Effective Staff Management (e-book)

Head Start

Effective Staff Management Hiring, Retaining, Motivating, Team-Building, Professional Development, and Performance Management

Lesa Hammond 12/4/2009

Lesa Hammond

Lesa Hammond

Table of Contents

Workshop Notes ______________________________________________________________ 5

On Hiring… _______________________________________________________________________ 6

On Leadership… ___________________________________________________________________ 7

On Team Building… _______________________________________________________________ 11

On Motivating Employees… _________________________________________________________ 13

On Retention… ___________________________________________________________________ 14

Hiring _____________________________________________________________________ 17

Hiring: The Five Essentials of Hiring Exceptional Employees _______________________________ 18

The Five Best Interview Questions I've Heard (or Asked) __________________________________ 21

Leadership and Your Style _____________________________________________________ 22

Leading Through Values ____________________________________________________________ 23

Leadership: The Failure To Motivate Or "Get A Rope" ____________________________________ 25

Six Emotional Leadership Styles (Primal Leadership) _____________________________________ 30

Vroom-Yetton: Normative Decision Model _____________________________________________ 32

Building an Effective Team ____________________________________________________ 34

Tuckman Model: Stages of Team Development _________________________________________ 35

What Makes a Great Team? ________________________________________________________ 36

A new body of knowledge for more effective team building _______________________________ 38

The Business Case for Developing Emotional Intelligence Skills ____________________________ 40

About the Author _________________________________________________________________ 42

Team Building Exercises: Tips to Regroup and Stay Fit ____________________________________ 43

Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees ________________________________________________________ 44

Motivating Employees: Understand the Five Types of Motivation to Get the Most from Your Employees ______________________________________________________________________ 45

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Challenge-Driven Employee ________________________ 46

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Team-Driven Employee ____________________________ 47

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Rewards-Driven Employee _________________________ 48

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Reputation-Driven Employee _______________________ 49

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Purpose-Driven Employee __________________________ 50

Retention __________________________________________________________________ 51

The True Cost of Turnover __________________________________________________________ 52

Employee Retention: Confronting Problem Managers ____________________________________ 56

Lesa Hammond

Workshop Notes

This section is reserved for note taking during the workshop.

Lesa Hammond

On Hiring…

The Interview: 5 Things to Know

1) __________________________________________________________________

2) __________________________________________________________________

3) __________________________________________________________________

4) __________________________________________________________________

5) __________________________________________________________________

Lesa Hammond

On Leadership…

Situational Leadership

Ken Blanchard Situational Leadership Model: Author of the One Minute Manager and Situational Leadership and The One Minute Manager.

Lesa Hammond

Your Conflict Resolution Style

Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann (1972) identified 5 different conflict styles

Lesa Hammond

Giving Constructive Feedback

Three Essentials of Positive Feedback

1) Be ___________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

2) Describe your Reaction __________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________________

3) Be ___________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________________

Four Essential Elements of Corrective Feedback

1) Be ___________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

2) Describe your Interpretation _______________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

3) Describe your Reaction ___________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

4) Give an _______________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

Lesa Hammond

Decision-Making

Five Decision-Making Styles

1) __________________________________________________________________

2) __________________________________________________________________

3) __________________________________________________________________

4) __________________________________________________________________

5) __________________________________________________________________

Lesa Hammond

On Team Building… Four Stages of Team- Building

1. Forming

2. Storming

3. Norming

4. Performing

Team Building Activities

Lesa Hammond

NOTES

Lesa Hammond

On Motivating Employees… You Set the Tone

Are you proactive or reactive?

PROACTIVE LEADER

Knows he/she makes a difference

Respond according to values

Accept personal responsibility for own behavior

Reason guides actions

Become a Change Agent

REACTIVE LEADER

Outside influences control responses

Others dictate actions

Emotions dictate behavior

Circumstances dictate actions

Respond without a plan

Source: Steven Covey, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

Transactional Analysis

P P

A

P

A

C C

Lesa Hammond

On Retention… What Do Employees Want Most From Their Job?

_______ Appreciation

_______ Good wages

_______ Good working conditions

_______ Interesting work

_______ Job security

_______ Promotion, growth opportunities

_______ Personal loyalty

_______ Having input into decisions

_______ Sympathetic help on personal problems

_______ Tactful disciplining

Lesa Hammond

Generational Differences

Characteristics Traditionalists Born 1925-1945

Baby Boomers Born 1946-1964

Generation X Born 1965-1977

Millennials Born 1978 or after

Age Span 61 to 81 years old

42 to 60 years old

29 to 41 years old 28 or younger

Population 75 million 78 million 45 million 80 million

Traits Conservative Discipline Respect for authority Loyal Patriotic

Idealistic Break the rules Time stressed Politically correct

Pragmatic Self-sufficient Skeptical Flexible Media/Info/Tech savvy Entrepreneurial

Confident Well-educated Self-sufficient Tolerant Team builders Socially/politically conscious

Defining Events Great depression World War II Korean War

Vietnam War Woodstock Watergate

Collapse of communism Missing children Computers in school

Clinton/Lewinsky School shootings Terrorism on U.S. soil Corporate scandals

Work Is Inevitable Exciting adventure

Difficult challenge

To make a difference

Work Ethic Loyal/dedicated Driven Balanced Eager but anxious

Employment Goals

Retirement for some

Second career Work/life balance Unrealistic

Education A dream Birthright Way to get to an end

A given

Migration AZ, FL, NC, NV

AZ, FL, GA, NV

AZ, CO, GA, TX Mom and Dad

Technology LP record 8-track CD iPod/MP3

Communication Face to face Telephone Cell phone IM/Txt/FB

Sports Joe DiMaggio Joe Namath Michael Jordan Lebron James

Time at Work is defined

Punch clock Visibility Why does it matter if I get it done?

Is it 5 PM? I have a life.

Lesa Hammond

Notes

Lesa Hammond

Hiring

The articles in this section are from my blog www.lesahammond.com and articles on GoArticles.com. They discuss five essentials for effective hiring.

http://www.lesahammond.com/�

Lesa Hammond

Hiring: The Five Essentials of Hiring Exceptional Employees by Lesa Hammond Being an effective hiring manager might be the most important part of your job. If you can hire the right people, with the right attitude, you have done than 80% of your job right. Hiring the right person for the job may be the most important thing a manager can do to ensure a productive and effective workplace. If you hire smart, it becomes much easier to manage. I have seen some poor managers who have very effective teams because they knew how to hire the right people.

Hiring is both a science and an art. You can do everything right and still get the wrong person in the job; however if you do everything right up to the point of hiring, you significantly increase your chances of making an effective hiring decision.

There are five essential ingredients to hiring exceptional employees:

Know your needs What skills and characteristics do you need the new employee to possess? Your needs include both qualifications and less quantifiable skills that you will need to access. Before you begin sifting through the resumes of potential employees, you will want to have a clear idea of what you need in the position. A good job description is a good start. It provides you with a clear understanding of the skills necessary and it includes some of the less tangible characteristics. In addition to the job description, there are some characteristics that you need to round out your team. The least effective teams are made up of everyone with the same personality. You cannot have all creative visionaries on a team or you will never get the concrete things accomplished. On the other hand, if everyone is very detail oriented, likes order and structure, and doesn’t like change, you will have a team that gets stuck in its ways and one that may lack creativity.

