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When the recession hit just over 5 years ago, company after company laid off some of their best people in an effort to cut costs. They released amazing talent to the workplace that other savvy companies were able to hire in a moment to build a more powerful team. These savvy companies know that to survive a recession, they can’t stay the same. They know to get the best people and find/create new opportunities. Many of these companies had a windfall when others had a fall.

There is a misconception that when tough economic times happen, opportunities diminish; that the best way to respond to a down economy is to cut back on spending and scale things back. However, as many wise companies that survived the recession know, when times get tough you activate your teams into becoming opportunity hunters. You keep your best talent and have them go out and find new and meaningful ways of adding value.

Consider the following to help your employees become better at opportunity hunting:

1. Share meaningful information. It is impossible for employees to create or find high-value ideas if they are not able to know what is fact, true and meaningful. Be sure information moves easily in the organization – both up and down the organizational structure.
2. Raise the expectations. Celebrate new ideas, meaningful risk-taking and pushing the limits. Share success stories of ideas that turned into successes and regularly ask employees for their best ideas. If you don’t ask, they won’t deliver.
3. Share the wealth. When something new and valuable is implemented, share some of the value back with those who created it, researched it or implemented it. Remember the adage, “what gets rewarded gets repeated.” Draw attention to remarkable work and ideas by sharing the wealth.
4. Be an opportunity-hunter. Leaders must model the behavior. Many of the managers and leaders I know are not opportunity-hunters; they focus on doing the business the same way each day/week/month/year. But those who openly search out and bring new ways of doing things in the workplace, new products and services and new ways to stay relevant, inspire their employees to do the same. Employees watch what leaders do more than what they say.

Successful organizations train, empower and incentivize their employees to be opportunity hunters. The remind employees that they are the eyes and the ears of the organization, gathering information and looking for ways to connect their unique capabilities and the organization’s core abilities to provide new and meaningful applications. Many of the organizations that failed in the recession held firmly to who they were instead of rethinking how to reinvent and repackage what they do best to address a new and changed world and workplace; they clung to their outdated script and quickly became irrelevant or non-competitive.

How opportunity-focused are you and your employees? What two things could you start today that could increase performance and results?

Need help? Our Fire Up! coaches are experts in assisting organizations in creative thinking, value-building and driving performance. Contact us or review our performance workshops – they focus on talent, culture, service and leadership – the four pillars of outstanding organizations.

You have just finished a marathon day – nearly 12 hours. Because of the heat, customers in your business seemed more short-tempered than normal. Despite this, every customer was well treated, the service level remained high and your attitude was great. In fact, you don’t quite know how you pulled it off.

Finally, it is quitting time. You are dreaming about the pie you’ll have for dessert and how great a long cool shower will feel. You walk by your manager’s office and say, “That was quite a day.” He looks up at you and agrees, and follows it with, “see you in the morning.” You loiter for a moment only to see your manager finish what he was working on; you keep moving towards the door, shrug and make your way in the dark to your car…

How do you feel? Why?

Okay, same situation, different ending… You have just finished a marathon day – nearly 12 hours… You walk by your manager’s office and say, “That was quite a day.” This time  instead of dismissing you like he did in the earlier version, he now calls out, “Do you have one more minute?” You return to his office. He says, “Thanks for doing so well today. We really showed the customers what we are made of. I don’t know about you but I was really proud of everyone today.” You smile and nod. Your manager adds, “Tell your family I’m sorry to have kept you so late – tell them I’ll make it up to them when things slow down.” You smile and tell your manager not to worry about it. He stands and shakes your hand and adds a final, “I really appreciated your effort today. Thanks again – and get some rest tonight.” You make your way out the door and to your car in the dark….

Now, how do you feel? Why? What changed?

They say the two things people want more than money are praise and recognition. To be noticed for hard work, for extra effort, for great energy is one of the most motivating things a manager can do for his/her people. All it takes is some time and thought.

Rewards and recognition are critical tools of today’s best managers. In order to compete in this constantly changing and dramatic business environment, companies need to use every tool available to them to direct their business and control their success. Remember the phrase, what gets rewarded, gets repeated. When you see your employees put in the extra effort, take a greater degree of responsibility, give personally or act seamlessly as a team, be sure to comment on it. Notice it. Applaud it. If nothing gets noticed or recognized, then you will get nothing (special) from them.

