. We first realigned existing staff – right people in the right jobs.

2. We then reviewed the now “open” jobs (open because we didn’t have anyone in the organization who had the right success attributes for the jobs) and sourced candidates from the large amount of unemployed talent (because of the recession). The clarity of knowing what we specifically needed, coupled with a larger job candidate supply, allowed for successful hiring. Time consuming but critical for the success of the company.

3. With the right people in the right roles, we then created clear daily performance expectations that defined what needed to be done but allowed employees to develop how to complete the work. This inspired employee ownership; they became more emotionally connected to their work and workplace. And with the right employees in the right roles, they welcomed the ability to do their work in their best way.

With the right employees in the right roles, so much more work gets done. Employees who are in roles that play to their talents, strengths and passions, feel more capable and competent. They like what they do. They feel part of a family. This kind of employees doesn’t goof off when the boss is away.

I present more of this process in the book Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition.

Consider the following ways to keep learning on “go” when the education budget says “no:”
1. Solicit resources from employees – what are their favorite leadership, self-help, skill books and resources – and bring them to the workplace for others to use.
2. Solicit extra resources from local colleges – including texts or resources that are no longer part of a course or program.
3. Identify used copies of great resources by authors such as Seth Godin, Marcus Buckingham, John Fleming, Simon Sinek, Daniel Pink, Steve Farber, Paul Coehlo, Brian Tracy and others. Find them on e-Bay, Amazon.com, Thriftbooks.com, Barnes and Noble and others. Have the organization define the key resources they want, and charge employees with finding them at discounted rates.
4. Create a company library with resources sourced from others and from used copies of current resources.
5. Send one employee to a high-value conference with the requirement to share the message and skills of the conference with the company. Host a “Lunch and Learn” program to review what was learned at the conference.
6. Find on-line training programs that don’t require expensive travel. Have the same requirement to share information as in #5.
7. Give each employee a personal education budget and have them create their training plan with no more than the allocated funds. It is amazing how clever an employee can be when they control their own resources.
8. Develop in-house training for all of the most critical skills. Develop an incentive program for those involved in preparing and teaching skill training. Consider basing the incentive on improved results, not just on preparing and teaching.
9. Create an “on-the-job” academy. Have employees shadow more experienced employees as part of a skill development program.
10. Share training resources with another organization/partner with another organization; find another organization through networking, in a local chamber or in a professional association. Two organizations sharing resources can greatly expand what each organization has access to.

You know how when things get tight we seem to become more effective at rethinking how we do things, how we spend and how we can stretch a dollar. Well, the need for learning remains, even if the funds don’t. Employee training and development is critical for every organization to develop and maintain its edge. How have you been able to help your employees learn and grow even when the resources are limited?

Share your ideas. And for more management tips to help activate employee performance, see the tools on www.FireUpYourEmployees.com.

Your people are your profits. And as such, you need the right ones, connected to what they do and passionate about doing it. In the past, it was more difficult to assemble your A team because there was less great talent to choose from. Today, due to layoffs, organizations have the choice of truly outstanding talent – the talent that can create their A-level performers. So as others are terminating and cutting, use the three steps of redefine, realign and hire to attract and hire the best talent now available to improve the performance power of your team. This talent surplus may not last long.

Use this three-step process to build your A team:

1. Redefine – In today’s intellectual workplace, employees make more unique decisions – they think their way through the day. Since each of us thinks differently, not every employee is a good fit for every role. Therefore, it is critical to clearly redefine the talents and strengths (thinking), skills and experience needed to be successful in each role. This allows you to source the right employee from inside the organization, or from the pool of unemployed talent in the market.
2. Realign – After redefining what you need in each role, assess your existing team. Determine who currently is working in the right role, and who could improve performance if moved to a more appropriate role. And, be aware, this review may indicate some employees are not right for the organization. Complete your realignment. This will show you the open roles that need hiring from outside of the organization.
3. Hire – For those roles that do not have the right talent from within, it is important to go to today’s market of unemployed talent. This is effective when you have clearly defined attributes needed in each role; you now know what attributes to hire. From this point, you can develop a sourcing strategy to attract and hire those employees who have the performance profile (talents, skills and experience) you defined as required to excel in the role.