Know your wants What personality and work characteristics do you want the employee to possess? Is there a personality type that is missing on your team? Whether you feel it is correct to express your desires, you probably have a pretty good idea of the type of person you are seeking in an employee. You probably know if you want someone who is outgoing or quiet, someone who is visionary or a steady contributor, or someone who is eager to please or who will be challenging. Be clear about the personality and attributes you seek. Make sure you include the characteristics you seek as a part of your screening criteria. You want to seek balance on your team and yet have someone who will not alienate the rest of the group. If you have a lot team of workaholics and realize this is not a healthy environment, you will need to begin the culture shift before you bring someone onboard who believes work-life balance is the most important thing. You cannot hire a new employee to create a cultural change; chances are that person will be viewed as a problem. Bringing someone on board who is aligned with your vision is important but you must be the one to share the vision with your team and not rely on a new employee to single-handedly bring about a change.

Lesa Hammond

Prepare for the interview Preparing for the interview means that you know what you will ask and in what order you will ask it. There are several reasons to prepare a standard list of questions and stick to it; not the least of which is reducing liability. Only by asking each person the same questions do you get the opportunity to compare apples with apples. If you are tailoring each interview to the person being interviewed, you are not giving all of the candidates an equal chance. If you are tailoring to the individual, chances are you are taking information from their resume and making assumptions you want to check-out. This only gets you information based on what they included (or left out) of the resume. My recommendation is to have five to ten pre-set questions. These are questions you will ask each candidate. Then have two tailored questions where you ask about something that stood out in the candidates resume. Some companies do not allow you to ask follow-up questions, but I think follow-up answers are often as, if not more, telling than the answer to the original question. Learn to recognize red flags Recognizing red flags in an interview or reference check is sometimes one of the hardest things to do if you are otherwise enthusiastic about a candidate. Until you have interviewed and hired hundreds of employees you may miss some red flags that an experienced interviewer could see from a mile away.

Red Flag #1 – Bad mouthing a former employer This can be hard to detect if you have not been warned that positive and productive employees generally do not bad mouth a former employer in an interview. Even it if was the worst job they ever had, they put a positive spin on the exchange. Here are two examples of a candidate saying essentially the same thing:

a) “My manager was very detail oriented and wanted to be kept abreast of the progress of each project. I learned to work with her style in a way that worked for both of us.”

b) “My manager was a micromanager and that just doesn’t work for me. I like to be independent. I think it is important to trust your employees.”

Response “b” may not sound bad if you can relate to the situation and think you would feel the same way. The red flag with response “b” is that the person who gives that answer may not want to be accountable to anyone. The response begs a lot of follow-up if you are considering this person as a viable candidate. Red Flag #2 – No concrete examples If you ask a question saying, “Tell me about a time when…” or “Give me an example of when you…” and the person only speaks in generalities, you have to question their actual experience. People often know what they should do, the issue is whether they do it or not. Many people are not familiar with interview questions that ask them to cite specific examples, but after you specifically ask for a concrete time three or four times, you have to assume the person either has a problem listening, following directions, understanding, or he/she does not have any examples to give. None of the above is a positive sign. Red Flag #3 – Vague references to gaps in employment If the candidate has gaps in employment and when asked about them, responds by saying, “Well, I was having some personal problems” or something equally as vague, you will want to follow-up to find out exactly what that means. This is an area where you want to be particularly sensitive. Only pursue this issue if the person is a final candidate and that is one of the final pieces of information you need in order to narrow your choice. If you are in a group interview, do not pursue the response. Wait until you can have a one-on-one conversation with the candidate. In these cases I have heard a wide range of responses, including: a prison sentence for fraud and forgery, drug addiction and rehab, cancer, a nervous breakdown, and a long-term illness of a

Lesa Hammond

child who eventually died. So, you want to be particularly careful and sensitive about how you ask for the information and assumptions you might make before asking; but don’t let this dissuade you from asking about gaps in employment. You need to know the answer. Red flag #4 – Questionable responses on to a reference check I once had a department head who wanted to hire a candidate. She did the reference check, then called me to say that the candidate wants to work from home on Fridays. Given that the job primarily entailed working with students, I asked the manager how that would work. She said it wouldn’t work well, but was a possibility. After considerable conversation, the hiring manager agreed to allow the candidate to work from home two Fridays a month. The candidate was not satisfied with that response and wanted to talk with me. Within two minutes of the conversation, red flags were raised. The candidate talked about her expertise and how the job was not paying what she was worth, and working from home would compensate for the poor pay. When I went back to the hiring manager and said this would not be a good hire, I asked about the reference check. It came to light that the woman’s former manager had said that she was “a bit headstrong, and a good negotiator for herself…” BIG RED FLAG!!!! Generally, the job of an employee is not to be “a good negotiator for herself.” Listen carefully to what you are hearing in reference checks, read between the lines and ask questions about anything that sounds a bit questionable. The proper follow-up to the reference saying, she is “a good negotiator for herself” would be, “Interesting, so could you give me an example of how she negotiated for herself?”

There are many more red flags, but in my experience these are the most commonly missed. Hire based on qualifications, attitude, and fit Do not compromise on your needs or wants. You want the full package. If necessary, restart your search. Go back out and look again if you feel you are compromising too much. Strangely enough, if you must compromise, you are better off making a slight compromise on qualifications than attitude or fit. You can help someone get the qualifications, skills and training. It is much more difficult to change their attitude and you won’t change their personality. The issue of fit is a bit slippery. Under the guise of “fit” much discrimination has occurred. People generally like people like themselves. This can lead to a situation of what is called “disparate impact” meaning an unintentional bias toward some and against others. So, while fit is important, make sure that fit is not based on a desire for homogeneity. Here’s to a phenomenal hire!

Lesa Hammond

The Five Best Interview Questions I've Heard (or Asked) by Lesa Hammond If you are fortunate enough to be a hiring manager you maybe wondering what questions you should ask to get the best information from the people you are interviewing. Your goal is to get not only the most qualified employee but also to get one that has good judgment and will fit in well with your team.

If you have heard of behavioral based interviewing, you know that the question ask the interviewee to tell you about a time when they had to do something. I am very biased to this type of question. Anyone can give you a hypothetical answer of what they know they should do in a situation. Your job as the hiring manager is to determine what they actually will do in a given situation.

Here are my five favorite questions and why I like them:

1. Tell us about a time when you encountered an irate customer (or coworker). What was the situation? What did you do and what was the result? This question may not apply if the person works in isolation, but otherwise it allows you to see how the potential employee handles conflict.

2. Tell us about a time when you were asked to do something you had no idea how to do. What was the situation, what did you do and what was the result? I like this question because it tells you if the individual is resourceful and if their style matches with yours. If you are the type of boss who likes to have people ask you questions and ask you for help rather than do it wrong, you'll learn that. If on the other hand you like a person to try to figure it out and not run to you for every little thing, you will also find out if that is who you are interviewing.