“High-performing companies have abundant recognition,” says Harvard professor, consultant and author Rosabeth Moss Kanter. They use it in conjunction with a sound compensation and benefits program – to get the most from their employees. “At a time when companies are dependent on extraordinary skills and talents of their employees just to survive, it is especially important for employees to be reminded that extra efforts are noticed and rewarded.”

The best way to use recognition effectively is to:

• Customize its delivery – be sure that it matches the personality and character of the person receiving the recognition (some people want recognition in private, others want a billboard).

• Be honest and sincere in its delivery – speak from the heart or people will see through it.

• Do it at the right time – catch your people in the act of doing something right. Celebrate it when you see it.

Recognition done right is a powerful tool in attracting great employees and encouraging them to stay. Exceptional organizations continually encourage exceptional employee performance – they catch employees in the act of doing something great and applaud it. That helps the employee to see that exceptional performance gets them noticed; they feel appreciated and energized to give and do more.Everyone likes (and needs) a regular pat on the back.

Please contact us to learn how to build meaningful reward and recognition programs into your workplace and culture, and share this with someone who can benefit from it. Remember, how you treat your employees is how your employees will treat your customers. Don’t be cheap with praise.

Fit and alignment are two words that most affect every workplace manager’s job. Fit – do you hire employees who have the behaviors, in addition to the skills and experience that fit the job? Alignment – are you constantly looking for ways to align your employees’ greatest abilities to the needs, challenges and opportunities in your business?

Let’s start at the beginning: talent. Having the right talent – people who have the behaviors and interests to successfully and consistently do the work (who fit the job) – is the key difference between average and exceptional performing organizations. This requires understanding the activities the job is responsible for then assessing which behaviors must an employee have to be successful at these activities. Using this thinking, behaviors become obvious. Does this role require the person to be driven, focused, methodical and analytical, or persuasive, charismatic, nurturing and kind?

Core behaviors are hardwired in us; we can’t influence a non-analytical person to be analytical or non-creative person to be intrinsically creative. Hire for fit means identifying the thinking the job needs based on the activities it performs, then sourcing employees who have those behaviors.

Once the right employees are hired into the organization – the next focus is alignment. Though the employee is a good fit for his current role, employees always have greater abilities and interests than just those required for the job. The more we know our employees, the more we see their other talents, interests and values. As we better understand the needs, challenges and opportunities in our business, we can then go to these additional abilities in our team to get things done.

For example, if an employee who works in customer service (hired well because her talents and strengths align to those needed in the role) has additional strengths in writing and performing, she may be the right choice to develop a company’s marketing jingle or starting an internal company newsletter. Or, an employee who is a good fit for the sales role he is hired into, has a passion for sports; he then could be involved in a fitness challenge for the organization, or the creation of a company softball league to build camaraderie and company spirit. As we align a greater amount of our employees to their work and workplace, we connect them at a greater personal and emotional level.This impacts their level of energy, engagement and performance.

We are all much larger and more able than our jobs require. First, hiring for fit assures we are capable in our jobs. Then, by spending time with each employee to know his additional talents, values and interests, today’s managers can better connect and align his team to opportunities that are meaningful to both the employee AND the organization.

Fit and alignment – the two things to watch for to ensure today’s employees show up interested, capable and competent in their work. It is management’s responsibility to make this happen.

At TGZ Group, we are experts at helping organizations define the talents needed by role to hire for fit. We also train managers to job sculpt to align employees to tasks that connect their additional abilities to the needs, challenges and opportunities in the workplace. Contact us for more information and to learn how this process can help you engage and inspire your workforce to greater performance.

There is a part of our brain that hates change. Maybe hate is too strong of a word, but our brain wants to feel safe and in control, and when change happens, we feel out of control. So, our natural feeling is to avoid what makes us feel unsafe – we avoid change.

The problem is we then get stuck doing what we always do; we become afraid to try new things. We get stuck in our comfort zones, ready to do each day what we did the day before. For an organization this is a death wish because nothing stays the same; organizations that don’t change, disappear.

