Posts Tagged ‘fire up your employees’

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Get Your Employees Out Of Their Comfort Zones

Monday, February 10th, 2014

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.

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2014- The Year of the Fired Up! Employee

Monday, January 13th, 2014

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.

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Strategizing Success in 2014

Monday, December 2nd, 2013

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.

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I Hope You Aren’t Still Using Job Descriptions

Wednesday, June 19th, 2013

Job descriptions are a holdout from the industrial age.They define the repetitive (non-changing) and static responsibilities of a job. So picture a manufacturing process that becomes more effective and efficient the more someone follows a strict set of procedures. This is an ideal environment for job descriptions.

But check out today’s work. The statistic is that 93% of today’s businesses are now service-based; much of manufacturing has moved offshore. Employees have moved from behind machines to face-to-face encounters with customers in the delivery of service. The result is that there is great variety and flexibility needed in each job.Customers want what they want and how they want it. It is up to the employee to perform a variety of tasks (not the same ones over and over) in order to determine which one or ones are needed at this precise moment to successfully complete what a customer needs and to deliver it in a way that inspires customer loyalty. Today, it is better to think of job activities instead of job descriptions.

A change to job activities is critical for two reasons:

1. It shares the range of tasks an employee will need to consider and to be proficient in to succeed in the job (already this reminds the employee of the need to be responsive and flexible).

2. We can look behind these activities to define the behaviors needed to successfully perform these activities.

Ultimately, we use job activities (and the behaviors the require) as a means to define the talents, skills and experience that an employee will need to have to be successful in the job. With a strict job description focus, we only look at skill and experience. We only look at the specific steps needed to be completed instead of considering the thinking, flexibility, personality and attitude also needed to complete the role – and all that the role may include. You can see how this can significantly change how you hire employees who better fit the role.

The most obvious example is in retail or a restaurant. The job descriptions of “wait on tables,” for instance, looks to create a one-size-fits-all approach. Waiting on tables requires a wide variety of activities including proper order-taking, providing recommendations, building personal contact, proper order processing, delivering food, processing payments, etc. Which, when and how each of these are done is ultimately up to the server as he assesses the situation. Following a rote set of steps provides the same approach to all customers – most don’t like this. And by reviewing the activities, we have greater insight into the abilities – talents, strengths and passions – needed by the employee to be successful handling these activities. This improves our ability to hire employees who fit.

Reconsider your job descriptions. Instead, identify job activities – all of the functions that a role may require – sometimes they are done, sometimes not – and include the required thinking necessary to know when and how to deliver these activities. This flexibility and awareness of all that is expected is how today’s best employees deliver service that inspires loyalty. And loyal customers not only come back, but they become your best marketing.

Update with the times. Create job activities, not job descriptions. Allow your employees the freedom to use which activity is needed at which time to improve their performance and response. And from job activities can come performance expectations – how to create job performance accountability (our next newletter and blog post).

Please  to learn how to hire based on talents, strengths and passions in an easy-to-learn step-by-step process called our Fire Up! Process. We are hosting one-day workshops that will help you become proficient at attracting and hiring the right employees. We use job activities to help define the behaviors needed in each job.

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