3. What was your greatest professional failure that resulted in your greatest professional learning? I absolutely love this question. I just recently heard a manager at the college where I work ask it. This question gives you so much information. First of all, it is hard to answer, but it gives you an idea of the candidate's ability to be introspective and learn from mistakes.

4. Given your current understanding of this job, what professional development opportunity would you like to have within the first year? I think this is better than asking the candidate’s weakness. It gives you insight into what they think is important in the job and what they think they need to learn. It also may give you an idea of the person's primary motivation in the job. If they identify an area you don't think is important, that is key information.

5. If we were to call one of your co-workers (or your employee) and ask them what they think of you, how would they answer? While this may seem like one of those hypothetical questions that may not be answered honestly, it generally takes the interviewee by surprise and they come up with some surprising answers. Unless they are out of touch with their impact on people or a pathological liar, you often get either an honest response or you get clear discomfort. Either way, you have an answer that tells you a lot about the candidate.

Good luck with your interviews.

If you have other great questions you have asked or heard, send me an email at [email protected].

Lesa Hammond

Leadership and Your Style

Understanding your management style and knowing when it is appropriate to vary your style is an important trait of being a good leader

In this section we will also discuss methods for effectively managing employee performance.

Lesa Hammond

Leading Through Values by Ryan Scholz One of the biggest barriers that senior leaders face in delegating and taking work off their plates is having the confidence that people below them will make the right decision. In the absence of confidence, leaders tend to get involved in many more decisions than they need to. They get accused of "micromanaging" by their staffs.

I believe that if people share similar values and have essentially the same information, they will usually come to the same conclusion. So if a leader doesn't think that his or her people will make good decisions, then it usually comes down either to a values issue or an information issue.

Obviously, the getting people the information that they need to make good decisions is easier than assuring similar values. As a leader, it is important to give people as much information as possible so that they can make informed decisions.

The more complicated task is making sure that people apply the same values when making decisions. This is why organizational values are so important. If the absence of clear organizational values, people will generally apply their own personal values when making a decision or apply what they perceive the company's values to be.

Values provide the basis to determining behavior in certain situations. When people in a company have a shared set of values, the company becomes less bureaucratic, more flexible, and more efficient. People at lower levels will make the right decision.

In determining the values which guide decision making, there are a couple of things that are important. First, the list must be short. I recommend no more than for or five key values. If there are more than this, it creates confusion and more opportunity for misapplication in decision making situations. Think about any situation where you had to chose between several alternatives. If you only had one or two criteria to make the choice, then it becomes a fairly easy decision. If there are ten criteria, it becomes much more difficult.

The second point about values is that there should be a hierarchy. Some decisions involve choosing one value over another. Johnson & Johnson faced this situation in the Tylenol tampering case in 1982. They chose to put consumer safety above short term financial considerations even though evidence pointed to a localized event. The total retail value of the nationwide recall was over $100 million.

The hierarchy cannot be interpreted as situational. For example, people is hospitals struggle with courtesy versus efficiency. In manufacturing plants, there is often conflict between quality and productivity. There needs to be demonstrated consistency in the hierarchy of values in every situation.

A few years ago, I had the opportunity to hear a presentation by a senior executive from Disney on the Disney culture. The core of the Disney culture is four simple values as it relates to customer relations:

1. Safety 2. Courtesy 3. Show 4. Efficiency

These values guide the daily actions and behaviors of thousands of cast members (the Disney name for employees) at their theme parks. Every Disney employee can recite these when asked.

The safety of the guests takes precedence over anything else. If a ride has to be stopped because of an unsafe situation, it is stopped - no questions asked. An example used in Disney training is when a person in a wheel chair

Lesa Hammond

approaches a continuously moving ride, the ride is stopped sacrificing the show and efficiency. It is clearly the safe thing to do.

Courtesy means that cast members are expected to smile and be friendly and patient with guests no matter what the situation. Rather than tell someone how to find a place ,the cast member is taught to take the person there.

By "show", Disney means all of the sensory impressions that a guest experiences. Cast members pay attention to all of the things that a guest sees, touches, or hears in their experience at Disney.

Instilling these values in every Disney employee is not just a matter of posting them on the wall. In every Disney orientation and training program, these values are discussed. Cast members are put through extensive role playing exercises using real-world situations learn how to apply the values.

Training at Disney is not limited to new hires. All employees, no matter how long they have been with the company have to relearn their role.

A cast member's decision is never questioned if they apply the values in the proper order in a situation.

The power of Disney's approach to leadership by values, is in its simplicity and consistency. The four values are easily understood by every cast member at Disney. Too many values statements contain words that many employees don't understand or relate to in their jobs. The hierarchy of the four values never changes. These four values and their order of importance was established by Walt Disney himself and has never been questioned or changed.

Leaders who struggle with having people make the right decisions should look hard at the values of the organization. Are they understood? Is there a clear hierarchy when a decision involves a conflict between two values?

About the Author Ryan Scholz works with leaders whose success is dependent on getting commitment and high performance from others. He is author of Turning Potential into Action: Eight Principles for Creating a Highly Engaged Work Place. For more information, visit his web site at www.lead-strat-assoc.com.

http://www.lead-strat-assoc.com/�

Lesa Hammond

Leadership: The Failure To Motivate Or "Get A Rope" by Harvey Robbins

The trouble with motivation

Grown-ups are suspicious of banners and slogans. They don't go in for orations and cheerleading. They don't like to be asked to do foolish things. Dig a latrine, or do anything humble or disgusting? Let someone else do those jobs!

We see a variety of exhortations here and there in the workplace. We see banners strung from tree to tree at company picnics. We see corporate teams work up a sweat when they compete publicly against one another, as in a three-legged race.

If you go on one of those corporate rock-climbing team-building trips, people who don't say boo to each other at the office are indeed helping one another scramble up a cliff face. That's great. But it's make-believe. It's not the real world. Get those rock-climbers back to the office reality and the old grumpiness, and the old "Have we been introduced?" attitude creeps back into place. Maybe not the day after climbing El Capitan, but soon enough.

"Motivation" has gotten a bad name because of some of these rah-rah gimmicks. The feeling many is that it excites people for an hour, but then the motivation fades away. They say this kind of "motivating the troops" only works for some kinds of personalities, while others find it repellent and childish.

And this is a big problem for people who hope to lead: Getting people to do what you tell them to. Succeed at motivating people, and you are a big success as a leader. Fail, and no one will bother to classify you one way or the other. You will just be another guy who didn't have what it takes to lead. Friends, it's time we stood back and rethought what motivation is.

Can you really motivate others? No. You can't. That's because motivation comes from inside, not out. Think about it. Have you ever received a "to do" (or "honey do") list from your spouse? Or perhaps wrote one for yourself? Do you reliably do the things on the list? Of course you do. Why? Is it because you're afraid of your spouse? (It's a possibility!)

No, not really. You do the things on the list because, once completed, the physical act of crossing it off the list feels good inside. And that's where motivation comes from; the accomplishment of outcomes.

Note something about the chores on that list:

* Rake the yard. * Paint the banister. * Open a checking account.