In the workplace we need our employees to be our eyes and ears – connecting us more powerfully and actually to our world. We need our employees to constantly offer ideas to push us forward – to move ahead, try new things and invent. How likely is this if our employees just want to hunker down and stay where they are? We’ll have to help them get out of their comfort zones. Here’s how:

1. Make change the daily discussion. Most times employees are afraid of change is because management is afraid of change. Instead, welcome change as a workplace value – a critical belief of workplace success. Start each day with some news or review of the outside world and its impact on the business. For example, in teaching our multiple-day workshops, we start the day with the statement and question – “When you went to bed last night, the world changed. How has any of this change affected what you do and how you do it?” Even if nothing specific needs changing, employees learn to watch for change.

2. Be a change lover. Our employees take the lead from us; how we perceive change is directly influencing how they perceive it. Be a change lover by openly accepting how things are, and always responding to them with optimism and ideas. The more upbeat and focused on success managers are, the more they influence the attitudes and perceptions of employees; we inspire our employees to share this “can-do” instead of a “will-fear” attitude.

3. Connect change with success. We have learned that change is fearful. We can also learn that change is exciting and successful. Create a change success dashboard. Track new and innovative projects and responses to help employees see the tangible impact of moving out of their comfort zones – of embracing change and using it to be more clever, creative and responsive.

4. Require daily learning. The more we expand our minds, the more aware we become of learning and appreciating new things; we become less fearful. This is due partly because we know more (and knowledge is a powerful antidote to the fear of change) and our thinking expands. We develop comfort with our greater abilities; we become more competent and therefore more courageous.

Change inspires fear. To end the fear and employees’ tenacious holding on to their comfort zones, support, empower, inspire and educate employees about change – and how to use change as springboard to greater opportunities and successes.

 to learn more about how our performance workshops, coaching and consulting are helping organizations and employees welcome and use change to drive results and stay ahead. The sooner you learn how to accept and work with change, the sooner it becomes a resource and not an obstacle.

Who do you know that says, “I love working here”? So many people think of work as a four-letter word. They tolerate it – or  even make peace with it; few really love it. But what if they did? What could be different if employees actually liked what they did and liked their team and company? How much better could results be?

To get to a “I love working here” workplace requires that management do several important things:

1. Create an employee-focused workplace culture. It is management’s responsibility to create a workplace culture that applauds, supports and engages its employees. We don’t love working in a place that doesn’t openly value, support and appreciate us. Many times organizations are so focused on results that they forget the results happen through, not around, their employees. Creating a high-energy, opportunity-focused, resilient, adaptive, creative, playful, nurturing and productive workplace connects employees emotionally and personally to their work, workplace and management. Create competitions, host workplace events, offer training, and celebrate promotions are some of the ways to bring a positive and anabolic energy to the workplace.

2. Hire employees into roles that fit their abilities and interests. Nothing helps us feel more defeated that feeling like we don’t know what to do in our work, or that we are just average at it. You can’t love a job that you don’t feel capable and competent in. By hiring employees who are a better behavioral fit, employees feel more intellectually and emotionally connected to their work. They are good at it. They like it. It suits them. Their teammates see them as talented and important to the organization. Confidence breeds engagement. Expand your hiring process to define and assess for behavioral qualifications. (We have tools for this if you need help). 

3. Solicit and use ideas from employees. For some reason, many of today’s managers believe that it is up to them to come up with the brilliant ideas about the important stuff in the workplace. Actually, employees are the eyes and ears of the organization and have access to so much more information than ever before. Constantly ask for their ideas, thoughts and suggestions. Challenge them to find and create opportunities for the organization’s success. And use the ideas that are valuable. Employees feel included and important.

Why don’t more employees say “I love working here”? In most cases it is simply because we as managers haven’t owned the process of making employees feel emotionally and personally connected to their work. And if we could help them love their work,  there is a good chance that their loyalty and performance would both also improve.

Contact us to learn how to create a fired up workplace that has employees who love what they do. More information at FireUpYourEmployees.com.