Our tough economy has actually created an opportunity for many organizations to rebuild an A-levek team. Key to using this unique moment in time is to spend the time to define what you need, then hold firmly to these requirements as you hire. This is how to make your (hiring) plan come together in true “A Team” fashion.

Consider asking these questions of both customers and employees to assess and ultimately activate their emotional connection. Emotional connection inspires loyalty; loyalty drives performance and results.

1. Would you recommend us to a friend? To a customer, is your service so exceptional you would put your reputation on the line to recommend the company? To an employee – is the workplace dynamic, engaging and personalized enough to suggest your friends work there as well?
2. What is the best thing we do for you? For both, knowing this allows the organization to repeat successful behaviors.
3. What is not working for you right now? For both, inviting the discussion to share negative experiences can lead to meaningful changes and improvements.
4. At our company, we focus on making others feel like family; how have we made you feel like our family? For both, activating the sense of connection to family and belonging is key to creating personal relationships and activating loyalty. Behaviors identified in the responses can be repeated.
5. What information do you hear from your social networks and do you see in the world around you that would help us be a better company? Customers and employees are the eyes and ears of all great companies. Loyal employees and customers openly share what they hear, think, value and see. Organizations dramatically expand their connection to their world by using engaged and loyal customers to observe and assess their worlds. This keeps companies informed, current and aware of what is truly important.

Customers and employees both require a personal and emotional relationship to activate their best performance and loyalty. The more connected management is to employees, and employees are to customers, the more important and valued each feels.

In a service workplace, success is built on relationships. Valued employees create valued customers. Disconnect from employees and customers, and performance, innovation and loyalty suffers. Develop a culture that constantly asks each great questions and uses the information to improve, engage and activate loyalty.

So many of us run our lives like this. In a world that constantly changes, it is critical for all of us to constantly consider reinventing and updating. Sometimes small gradual changes can keep us current; sometimes our changes need to be more significant. This is particularly critical when it comes to the workplace.

In a recent AARP article titled, “Brand New Me,” writer Andrew Reiner reminds us that it is more difficult for older people to get hired – not because they aren’t equally talented and passionate about what work needs to be done – but because their approach to finding work is outdated and disconnected from today’s more social media approaches. They have not reinvented a more current approach to getting connected to those who do the hiring.

I spend much of my time coaching and teaching organizations in how to attract, hire and retain A-level talent. The most striking conversation I generally need to have with all senior and manager levels is that there is no longer a direct correlation between prior work experience and new employee effectiveness and success. Previous experience is a valid consideration, though for most organizations it is the only attribute they assess when considering a new job candidate. Instead, what leads to greater performance and success in today’s intellectual workplace are employees who are intrinsically good at what their jobs require and have some degree of interest in doing them.

As much of today’s workers are now in front of customers instead of hidden behind machines as in the industrial age, today’s employees impact the organization’s brand with every contact – on the phone, on the web and face-to-face. Organizations who have reinvented their hiring process now hire more selectively for talent and fit. They reject the skill and experience resume because its format doesn’t share meaningful hiring information; they now insist on a talent or behavioral-based resume. They host powerful and effective talent-based interviews. They commit to knowing more about their candidates before they consider bringing them into their organization. They know in today’s tight economic times that they must get more done with less, and they expect a greater return on their payroll dollar investment. They have reinvented what they need in each role, how to source it and how to interview for it. Great organizations are always ready to reinvent.

What in your business needs reinvention? What in your business looks like my friend’s living room furniture – outdated, uncomfortable and needing an update? What is the impact to the bottom line of not updating or developing a workplace culture that stays current and is ready to reinvent?

Contact me for help learn how to reinvent your best workforce, and check out more resources at www.LiveFiredUp.com. Please forward this to someone who will benefit from it.

In an earlier blog post, author Seth Godin suggested that we end the annual reviews, big sales meetings and other large events, and instead, move to “frequent cheap communication” – that is, constant meaningful contact.

Let’s see the value of this in the workplace.

Constant contact (communication) with employees provides:
1. A venue for providing feedback to reward exceptional performance and to correct problem performance.
2. A connection to employees’ ideas, social connections and thoughts to drive business opportunities.
3. The ability to relate to employees as people – that critical personal connection that drives loyalty and inspires performance.

Constant contact with customers provides:
1. The venue to ask meaningful questions about service levels, needs, values and expectations.
2. The ability to assess new products, services and ideas before they are fully invested in or initiated.
3. The ability to relate to customers as people – that critical personal connection that inspires loyalty.