Everything on that list is discreet, doable, and short-term in nature. Therein lies the key to success. High-performing teams almost always work on short-term, continuously high-priority goals and objectives. The size and duration of the task keeps team members motivated.

You don't have to have pom-poms hanging in your office or do handsprings down the corridor to keep people on the ball. You just need to keep people focused on the successful completion of these short-term outcomes.

Lesa Hammond

Two reasons for failure

You assigned Jane a task and a deadline, both of which she has since blown.

There are really only two possible reasons for her failure. The first is that she was unable to do it - a question of ability. The second is that she didn't want to do it - and that is a question of motivation.

You desperately want it to be a matter of ability, because, remember - truly motivating people is a very tall order. Whereas, ability is a managerial issue: you can address it methodically, using a set of checkpoints.

For example: If Jane says, "I wasn't up to it," that's an easy problem to solve. You don't expect to change the person fundamentally, adding twenty IQ points, or injecting a solution that gives them a degree in particle physics, or suddenly making them six inches taller. So you reassign that person to something they are up to -- or you direct them to a different career. Or you train them, guide them, mentor them, give them job learning assignments. It's not fun, but "I can't do this" has a very clear situation.

In Jane's case, the explanation may be "I didn't do it because I don't speak Spanish." Maybe she was the wrong person to assign to the task for this reason. Maybe it's not too late for her to learn Spanish. Maybe you needed to explain to her that she could do this task entirely in English.

Ability has another dimension: resources.

* "I couldn't do it because I didn't understand." * "I didn't do it because I needed help." * "I didn't do it because I didn't have bus fare."

All these are ability problems that can easily be solved: by explaining, by adding manpower, by making a withdrawal from the petty cash drawer. They are the kinds of problems scouts (and good managers) solve all the time.

Then there's:

* "I didn't compile your list because I am drinking a fifth of vodka every night before crashing on my couch."

* "I bus for two hours every morning to get to work, and then I am exhausted all day."

* "My daughter has cystic fibrosis."

These are more serious issues. They include chemical problems, family problems, and situational problems that keep a person from performing. They still constitute an ability, not a motivational issue -- and are still easy to solve, relative to "I don't care if this gets done or not."

Whereas motivation requires you to figure the individual out. It means venturing into Crazy Land, the mysterious eccentric workings of the individual mind. Better to hang a banner in the cafeteria than delve into why when Jane looks up at you she is thinking about her father, and that ain't good. Psychology is a task most of us very sensibly shy away from.

Lesa Hammond

How do you know which it is? Is it Jane's ability or her lack of motivation that brought you to this pass?

Get answers to the following manager's questions, and you will know if the problem is ability or motivation:

* "Did you set clear expectations?"

Did Jane know what she had to do? Did you ask at the time if she understood? If it was all vague, but you didn't quiz her about its clarity, then the problem is not with Jane at all.

* "Did you set goals and objectives?"

Did Jane understand that she had to prepare a written report? If you assumed she understood this, but didn't check to see, the finger points back at you.

* "Did you set a time frame?"

Without a deadline, there is no way to measure success. "Oh you mean you want it now? Why didn't you say so?"

* "Did you establish progress checkpoints along the way?"

Unless your employee is an intuitive genius, who can read your every thought, you need to check in with that person at regular intervals, to ask the telling question "How's it going?"

At the progress check-points, if there is a gap between the estimated and the observed, however, you have found your problem. If the estimated quality of a task was GOOD, and the observed quality of its execution was less than that, you must ask the person what happened, what explains the discrepancy.

The next words out of the teammate's mouth will tell whether the problem was due to ability or motivation.

Be sure that the answer you want to get, most of the time, is ability, and not motivation. And though these explanations put much of the onus for failure back on you - because you have to train, explain, and supervise your team members -- this is still cause for celebration.

Welcome to Crazyland

The second possibility, lack of motivation, is more serious. It requires you to venture into the individual's inner world, to figure out why this person is being so difficult.

This is not a place you want to be. Leaders are not psychologists, and should not pretend they are. We have seen managers with a book of psychobabble under their belts try to "understand" team members. It is about as graceful a process as squashing grapes in a vat.

But when a leader determines that a performance issue is a motivational problem, leaders are to engage team members in a straightforward process of communicating consequences. These consequences are to be communicated in order, from least threatening to most threatening, until they comply.

Lesa Hammond

These are the four stages of consequences, in the prescribed order:

1) to self and job. If you don't do your work, it reflects on your record with us.

2) to others (guilt). If you don't do your work, your team mates will have to pick up your slack.

3) to boss. I need you to work with me to achieve this goal, or I will fail.

3½) Pause ... During which the leader tries to figure out why the team member still hasn't complied.

4) the nuclear option. You will be terminated if you do not do as I ask.

The only time leaders are to probe deeper into the individual's personal problems is in-between consequences # 3 and # 4,

This is a journey fraught with scary questions, not least of which are: What right do you have messing around with an employee's psyche? And how much time and energy are you willing to invest in this person who is not functioning? Do I really want to know about any potential personal problems of this particular employee?

Managers are switch-flippers. Leaders look deeper into causes and effects. Sometimes this means taking a peek into a person's heart.

Stewed frogs

There is a famous story about stewed frogs. If you place a frog in cold water and place the pot on the stove, it never seems to occur to the frog to panic and leap out of the pot. Without an alarm going off, he sits - and eventually stews.

This phenomenon is roughly what happens on teams that have purged all anxiety. In a 100% stress-free atmosphere no one is afraid of anything. Then one day the axe falls, or the dam breaks, or fire breaks out, and the casualty count is huge. A little anxiety prompted by good leadership ("If we don't get in gear here, we're all going to be stewed frogs!") would we saved that team.

So we are saying that leader must keep team members apprised of reality. If the water temperature is on the rise, the leader must inform the team of this, and issue orders that allow them to escape unstewed ("Jump, boys!).

Still, this idea rankles many people. It seems harsh, leaders scaring their employees. It may sound harsh, but it is necessary to use a 2X4 occasionally to get one's attention and focus. Leaders routinely venture forth into danger, but at all times the watchword is "Be prepared" just like in scouting. Anticipate things going wrong. The slogan might almost be, "Be anxious." Not in a sick way, but in a clear-headed, realistic way.

What do good leaders do? They tell the truth. They tell it whether the truth is nice, or scary.

The key is to be proportionate. Certainly, never invent danger in order to motivate. That's lying. But don't panic people with the truth, either. Don't make danger out to be worse than it is. But even more

Lesa Hammond

important, don't make it out to be less than it is - that is a terrible disservice, lulling the team into a false feeling of safety, just as the temperature around them is measurably rising.

You never know what incentive will work for people. A parking space close to the front entrance. Their name on the bulletin board winner's list. Tickets to see Garth Brooks. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about motivation is that it can be something really stupid.

Yes, they still want what they originally wanted -- to pay the rent, to meet girls, to add a line to their resume. But now they want something more besides. They want to repay your interest in them. They want to thank you for your humanness. They want to deserve your trust. They want to help you to succeed.

