A lot has been written lately about “employee engagement” . . . some of it right here. The Gallup organization, which has studied it for many years, says employee engagement can be measured by the strength of the emotional connection an employee feels toward his or her company. If the employee sings the company song,
“Be the last to speak.”
Simon Sinek is one of our favorite speakers on business topics. In our last posting, we talked about one of his “10 Rules for Success” . . . namely, the importance of continuous improvement. He challenges us to ask, every day, “How can we make our company a better company today than it was yesterday?”
“The art of delegation is one of the key skills any entrepreneur must master.”
The stereotypical entrepreneur is a guy running around with his or her hair on fire, pushing all the buttons, pulling all the levers, and wearing all the hats. We’re all wired a little bit differently, but ultimately, we all reach the limit of what we can do alone, and when we do reach that point,
“Has anyone ever said, ‘I wish I could go to more meetings today’?”
Everybody complains about meetings . . . they’re too long, boring, and don’t accomplish anything. Or as humorist Dave Barry puts it, “If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’ “ Unfortunately, too many
“Much of what we call management today consists of making it difficult for people to work.”
Noted business author and keynote speaker, Dan Pink, talks about motivation . . . a lot. He talks about what motivates us and what does not. He talks about which motivators work and which do not. One of his favorite topics is “if-then” motivators. “If you do this, then you’ll get that.” Those motivators grew
“You cannot expect to perform at a high level unless people are personally engaged.”
Doug Conant is the former CEO of Campbell’s Soup Company. When he assumed that position in 2001, he says the environment at Campbell’s was “toxic.” One third of his 20,000 employees were looking for jobs elsewhere. He and his team attacked the problem with a strategy of “employee engagement.” As a result, he was able
“Change with the world – or it will change without you.”
Kristin van Ogtrop is the editor of Real Simple, a monthly lifestyle magazine for women. In a recent edition of Time magazine, she wrote an opinion piece entitled, “There’s a difference between a boss and a friend, and that’s as it should be.” In it, she bemoans a lot of research done by the Gallup
Using DISC for fun and profit . . . and did I mention it’s FREE?!
Would you be interested in a behavioral assessment tool that can help you: Strengthen your communication skills? Build your leadership abilities as well as your coaching and mentoring skills? Reduce personal and organizational conflict, stress, and turnover? Make better hiring decisions? Learn to appreciate behavioral strengths, challenges and differences in yourself and in others? Increase
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
Today we have more ways to communicate with one another than ever before. Of course, we have face-to-face spoken communication which we have had for thousands of years (although we seem to be doing that less and less). We also have old-fashioned written communications such as letters, newspapers, magazines, books, etc. These too we’ve had
“How High Is Your XQ?”
Earlier this year, Eliza Gray, a staff writer for Time magazine, wrote an article about the “era of optimized hiring.” In it, she explains that many companies today are requiring job applicants to submit to personality tests. And we’re not talking about just applicants for upper management jobs, we’re talking about everybody from the executive