Remember that communication is the method to move today’s enormous amounts of information. It is less effective if delayed until a major event. It is most effective in the personal one-on-one connection that happens regularly, clearly and intentionally.

Is it a requirement of your culture to stay connected to your customers?

Is it part of your management and leadership style to stay connected to your employees?

In today’s instant information age, check in on the frequency that you stay in touch. Constantly ask what your employees and customers think. Then get good at listening and using what they tell you.

For more information on connecting to and inspiring employees, check out Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition, and other tools at www.LiveFiredUp.com.

What if part of the way you approach your business – your workplace culture – was a continuous review of the critical aspects of your business? What if it was part of your work day to constantly observe then assess the ways work could be done more effectively, more efficiently, more profitably, more humanely, more environmentally-friendly, more personally… You fill in the adverb after “more.” Do you have a focus on competitive improvement?

To have a “lead instead of follow” approach in world that moves at breakneck pace requires a high-performance team that is committed, passionate and focused on more than just getting through the day. This inspiration for greatness must be in your attitude, your message and your culture.

Do you have a culture that:
1. Commits to having the right people in the right jobs – those who are capable and passionate about the work?
2. Openly shares information – good and bad, easily and accurately – so everyone knows fact?
3. Is optimistic and asks “what opportunities does this create for us?” with every good or challenging event that happens?
4. Encourages each of its employees to stay connected to their social networks, from which you can source ideas and stay connected to a larger world?
5. Listens, responds, applauds and coaches to build employee loyalty and commitment.

FastCompany regularly presents the world’s 50 most innovative companies. What makes these companies consistently innovative is their commitment to a culture that openly welcomes change, willingly and regularly reinvents, constantly improves, wants to be the best and has high expectations of its employees. 2009’s list included Facebook, Walmart, HP, Nike, Huawei, BYD, Gilt Group and Grey New York. All of these companies have power cultures that are built on a constant connection to their world, and a consistent and clever response to it. We’ll watch to see who they present for innovative heroes in 2010.

What is your culture built on? And do you lead or follow?

Contact me for help creating a workplace culture that is committed to having the right people, the right focus and a commitment to innovation. For more information see www.LiveFiredUp.com.

1. They create opportunities to provide recurring feedback about current performance; positive performance is applauded; poor performance is coached and corrected. Feedback is a daily event.

2. They create performance expectations for employees; employees know what is expected and are held accountable for results and performance. They have a culture of accountability and no excuses.

3. They regularly meet with employees to talk about the future. They are honest about opportunities – within and out of the organization. They value their employees’ personal and professional development. Employees know where they are headed; they are connected to both a vision and a plan for the future.

This works because their managers are held responsible for building and sustaining relationships with their employees. This daily focus on personally connecting to employees creates a rapport that facilitates a discussion about many issues that other organizations can’t discuss – including career development and the future. This not only allows employees to have a longer vision of employment and helps the organization with succession planning, it inspires employee loyalty.

Knowing the strength of your people and guiding them to a meaningful future allows the organization to plan for its growth and how to staff it. It allows them to better manage their intellectual capital and talent. This is how one company ensures that the best employees are here today and here tomorrow.

Please share this with someone who can benefit from it and contact me to help you develop an employee retention approach for 2011 that keeps your best employees. More information at www.FireUpYourEmployees.com.

This past week the NY Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote an OP-ED titled, Americans Want the Greatness Back. He presented some startling statistics that nearly half of the Americans who vote feel that our best days are behind us, not ahead of us. And though his OP-ED is more about what changes may need to happen in our political process, his message is clear. Greatness as a nation can only happen when we each recommit to personal greatness.

So back to my opening line, you can’t have a great company (country, town, organization, family, etc), without people who choose to be great. How do you inspire each employee to choose greatness over just showing up?
Consider these ways:

1. Clearly define what your company believes in and its commitment to greatness in all it does; this attracts like-minded people. You set a standard and belief that guides not only who you hire, but what behaviors are expected once they are hired.

2. Hire the best people for the job; hire based on talent and fit, not just on experience. This way you hire people capable of greatness because their work matches what they are intrinsically good at. Employees who feel capable and competent perform at greater levels.