About the Author

A world class speaker, author, and educator, Dr. Robbins focuses on transformational leadership by providing leadership skill training, team building / team leadership training, management development training, and executive coaching. See more on http://www.harveyrobbins.com.

http://www.harveyrobbins.com/�

Lesa Hammond

Six Emotional Leadership Styles (Primal Leadership) by: Lesa Hammond

Daniel Goleman, gained popularity with his book Emotional Intelligence (1995). In looking at leader behaviors as a part of emotional intelligence, he later joined with Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, in Primal Leadership (2004), to describe six styles of leading that have different effects on the emotions of the followers. It is important to note that a leader my exhibit a different style depending on the situation and a good leader will modify his/her style appropriately to the situation at hand.

The six Leadership Styles are:

The Visionary Leader The Visionary Leader moves people towards a shared vision, telling them where to go but not how to get there. This leader motivates and empowers followers by allowing them to struggle as they fulfill their charge. The visionary leader, shares information freely and is a strong motivator for less experienced employees who need to gain confidence and feel empowered. This style is best when there is a need to set a new direction.

The Coaching Leader The Coaching Leader generally has a positive impact on the climate as she/he takes time with subordinates and helps them to understand organizational goals and connect those goals with their individual job. This leader takes time and helps employees gain confidence and competence. They are good at delegating challenging assignments and generally develop a high level of loyalty with their followers. The danger with this type is that it can appear to be micromanaging when either done too often or with highly skilled and independent employees.

The Affiliative Leader The Affiliative Leader leads by association and affiliation. She/he creates personal connections and seeks harmony through relationship within the organization. It is a very collaborative style, which focuses on personal and emotional needs first. The danger for this style is that it can be conflict avoidant and not address performance issues. The leader with this style is often quite effective at resolving conflicts between others and helping to soothe stressful work situations.

The Democratic Leader The Democratic Leader seeks buy-in and values input from everyone. This leader is good at listening to both sides and gaining commitment. This style is effective for gaining support of simple issues. When this style leads to a desire to gain consensus on a large number of issues, it can be ineffective because the desire to gain agreement may result in little getting done.

The Pace-setting Leader The Pace-setting Leader believes in keeping things moving at a rapid pace. This is often the initial style of a star performer who is promoted to manager. The hold everyone to their high standards and expect excellence. They identify poor performers and address issues quickly. This leader will lead by example and is not afraid to get theirs hands dirty if there is a need to get something done. They tend to be low on guidance, expecting people to know what to do; and may be low on tolerance. While this type of leader may get initial

Lesa Hammond

results their pace can burn-out other employees who are not able to keep up the fast pace. The Pace-setter Leader is best for a highly motivated and competent team.

The Commanding Leader The Commanding Leader provides clear directions, takes command and expects compliance. This leader tends to be more autocratic than the other types and is not as relationship oriented. They need emotional self-control for success and can seem cold and distant. This style is most appropriate in times of crisis when there needs to be someone in charge giving direction and there is no time gain consensus.

_______________________

Reference: Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, Primal Leadership, HBS Press, 2004

Lesa Hammond

Vroom-Yetton: Normative Decision Model

Managers often believe that involving employees in decision making is the way to keep them motivated and involved. While this can be true, it may also mean the death of an idea. Involving everyone in a decision almost always takes more time and sometimes creates unnecessary conflict.

Knowing when it is important to get employees involved in a decision is an important skill. The Vroom-Yetton Model provides managers with a chart to help them walk through the decision making process. Through this model, managers can decide whether they want to get employees involved in the decision making process or make a decision on their own.

Vroom & Yetton, and later Vroom & Jago, found the following questions helpful in the sequence below:

1. Quality Requirement (QR): How important is the technical quality of the decision? 2. Commitment Requirement (CR): How important is subordinate commitment to the decision? 3. Leader's Information (LI): Do you (the leader) have sufficient information to make a high

quality decision on your own? 4. Problem Structure (ST): Is the problem well structured (e.g., defined, clear, organized, lend

itself to solution, time limited, etc.)? 5. Commitment Probability (CP): If you were to make the decision by yourself, is it reasonably

certain that your subordinates would be committed to the decision? 6. Goal Congruence (GC): Do subordinates share the organizational goals to be attained in

solving the problem? 7. Subordinate conflict (CO): Is conflict among subordinates over preferred solutions likely? 8. Subordinate information (SI): Do subordinates have sufficient information to make a high

quality decision?

In the diagram below, you identify the problem situation in which you are trying to decide the level of involvement. For each of the questions/criteria above, your answer will take you through the decision tree to an appropriate outcome. At the bottom of the page is the table describing each of the outcomes.

Note: This model was originally described by Victor Vroom and Philip Yetton in their 1973 book titled Leadership and Decision Making. Later, in 1988, Vroom and Arthur Jago, replaced the decision tree system of the original model with an expert system based on mathematics. Hence you will see the model called Vroom-Yetton, Vroom-Jago, and Vroom-Yetton-Jago.

Lesa Hammond

Decision Making Style Description

Autocratic l (Al)

Leader solves the problem along using information that is readily available to him/her

Autocratic ll (All)

Leader obtains additional information from group members, then makes decision alone. Group members may or may not be informed.

Consultative l (Cl)

Leader shares problem with group members individually, and asks for information and evaluation. Group members do not meet collectively, and leader makes decision alone.

Consultative ll (Cll)

Leader shares problem with group members collectively, but makes decision alone

Group ll (Gll) Leader meets with group to discuss situation. Leader focuses and directs discussion, but does not impose will. Group makes final decision.

____________________

Vroom, V. H., & Jago, A. G. (1988). The new leadership: Managing participation in organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Lesa Hammond

Building an Effective Team

[Type a quote from the document or the summary of an interesting point. You can position the text box anywhere in the document. Use the Text Box Tools tab to change the formatting of the pull quote text box.]

Lesa Hammond

Tuckman Model: Stages of Team Development

Bruce Tuckman created a model of four stages of team development in 1965, while working with small therapy groups. The model was later used widely in organizations in discussing the natural stages of work teams. In 1977, working with Mary Ann Jensen he refined the model and added a fifth stage “adjourning.” Since that time, many versions of the Stages of Team Development Model have been produced to enhance the original model.

STORMING

NORMINGPERFORMING

FORMING

Lesa Hammond

What Makes a Great Team? by Tony Gattari

A great team is more than just a group of people working well together. Just because individuals work well together doesn't necessarily make them a team - in fact, there are examples of groups of highly intelligent individuals performing more poorly as a team than as individuals! A team is a group of people who share responsibility for achieving a common goal. Everyone has a role to play and that role contributes to the overall achievement of the group. If an individual fails to perform, the common goal can be in jeopardy. Even if each individual performs, unless each works in harmony with other members of the group, it is unlikely they can achieve their true potential. The important element in team building is to establish a common, shared goal. This gives each team member focus for their efforts, ensures each person is accountable for their own performance and encourages team members to take responsibility for ensuring their team members perform at the required level. In order to be effective, team building must become a way of life within your business. It is not sufficient to conduct one or two "team building" events during the year. Rather, team building must be a continuous process that aligns actions with goals and is focused on a clear and consistent set of goals. As each team start performing, team members were able to appreciate how much they could begin to achieve as a group and team work became enjoyable rather than a chore. We suggest using a 5 step process for your business when team building:

• Step 1 - create and communicate the vision. Establish a strong vision and S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time bound) goals

• Step 2 - seek commitment from individuals. In order to be meaningful, individuals had to commit to the vision. This means talking and answering questions to help team members remove any doubts

• Step 3 - build trust. It was important that everyone in the team, from the "Leaders" down, trust each other. Start building trust by "walking the talk" and showing team members that the "Leaders" were prepared to lead the way

• Step 4 - including everyone. Team building needs everyone involved so by using active listening skills and OPEN question techniques, you can ensure everyone had the opportunity to be involved

• Step 5 - promote support and sharing. Since every team member brings different skills and experience to the team, some team members would need help. By encouraging those with more experience to mentor less experienced members, all team members co-operated and actively supported each other.