Your people are your profits. The more engaged, passionate and fired up they are, the greater your results. So, what if you made 2014, the year of the Fired Up! Employee? What could you do to activate the performance power of your employees in a more significant way that gives you exponential results? Worth trying? Here are some ideas:

1. Hire the right employees. Employees who are not good at what the job requires or like doing it, are nearly impossible to fire up. Employees who have the talents and passions to do the job, show up big. In 2014, be sure to define the behaviors required in each job, in addition to skill and experience. If you hire employees simply based on whether they have done the job before, you have no indication if they are both good at the job and interested in doing it (these are the components of powerful performance). Defining the behaviors means defining the attributes or thinking that is needed to do the activities in the job – for example to be successful in the job, the employee must be methodical, empathetic, competitive, analytical, engaging, decisive, etc. Couple behaviors with skill and experience and you hire better fit employees.

2. Make your workplace all about your employees. Sure, your business is all about your customers, but only after it is all about your employees. Employee-focused workplace cultures support their employees in all they do so employees can concentrate their entire effort on customers. Cultures that are employee-focused have a clearly defined vision/mission, are ethical, hire for fit, have fair and attainable rewards, provide constant performance feedback, provide education and development and are inclusive. Fired up! employees are fired up because their workplaces focus on ensuring they have what they need to be successful.

3. Talk to employees openly and honestly, about things that matter. Fired up! employees are included in the easy and the difficult conversations. They are fired up because they feel important amd valued – their perspectives, ideas and performance matter. Keeping information from employees encourages them to disconnect  – they lose their performance fire. Including them not only expands your return on payroll investment, but it taps into your employees greater thinking, ideas and solutions; it amplifies their sense of value, contribution and importance.

4. Set clear and big expectations. You know the phrase –people rise to the level of expectation. Fired up! employees first need to know the expectations (over 70% of employees admit that they are not clear about their full set of expectations in the workplace), then they need BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals). Go for something bigger, bolder and better this year. Fired up! employees want to show up big, play to win and achieve for their potential. Raise the standards and employees will dig deep and respond.

This year, we’ll constantly share ideas about what organizations can do to Fire Up! their employees – to have a year of Fired Up! performance. We are also stepping up our game and will start our Fire Up! Your Employees podcast on Feb 1. Watch for more details as we move from writing to speaking, and soon to videos, to share more powerful ways for you to help your employees show up, step up and stand out.

As always, good news needs to be shared and committing to the year of the fired up! employee is good news. Please share this with someone who can benefit from it. Contact us to hear about our CEO and executive coaching and watch on Feb 1 for our 5 new workshops, all designed to fire up your organization. More at FireUpYourEmployees.com.

At the start of each new year, I like to draft a letter to employees from management – offering a perspective that brings in the new year in a more significant way. Last’s year’s letter was about asking employees to commit to being better – at work, home and with the planet. By each of us committing to improve in every area of our lives, we can affect significant change.

This year’s letter is about asking questions. See, all the information employees need to show up more significantly in their jobs comes from asking powerful and important questions. Most employees, however, feel that management is supposed to provide all the information, or the workplace culture doesn’t openly encourage employees to challenge or ask. We need their eyes, ears, thoughts and questions to gather information to build an exceptional organization. This year’s letter is about encouraging employees to get good at asking questions and using the information gathered for great action. Please use this with your employees if you like the message.

 

To My Employees,

A new year is here. This is a great time for us to recommit to our organization’s vision, to our customers and to our employees.

Our success happens when we are clear about our direction, have accurate information, then build and implement our plan. All successful plans start with knowing the facts, challenging things that don’t work and inventing new possibilities. To get the facts, we have to become masters at asking powerful and meaningful questions– to expand what we know and to develop new and stronger actions to be extraordinary in 2014.

This year, don’t accept things as they are. Ask how they can be bigger, bolder and better. Ask how you can share ideas with others, invent new things and expand our influence as an organization. Get comfortable asking great questions then using what you learn to make us better.

Here are some examples of questions to ask in the workplace:

1. What is one thing I can do today that will connect me more significantly to my team, solve a challenge, inspire and engage another, save money, invent a new idea, improve my performance, tell our organization’s story, offer feedback, be open to feedback, etc.?

2. How can we make our contact with our customers more of an “event” so they become more impressed and more loyal?

3. What are two ways to save X% from our spending on ___________?

4. What is it that makes our workplace a great place to work, and how can we do more of it? What challenges our workplace as a great place to work and what can we change to improve it?