3. Connect employees emotionally by customizing their jobs around what they love and are interested in. There are few jobs that employees love everything about. But if jobs are sculpted around employees’ interests, passions and values, employees become more emotionally invested in their work. This raises their effort, interest and performance – their greatness.

4. Openly value your employees by building strong personal relationships with each through constant communication and contact, performance feedback and honest interest (see this issue’s Recommended Read). Employees who are personally connected to their managers, team and organization, feel more part of the team and therefore commit greater effort.

Personal greatness must be inspired, encouraged, developed and applauded – this is part of management’s role. And the more personal greatness grows, the more organizational greatness will grow. Great organizations realize that they are great because their employees have chosen to bring their best and to make an impact – they have chosen to be great. And if we can rekindle it in the workplace, we may be able to rekindle it across the nation.

Please share this with someone who can benefit from it and contact me to help you learn how to activate the personal greatness of your employees. More information at www.FireUpYourEmployees.com.

To extend our focus on gratitude (which should always be a daily event), I thought I would share a couple of things to thank employees for. Consider these ideas, then add your own. Share your gratitude with your employees. It makes a difference.

Dear employee,
o Thank you for your extra effort at the times when you wanted to go home, give up or take a break.
o Thank you for staying positive when the world around you is so difficult and negative.
o Thank you for your ideas to make us better, even when I forget to ask you what you think.
o Thank you for responding to the needs of your fellow employees – in work and life – without any prompting from management.
o Thank you for insisting on greatness when even we don’t set the example.
o Thank you for working to connect emotionally with our customers and to building great relationships, even though we make you follow some outdated rules.
o Thank you for asking about me and my family, even if I forget to ask about yours.
o Thank you for your loyalty, even in the times where I haven’t earned it.

Gratitude is a greatness encourager. Gratitude allows us the ability to see not just what we have, but to see the value in what we have. Gratitude encourages each of us to reach higher because we feel valued, respected and important. And though we think first of Thanksgiving as a family day, the best workplaces are those that help their employees feel like family.

May you be grateful for your teams, their effort and their wisdom – and may they continue to be part of your workplace family. Happy (Employee) Thanksgiving.

Please share this with someone who can benefit from it and find a way to thank each employee. Be sure to see information on my new book, The Greatness Zone – Know Yourself, Find Your Fit, Transform the World – a great gift for employees to help them discover and live in their “zone” – at www.TheGreatnessZone.com.

Consider asking these questions of both customers and employees to assess and ultimately activate their emotional connection. Emotional connection inspires loyalty.

1. Would you recommend us to a friend? To a customer, is your service so exceptional you would put your reputation on the line to recommend the company? To an employee – is the workplace dynamic, engaging and personalized enough to suggest your friends work there as well?
2. What is the best thing we do for you? For both, knowing this allows the organization to repeat successful behaviors.
3. What is not working for you right now? For both, inviting the discussion to share negative things that may not be addressed without the prompting.
4. At our company, we focus on making others feel like family; how have we made you feel like our family? For both, activating the sense of connection to family and belonging is key to creating personal relationships and activating loyalty. Behaviors identified in the responses can be repeated.
5. What information do you hear from your social networks and do you see in the world around you that would help us be a better company? Customers and employees are the eyes and ears of all great companies. Loyal employees and customers openly share what they hear, think, value and see. Organizations dramatically expand their connection to their world by using engaged and loyal customers to observe and assess their worlds. This keeps companies informed, current and aware of what is truly important.

Customers and employees both require a personal and emotional relationship to activate their best performance and loyalty. The more connected management is to employees, and employees are to customers, the more important and valued both feel.

In a service workplace, success is built through relationships. Valued employees create valued customers. Disconnect from employees and customer and performance, innovation and loyalty suffers. Develop a culture that constantly asks great questions of each, and uses the information to improve, engage and activate loyalty.

Please forward this to someone who can benefit from it and contact me to help you build a workplace that inspires both customer and employee loyalty. It will show in your bottom line. More information at www.LiveFiredUp.com.

What had me thinking about mushrooms is a program I have been presenting to companies on workplace culture – and how it inspires or destroys exceptional employee performance.

Most organizations, particularly in the recession, have reverted back to the mushroom culture – the culture of keeping employees in the dark and feeding them half-truths. Think how dangerous this is to performance, customer loyalty, employee loyalty and business sustainability.