Try this process in your business. Team building is a continual process that pays handsome dividends. Not only will team members benefit from working in a co-operative and harmonious environment, but your business will benefit through the achievement of goals. Click here to have a look at Achievers Group YouTube Site http://www.youtube.com/AchieversGroup

http://www.youtube.com/AchieversGroup�

Lesa Hammond

About the Author

Tony Gattari of Achievers Group is a business keynote speaker and guest speaker. His passionate enthusiastic style makes him ideal as your next sales speaker, marketing speaker or keynote speaker. Tony Gattari has worked with over 120 businesses. See http://www.achieversgroup.com.au for more info.

http://www.achieversgroup.com.au/�

Lesa Hammond

A new body of knowledge for more effective team building by Mark Walsh

What do we mean by team building? What are you trying to achieve? Typically, you're looking to align around a shared vision, reduce conflict, bring the team closer together, improve communication and knowledge of individual strengths and weaknesses and increase morale. You may even have to work with the group's - or members of the group's - resistance to change.

Using the body to build teams

While there are a multitude of approaches to building teams, Embodied Management Training offers real benefits, not least because the body is usually the area that remains unaddressed by most people who commission training. Working with the body - eg breath, movement and posture - gets great results in team building as it is a fundamental part of being human and a big part of how people coordinate.

When doing Embodied Management Training I tend to utilize what I call a 'tapas' approach. What I mean is that there are lots of different training activities available, so myself and the group choose the ones that fit best fit the challenges and specific aims of the session. We also like to explore an issue from several angles to get the best leverage. This is aligned with the integral model proposed by people like Ken Wilber and I find it works through balance, flexibility and focus.

My top tips for team building

Here are some body-focused team building exercises you can try with your people:

• Learn some simple non-athletic coordination practices • Encourage an office culture where touch is acceptable - not excessively touchy-feely; simply shaking hands

on arrival or departure for example • Build trust and relationships through phone and face-to-face contact, rather than just disembodied methods

such as e-mail • Encourage smileys where you have to e-mail :-) You'll convey tone and emotion to improve work

relationships • Arrange outside activities that require physical proximity and interaction - such as drinks on a Friday after

work, or sporting activities with the emphasis on fun. Avoid promoting competition between teams or individuals, though

• Spare 30 minutes to lunch as a team. Food is the oldest team building! • Have one-to-one meetings while walking - it stimulates ideas and helps fall, literally, in step with others • For the adventurous - organize a short daily group stretch, yoga or tai chi session

Remember that people are more highly motivated when they're involved in planning their activities, so discuss the alternatives with the group - and do the same thing later on, when participants' feedback can be invaluable.

Office-based training

There's a tradition of taking teams away to a retreat or activity center for training. While this can be extremely effective at the time of training, things can fall apart when the team returns to its workplace. The remote training has failed to tackle the challenges that exist at work, and is less efficient in terms of time and money due to travel - a clear argument for the newer office-based training approach.

Lesa Hammond

Moreover, if the location for team training is in the workplace, everyone benefits from being able to train often, rather than maybe just once or twice a year. Incorporate team building exercises into your monthly schedule, and see the benefits build for your teams.

About the Author Mark Walsh is the founder of Integration Training, which is the UK's leader in Embodied Management Training, a powerful body-based methodology that can be applied to team building, leadership development and many other challenges faced by organizations today.

http://integrationtraining.co.uk/�

http://integrationtraining.co.uk/team_building.html�

http://integrationtraining.co.uk/management_training.html�

Lesa Hammond

The Business Case for Developing Emotional Intelligence Skills by Byron Stock

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is critical in business. The emotions that leaders, employees, and customers feel impact the bottom line of companies and the effectiveness of government and non-profit organizations.

In their Harvard Business Review article, "The Service-Profit Chain," Hesket et. al. identified a chain of factors driving profitability in a company. They described how a company's profitability was dependent upon effective leadership. The climate and culture of an organization as a whole is impacted by the emotions of the leaders. More specifically, leaders' emotions impact:

- What employees feel.

- The satisfaction employees experience with their company and their work.

- How loyal and willing employees are to put forth extra effort.

- Employee productivity and efficiency.

How employees feel and perform their work impact how customers feel, how satisfied they are with both products and services, and ultimately how loyal a customer is to the company or organization. And how loyal customers are has a direct impact on the bottom line and profitability of an organization.

Notice that the foundational element in this set of relationships is leadership. It does not say CEO or Executive Vice President or Director. It says leaders. The leader is the person in charge of every work team, every manager or supervisor, and every individual in the organization. One of the most important issues to focus on in skill development is self-leadership. Whether at work or at home, self-leadership is the internal ability to lead oneself to make the best decisions or choices throughout the day moment-to-moment.

Both positive and negative emotions impact everyone in organizations and the customers they serve. For example, negative emotions may result in poor performance, high stress, increased conflict, low morale, lack of trust and teamwork, more errors, poor quality, increased turnover and more. In turn, these problems may decrease customer satisfaction and increase customer complaints and defection. Ultimately, profitability can be negatively impacted.

Impact:

We can discover the significant impact negative emotions can have on the organization by asking a few questions relating to these problems:

- Has your organization experienced any of these problems?

- What is the impact on performance, business objectives, and key initiatives?

- What could your organization achieve if these problems were minimized?

Lesa Hammond

Value of Developing Emotional Competence:

The critical value of developing the Emotional Competence of leaders is supported by additional research. Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence, examined competency studies of 200 large global companies and reported the following results in the Nov./Dec., 1998 Harvard Business Review:

"When I calculated the ratio of technical skills, IQ, and emotional intelligence as ingredients of excellent performance, emotional intelligence proved to be twice as important as the others for jobs at all levels."

His conclusions about senior leaders were even more telling...

"When I compared star performers with average ones in senior leadership positions, nearly 90% of the difference in their profiles was attributable to emotional intelligence factors rather than cognitive abilities."

Impact on the Bottom Line:

In several studies, Goleman shows a direct impact of the organization's leadership on its bottom line. Goleman (HBR Nov./Dec., 1998), shares the following findings:

"David McClelland found that when senior managers had a critical mass of emotional intelligence capabilities, their divisions outperformed yearly earnings goals by 20%. Division leaders without that critical mass under performed by almost the same amount."