In this process of asking powerful workplace questions, you will see the value of asking powerful life questions to help you show up more significantly in all aspects of your life. Thank you for your effort, dedication and commitment to excellence.

Wishing you and your families a happy, healthy and successful 2014.

Best regards,

Your Manager

2014 is almost here. What are your financial, customer and human capital expectations for the new year? How clear are your employees about the 2014 initiatives and their role in achieving them?

This is the time of year that organizations are building their strategies for the new year. To help you in the process, I share a lesson that I was taught in my big Italian family. Every New Year’s day after a wonderful dinner, we would clear the plates and bring out the paper – time for New Year’s resolutions. My father guide us by using what he called the 3 Rs – Review, Rethink, Respond.

Review – We were to look back over the past year and identify our successes and challenges. What worked and what didn’t work? This gave us the critical information about what was true – from this point we were able to move forward on how the next year will capitalize on what was successful and what will need to be improved or different.In organizations this starts with the SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats). A SWOT analysis is an effective review tool as it provides the ability to develop an accurate view of what is true about the organization. However, at the Review point, I like to focus only on the S, W and T. Strengths – what your organizations excels at. Weaknesses – what your organization is failing at. Threats – what outside influences can or will affect your business that you may not have any control over but you will need to have a plan to deal with. These three give you a clear understanding of the business and the environment it is working in. We create O – Opportunities in the next step.

Rethink – As kids we were asked to use the information that our Review gave us to reinvent and rethink how the new year would be. With regard to your organization, this is the place to start to identify the O – Opportunities. Each of your Strengths becomes Opportunities – rethink how to do more of what you excel at. Each of your Weaknesses become Opportunities – rethink how to correct and improve what you are failing at. Each of your Threats become opportunities – Rethink how you can block, respond to or avoid a threat that may affect your organization. This is the place to start to develop your strategy by creating objectives for the following year that address your opportunities.

Respond – As kids, we were to then pick from the ideas and opportunities we created in the Rethink phase, and build an implementation plan – how we were going to achieve our particular goals through the next year. This was our family’s approach to New Year’s resolutions. In your organization, select the opportunities that will become your 2014 organizational objectives (my guidance is to limit them to 4 or 5). The organization owns the objectives; the departments then build their goals to achieve the objectives. Each person in the department then has his or her tactics to support the department’s goals. You then have an organizational, departmental and personal response plan.

Strategic planning starts with a Review – think the S, W and T. It then moves to Rethink with creating the Opportunities that will drive success in 2014 – created by exploiting Strengths, correcting Weaknesses or blocking Threats. It ends with Respond – where specific corporate 2014 objectives, departmental goals and employee tactics are created. This is how to start at the organizational level and push the strategy down to each employee.

Clarity about the direction, based on a thorough review of the facts, helps all departments and employees know what is important in 2014. From here, they can build, implement and be held accountable for progress on their plans. This is how the kids in a big Italian family moved forward each year. This is how great organizations use strategy to activate employee performance and achieve significant results.

For more information on strategic thinking, building a strategic plan and using the SWOT analysis to become an opportunity machine, contact one of our Fire Up! Your Employees® coaches. We are experts in guiding organizations in effective strategic planning to transform results.

This is what an employee of a client of mine said to me this week. He continued, “And that we should only hire the talented people.”

This is worthy of a conversation. All people are talented.Each person has unique abilities that make him or her amazing at some things and very average at others. No one person is amazing at everything. Aligning employees’ abilities to areas that need what they do best and they will earn the title “talented” – capable, awesome, expert.

Another way to say this is that only some people fit the job. Only some people have the unique abilities that match the abilities needed to successful and consistently do the activities needed in the job. This is how to define talent – right abilities and fit for the job. Obviously, knowing how to define these abilities needed in the job allows companies to better source people who have what it takes to succeed in the job.

As a workplace coach and human capital consultant, I still see most organizations still rely on experience as the primary criteria from which to hire. The thinking is that if someone has been able to do the job in the past (mind you we don’t know at what level), they will therefore be able to do the job in my workplace.

But the statistics about employee engagement from the Gallup Organization shares that only 29% of employees show up proficient, passionate and engaged in their work. This low percentage happens because most employees are in jobs that don’t align to their core or best abilities – they don’t feel or act talented.