In a highly connected workplace, employees need constant clear contact from management – to keep things focused and to successfully manage the information employees encounter during the day. In the absence of clear communication from management, employees fill in the details with supposition, hearsay and misinformation. Limiting information in today’s workplace is the same as taking away manufacturing employees’ equipment and still holding them responsible for their work.

So, in a challenging economy, it time to reassess whether you have a mushroom or an open-air culture:

1. Is there a constant flow of information from management to employees? This could be in the form of a weekly e-mail, post on an intranet or even a recorded call.

2. Is there an easy and effective flow of information from employees to management? Is it easy for employees to share what they hear, think about and are concerned with? This could be an idea center on the intranet, a special management e-mail site for ideas or comments or other idea centers.

3. Is every effort made to keep the organization aware and focused on events that affect the strategy, direction and business purpose? Constant repetition of the mission statement, key strategic objectives, customer service slogans, etc. helps employees stay aware of what is important among the significant distractions they encounter each day.

When we find ourselves in new or challenging territory, we frequently share less of what we know and think; we play our hand close to the vest. As we do this, our employees do not know how to respond. They need our guidance and constant communication to help them stay focused and to navigate a changing workplace. The best ideas for responding to any challenging or constantly changing environment do not come from being kept in the dark. We all work better when we love where we work.

Please contact me to help you develop a powerful employee-focused workplace culture. Be sure to forward this to someone who can benefit from it.

An M&M’s real value is in its filling, not in its candy coating – the inside matters more than the outside. It is the same with hiring employees and voting for candidates.

You can’t tell by looking at someone if he will be a good or poor fit for a role. As with the M&M (the candy coating on the outside doesn’t add any particular value to taste or to the candy), a person’s age, gender, ethnicity, religion or even sexual preference has no direct correlation to his/her ability to be great in a job. An extraordinary customers service employee is one who is a great listener, empathetic, problem solver and solution-focused. An extraordinary political candidate must be visionary, strategic, a great listener and a consensus-builder. These attributes could be in a 65-year old woman, or in a 23-year old man. These attributes could be in a black employee, or a gay white middle-age Greek man. Greatness is not based on the exterior.

We can’t assess who is a good fit if we don’t hear meaningful dialog about what candidates (political and employment) believe and think. In the workplace we host interviews. We ask talent-based questions to determine how candidates would handle actual workplace situations to assess their thinking and fit – their “filling.” We then hire those who have the talents, passions and strengths to be successful, and celebrate their “candy coating” – whatever it may be. We hire the best. Great organizations hire for the “inside” and celebrate the “outside.”

I am reminded of this as I watch our electoral campaigning. Candidate debates and speeches are our way of “interviewing” candidates for “fit” – to assess their talents, passions and strengths and to see if they are the right for the role. When all we hear are attacks on other candidates we do not have the necessary information to choose wisely about a candidate and we allow our biases to limit our options – so many Americans still have a problem with a black president, gay cabinet members and women on the Supreme Court. We are in an age where the best person for the job is the one that has the talents, passions and strengths (the filling) to do the job – CEO, customer service, senator or judge. I see a constant focus on candy coating instead of filling in the workplace: I also see it in government.

As you hire employees or go to vote, focus on a candidate’s ability to do the job in an extraordinary way, make a difference and add value. You’ll find when you hire or vote for “fit” you’ll get a more passionate, engaged and productive employee or candidate. Things get done. Progress gets made.

One of the reasons I think we are stuck in “average” is we continue to use outdated thinking in both who works in our companies and who works in our government. Shouldn’t we demand performance greatness from both? Shouldn’t we require both to be fully accountable for results? Shouldn’t we improve this process by hiring for fit – by hiring for “filling,” not candy coating?

Maybe if we learn from the M&M, we’ll elect and hire those who show up committed to making a difference. Maybe if we realize it is what you know, what you are good at and how you use what you know to handle today on today’s terms that generates results, we’ll choose wisely about who we want on our team. Who knew there would be so much wisdom in an M&M?

But even though you aren’t great at everything, you are great at some things. Find those and build them into your job and you excel. Find those and you have the potential to move from good to great.