In his book Primal Leadership, Goleman, et. al. provides further evidence of the impact of emotional intelligence on the organization's profitability:

"A study found that the more positive the overall moods of people in the top management team, the more cooperatively they worked together - and the better the company's business results."

"In a study of nineteen insurance companies, the climate created by the CEOs among their direct reports predicted the business performance of the entire organization: In 75% of the cases, climate alone accurately sorted companies into high versus low profits and growth." (Cited in Primal Leadership - research by David McClelland, "Identifying Competencies with Behavior-Event Interviews," Psychological Science 9, 1998 and David Williams, "Leadership for the 21st Century," Life Insurance Leadership Study, 1995.)

The Results:

The effects of EI skill development are far-reaching. They go beyond just management skills or leadership competencies. It's difficult to identify any other organizational improvement intervention that has the potential to positively impact so many organizational problems concurrently. By providing practical "how-to's," EI skill development enhances and complements other values-based and principle-centered programs. EI skills are foundations skills enabling people to improve the "how" of achieving results.

EI training results can be significant. During post-program impact interviews, participants have reported improvements that range from 15% to 35% increased teamwork, 20% to 35% increase in personal productivity, 20% to 40% reduction in stress and worry, and similar improvements in personal motivation, management of emotional reactiveness, work/life balance, creativity and more.

Lesa Hammond

About the Author

Specializing in the area of Emotional Intelligence (EI) skill-building, Byron Stock is devoted to making work a place where people flourish and productivity improves. Typical improvements in personal goals range from 30% to 50%. Visit http://www.ByronStock.com to learn about Byron's quick, simple, proven techniques to harness the power of your EI.

http://www.byronstock.com/�

Lesa Hammond

Team Building Exercises: Tips to Regroup and Stay Fit by lunamohanty

Team Building is an investment that gives employers an edge over the competition. Team building can include team building workshops, team coaching or team training in specific areas. Team building exercises are useful when team s need to learn about team skills and how to apply them. Team building skills include trust, communication, cooperation, and commitment. Team building exercises can vary, but can include outdoor challenge courses, indoor exercises or even the use of assessment tools.

Teams participating in team events often find that they have benefited from team building exercises far more than they anticipated. Teams often become aware of their strengths and limitations, and find new ways of working together more collaboratively. By learning about their strengths and limitations, a team can begin to leverage its strengths and compensate for its weaker areas.

Team building exercises and fun team building events can bring the team closer together and help them focus on a common purpose. Fun team building events can range from indoor to outdoor in application. Often, fun team building events offer a focused activity that allows the team to learn together. Team building exercises like the low ropes or high ropes courses also offer a fun team building event.

The low ropes course and high ropes courses allow teams to challenge themselves in the same way that they are challenged at work. By adding a fun team building event or team building exercise, the group can process their experience and apply key learning back to work. Once at work, the fun team building event and team building exercises provide a framework for remembering how effective teamwork can be. Team Building is a great way to engage, energize, and prepare a team to remain committed to best practices and team building principles.

Regardless of the choices available to build teams research supports the notion that teamwork can be improved simply by people coming together and socializing. Socializing allows workers to lower their guard, and find commonality between each other. For example, having a brown bag lunch or a low key team event can often bring people closer together. All team building and training events can help build team skills, that social event help build camaraderie and communication. Research also supports highly effective team's respect and appreciates each other. Whether you choose team building events, team building training or a team building get together be assured, that your team will benefit.

About the Author Corporate Learning Institute offers Team Building Exercises, Team Building Activities and team building services in Illinois, Chicago. For more information Visit http://www.corplearning.com.

http://www.corplearning.com/team_building_exercise/�

http://www.corplearning.com/outdoor_team_building_activity/�

http://www.corplearning.com/�

Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees

In this section are six articles by K. MacKillop. MacKillop writes articles for entrepreneurs and start-ups; however, I have found her five types of motivation to be applicable for all Managers.

Also in this section is information regarding situational leadership as described by Ken Blanchard, author of the One Minute Manager and The Situational Leader.

Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees: Understand the Five Types of Motivation to Get the Most from Your Employees by K. MacKillop

Becoming an effective employer is one of the biggest obstacles for most entrepreneurs. Keeping employees motivated and loyal can be particularly difficult during the early stages of a startup. With limited capital and a never-ending to-do list, your staff can end up working long hours for mediocre pay. Still, it is possible to set yourself up for success by building the five primary motivators into your overall company culture.

There are five distinct types of motivators. Every employee will be driven by a different combination of these, so it is important to incorporate each of them as you start and grow your venture. The five primary sources of motivation are:

1. Challenge Driven -- The bulk of employees are internally motivated by challenging themselves and improving their own skills, but not all.

2. Team Driven -- A significant number of employees also need to know that they are contributing to the company effort and fit in with the group.

3. Reward Driven -- Offering rewards for a job well done will push many workers to work harder and smarter.

4. Reputation Driven -- Some employees need attention and accolades to stay motivated. Recognition can come from their boss, their co-workers, or their customers.

5. Purpose Driven -- Workers who are looking to focus their energy to fulfill the greater good are purpose-driven. They need to know what they do matters beyond the company.

Nearly every employee will be motivated by some combination of these five motivational tools. Some will be more heavily driven by a single factor, but most will produce their best work with a good mix of incentives. Whatever mix you choose, be sure that all motivation techniques are administered consistently and through clearly objective standards. Mismanagement of any of these methods will backfire, and the outcome can be far worse than providing no motivational tools at all. If your staff becomes convinced that you are insincere or unfair (like giving the same rewards across the board), they will become disincentivized and disgruntled...exactly what a growing business does not need.

As you are developing your company culture, incorporate as many of these ideas as you can. The most successful business leaders are those that can effectively and consistently motivate their employees. Productive employees grow businesses, so taking the time to master motivation techniques is a priority for any driven entrepreneur.

About the Author K. MacKillop, a serial entrepreneur, is founder of LaunchX and authors a small business startup blog. The LaunchX System is designed to help entrepreneurs start a business. Visit LaunchX.com to learn more about adding employees to your business startup.

http://www.blog.launchx.com/�

http://www.launchx.com/features.html�

http://www.launchx.com/unit5.html�

Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Challenge-Driven Employee by K. MacKillop

Most good leaders and employees are motivated internally through challenging themselves to improve their own skills, experience, and productivity. Internal motivation is very powerful when present, and can be easily quashed by micromanagement and ineffective delegation. The key to keeping challenge-motivated workers at their best is to develop your company culture to encourage autonomy and professional development across the board.

Building a challenge-motivating culture can be difficult for some entrepreneurs. The same self-assurance and drive to do things right that makes an entrepreneur successful can also make it difficult to trust employees to work on their own. But, if you plan to grow your business, you will have to rely on your staff to do things right on their own. Good employees will not only cover the tasks that you don't have time for, but will also contribute their own knowledge and skills to drive the success of your venture.