To be successful in today’s workplace, employees have to be good at the job (they have the right talents and abilities for the job) and like doing it (they have an interest or passion in the job). Just having experience doesn’t mean that an employee is both good at the job and likes doing it. I have spoken to many employees who move from job to job, blaming the companies when the real problem is they choose a job that they have experience in but no real interest or aptitude in.

A waitress I met a couple of months ago said it best. I was asking about items on the menu because I have some food allergies. She told me that I had to take the food the way they prepare it or I could leave. I asked what she thought that response would do for my loyalty; she quickly said she didn’t care. She said she has been working as a waitress for 25 years and has always hated that people want to make changes to the menu. She even offered that doesn’t like people.

On the resume this waitress had the experience. In the real world, she doesn’t have the talents for this job; she doesn’t fit. So if experience continues to be the lead criteria instead of talents and behaviors, this candidate would have looked like a likely high performer. True, if management knows about talent-based interviewing, there is a chance she could be found out in the interview process. But more than likely, she would be hired and then brought the same disappointing service to the new establishment’s customers. Though she has talents (because we all do) hers do not align to a job that puts her in regular face-to-face contact with others.

So, it is not true that only some people are talented. It is true, however, that only some people fit the job because of the thinking, talents and passions needed in the job to perform at a successful level. Define the talents needed in the job. Source those who have both the experience AND the talents and you access what it takes to create loyal and engaged employees.

For more information on rethinking your hiring or job alignment process, contact one of our Fire Up! workplace coaches, or see the tools and programs at FireUpYourEmployees.com.

“Don’t sit this one out,” is a statement one of my CEO clients says to his staff. He continues, “Show up, step up and stand out – there is no room for any employee to sit out anything in the workplace.”

Statistics still show that employee engagement is still a problem. According to the Gallup Organization, fifty-two percent of employees do just enough not to get fired – they are disinterested in and disengaged from their work.Add to that 19% of employees who actively hate their jobs and then number of average performers moves to over 70% – employees who choose to “sit this one out” – to not show up passionate, committed and focused on performing. What kind of company can you have when more than two thirds of your employees choose not to bring their A-game to work?

Employee engagement – the discretionary effort employees bring to their work – continues to be a problem in many companies. Let me share some of what this CEO has implemented in his company to encourage his people not to sit this one out.

1. He ensures information moves freely. Create an obstacle to information and both engagement and performance suffer. A-level employees want to work in organizations that share all information – the important and the trivial – so employees are constantly informed. It is hard to be engaged and excited about work if you don’t what is true or what is happening next. Increase management communication with employees; create an intranet, send a weekly email or host team meetings. Insist that information not only be timely and accurate, but that all employees be part of the information flow.

2. He ensures performance expectations are clear. A particular form of information that needs to be absolutely clear is performance expectations. Performance expectations define the performance “done right” – this is so employees know what the completed task done well looks like. With the clarity of expectations, the employee now has the ability to determine how to achieve the expectation – employees have a performance voice and ownership in the process. Ownership increases engagement.

3. He ensures that all employees contribute improvement ideas. Train employees to be opportunity-hunters; have them regularly review every aspect of the business and suggest ways to add greater value, improve the quality of the service event or anticipate a future challenge. Applaud employees for their ability to watch, connect and focus on ways to improve.

4. He ensures everyone is held accountable. By training managers to become more coach-like, employees are held more accountable for not only their results, but their thinking. Managers are trained in how to coach their employees – how to ask more questions to help them generate their solutions and own their performance.Shifting managers’ mindsets out of telling into asking and holding accountable shifts the role of manager throughout the organization.

In great organizations, committed to doing great work, there is no room for anyone to sit any part of the day out.These organizations hire based on talent, define performance expectations, move information freely, think innovatively and hold each other accountable. These steps are intentional – to raise the performance and engagement of each employee.

How engaged are your employees and what are you doing to constantly improve it? If your team is close to the national average where 70% of employees are in some form of disengagement, what will you do today to change things? When it comes to employee performance and engagement, you just have to get it right.

Need help engaging and inspiring great performance from your team? , we are certified workplace coaches who have developed the Fired Up! Process - talent-based tools to help you attract, hire and retain today’s best employees. We can help.