Today’s best performance happens (supported by Gallup, Marcus Buckingham, Daniel Pink, Seth Godin) when an employee is both good at what the job requires and likes doing it. This means today’s managers must function more as “engage-and-inspire” coaches than “command-and-control” sergeants. They must get better at building strong relationships to know their employees’ talents, values and interests, to find ways to activate their emotional connection to their work. And it all starts with a clear understanding of what employees are good at – because great performance can never happen if employees do not feel capable and competent.

I am working with an organization that is in the process of changing its hiring process away from using standard job descriptions requiring candidates to have similar work experience. Remember, just because an employee has done a job before does not ensure the employee was both good at the job and liked doing it – both now required for exceptional performance. Instead, this organization now uses a Talent Matrix, a summary of the key talents, team talents and core skills that will encourage success in the role. They look for people are are naturally capable and interested in the responsibilities of the job. From this information they can better advertize what they need, source candidates that are a better fit and more successfully hire higher performing people.

At a time when employees are now more in front of customers (and therefore constantly building or destroying your brand), hiring the right employee is now the most critical component of activating sustainable and exceptional performance. This requires finding employees who are capable, competent and passionate about the responsibilities of the job. When these employees are hired, they are good at and interested in doing exceptional things for customers, which actives customer loyalty and strong results.

Call to action:
Do you know how to hire in an intellectual age? Do you know the attributes that will make an employee successful in each role?

Resources to get you where you need to be:
Check out Awesomely Simple by John Spence and my book, Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition. Contact me if you need my help to learn how to attract and hire the right employees.

Though our workplace has changed, most companies still hold onto an outdated approach to hiring employees, resulting in performance and retention problems.

We are in a service workplace; much of manufacturing has moved offshore. Instead of performing repetitive tasks, employees now creatively invent service responses on the spot; each response must be “customerized” – appropriate for each customer. The better the service event, the more committed and loyal the customer. The more committed the customer, the more significant the bottom-line results. And at the center of this process is the employee – the right one can win customers for life. The wrong one can send them away forever.

Hiring the right employee is now more critical than ever. Though this is critical, most organizations do not have great success hiring the right employees for these two reasons:

1. Organizations continue to use outdated job descriptions that do not define the key performance attributes needed to be successful in the job. The do not assess, define and articulate the talents, strengths, passions and critical skills (performance attributes) needed to be successful in each role. Without a proper way to assess and define the performance attributes of a job, the organization is unable to share these requirements with potential job candidates – and the wrong candidates apply.

2. Job candidates are not very self-aware. They do not know their talents, strengths, passions and critical skills, so even if a company can define what the required performance attributes, most people don’t know whether they are a good fit for the job. This complicates the hiring process and increases the probability of hiring the wrong employee.

Both sides are at fault. Both sides need to change and to meet someplace in the middle.

Organizations must now clearly define the talents, passions, strengths and performance skills need to be successful in each role. This allows the organization to share these success attributes so that job seekers can assess their fit for the role. For the organizations I consult with, I use a Talent Matrix – a one-page summary of the performance talents, team talents, and skills and experience needed to be successful in each role in the organization. From this information, organizations can more successfully source candidates who have the required hard-wired attributes.

Job candidates must become more self-aware; they must make the effort know their talents, passions and strengths to be able to assess whether these attributes match the attributes required in the job. I coach organizations to require job candidates to apply using a talent-based resume; skill and experience resumes are rejected. A talent-based resume summarizes the job candidate’s primary talents, key work experience (that showcases the talents) and other valuable performance information that helps the hiring manager assess whether the job candidate would be a fit in the current employment opportunity. And to be able to complete a talent-based resume, a job seeker must be well aware of his/her strongest performance attributes. This encourages job candidates to only apply for jobs that seem a good fit and results in fewer, but better, candidates for hiring managers to review.

Your bottom-line success is based on your ability to have highly engaged and passionate employees doing great things for customers. The primary component of employee engagement is employee fit. Employees who are good at what the job requires and passionate about doing it, do the work in an epic way. This requires hiring the right employees.

So to get it right, both sides need to improve the hiring process. When both improve, it will be an easier and more effective process to align the right employee to the right roles – employee performance, satisfaction and loyalty improves; the organization’s bottom line improves. With such critical things at stake this is a change that cannot wait.

Contact me to learn about the Talent Matrix, my work on talent-based interviewing and the talent-based resume. The way to fire up your employees is to first get them in the right jobs.