Good leaders are masters of delegation -- telling workers what needs to be done but not how to do it. Set clear objectives in the job descriptions for each position, clearly communicate those objectives to your staff, then get out of the way and let them work. Get to know each employee's individual skills and talents. Assign tasks accordingly and encourage your staff to utilize their skills. Also, find out which areas your employees wish to improve and develop opportunities for them to do so. For example, most people wish they were better at public speaking. Consider starting a lunchtime Toastmasters club for your staff or sponsoring your employee's memberships to an established club. The better your worker's skill sets, the more they can contribute to growing the business.

For those employees who are particularly challenge-driven, it is even more important to encourage them to push their limits. Be careful not to burden these workers with too many mundane tasks. Give them assignments that allow them to show off their skills and develop new ones. Let them know how much their skills and willingness to improve are appreciated...then get out of their way!

Building a challenge-driven culture is critical to the growth of your business idea. The stronger your staff is in the skills that drive success, the stronger your business will be. As an entrepreneur, the odds are that you can relate to challenge-driven motivation better than any of the other motivators. Think about the environment required for you to be the most productive, and build your company culture around these ideas.





Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Team-Driven Employee by K. MacKillop

Some employees are motivated to excel simply by contributing their part in a team environment. As long as these workers feel appreciated and an important part of the work group, they will put out their best effort.

Creating an environment that feeds contribution-oriented works begins with the company culture. Especially in small and growing businesses, it is important to nurture loyalty. Establishing a culture of teamwork and solidarity will accomplish both -- all staff members will feel more connected to your company and team-motivated workers will have their needs met as well.

One of the best ways to develop a truly team-oriented work environment is for the staff (and you) to have shared experiences that build relationships beyond work. This does not mean that everyone must be best friends, but rather that each employee should have the opportunity to be themselves with the rest of the staff. Schedule get-togethers for the staff such as monthly lunches or after-hours social events. Shared experiences, especially fun ones, build bonds among people that make working through conflicts or under stress easier. And, for those employees who are specifically team-driven, the shared experiences will cement their place in the group and keep them operating at 110%.

In addition to scheduled social events, the right culture within the office can keep team-driven workers motivated. Humor is an excellent tool for bonding employees. Find creative ways to include humor at work. Also, allow your staff to personalize their workspaces, if possible. Making the work space feel like home makes it easier to spend the hours there and, for some, is a constant reminder of why they want to succeed at that job.

Employees who are motivated by belonging to a team and being part of the solution make excellent, dedicated workers in the right environment. Building the right culture for these employees is a good idea all around, motivating the workers who are team-driven and encouraging commitment and loyalty among the entire staff.





Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Rewards-Driven Employee by K. MacKillop

Establishing various types of reward systems can be an effective tool for motivating employees. A base salary is motivational only in the sense that it keeps workers showing up -- reward systems provide the pull to excel at the job once they are there. Like any other motivational tool, not all workers are impressed by rewards. For those that are, it is important to develop a reward system that meets your overall company objectives.

If all or most of your employees are assigned the same basic tasks, such as retail associates in a store, then developing a reward system is easy. Set targets for overall sales (minus refunds) or specific items or even amount per transaction and reward individuals who meet the target. If everyone meets the goal, it is too low -- you are trying to motivate excellent performance. Retail toy stores are famous for holding battery sale contests among the sales staff -- and you thought the check-out guy was just being helpful!

Keep in mind that people motivated by reward tend to compare their own output, and what they are getting in return, with everyone else. If another worker is less productive but is paid a higher salary or bonus, reward-motivated employees will become less productive. Some companies try to counter this by discouraging salary disclosure, but, really, have you ever worked anywhere that you didn't have a good idea of what everyone else made? Your best bet as an employer is to set fair salary ranges for all comparable positions and use incentives (rewards) to encourage outputs that go above and beyond the expected.

For any reward systems you put in place, there are a few critical aspects that must be incorporated to be effective. Be sure that each employee's basic job description is well-defined, and set clear objectives regarding what it means to go "above and beyond" the expected level of output. All rewards should be directly tied to the precise behaviors and results you hope to encourage.

Avoid giving across the board bonuses just to be fair. Incentives must reward extra effort and hard work to be useful. Employees who do not meet expectations should not be rewarded at all -- that is, be wary of setting raises and promotions on any basis other than productivity and merit. Seeing an unproductive member of the staff promoted will dishearten every reward-motivated worker. It is absolutely critical to be fair. Any perception of favoritism or imbalance in the reward system will completely defeat the purpose of implementing it in the first place.

Reward systems are very effective for many workers if handled correctly. Be fair, be consistent, and reward the efforts that will push your business to success.





Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Reputation-Driven Employee by K. MacKillop

A good number of workers are motivated, at least in part, by external approval and reputation. Most people are concerned with how others view them, and positive attention and accolades can go a long way in inspiring these folks to do their best work. Incorporating feedback and appreciation for a job well done is an important piece of your overall motivation strategy.

At the core of external motivation is attention. Workers driven by reputation tend to be dependent on receiving attention. Often, if they are unable to earn it in a positive manner, they will become disillusioned and unproductive, and may even act out in an attempt to garner any attention -- even negative. As a business owner, it is important to remember that your employees are the key to your long-term success, so any and all efforts that produce positive results should be acknowledged.

To keep reputation-driven workers motivated, it is necessary to provide individual attention and acknowledgement. Successful entrepreneurs make a point of including these factors into the overall culture. Making your support staff feel valued should be a given. Make a point of publicly acknowledging good work but privately dealing with criticism or poor performance. Provide clear guidelines of expectations for every employee and offer frequent, honest feedback of the work being done. Consider implementing recognition programs (employee of the month) or giving awards for specific accomplishments. Be sure the recognition is actually meaningful -- don't just rotate the awards through the staff to be "fair" -- or they will have no value to the recipients.

Incorporating appreciation systems into your company culture is necessary and will pay off in spades. Not only will reputation-driven employees thrive, but the entire staff will feel appreciated and needed. A staff that is treated well will be loyal in return.





Lesa Hammond

Motivating Employees: Motivating the Purpose-Driven Employee by K. MacKillop

Purpose-driven employees take an almost zen-like approach to their work. As long as they believe in what the company is trying to do, the other types of motivators are not very relevant. These are the employees in corporate settings who do the minimum to keep a job to pay the bills but pour significant effort and energy into ideas or causes that they believe in. Not every startup can have an inherent, noble purpose, but there are things you can do to build a sense of purpose into your company culture.

Whether your business manufacturers widgets or provides training services, there is an innate purpose -- you are filling a need in the marketplace. The first step to incorporating purpose-driven motivation into your venture is to define and communicate how each staff position contributes to the overall goal. A good job description should include how the assigned tasks fit into the business. Including a flow chart is an excellent graphical tool for showing where each piece fits, and matters, in the overall process. Every employee wants to feel like they are part of the solution, but purpose-driven workers need to see and hear it more often -- and need to understand how that purpose goes beyond their job and company.

In addition to a well-defined internal purpose, strong companies also have an eye on the greater good. By launching a business with employees, you are already contributing. This current economic downturn is going to recover on the backs of small business through job creation. Truly successful companies do more, both to enhance their goodwill in the market and just because they can. Whether sponsoring a Little League team or sitting on the board of major non-profits, entrepreneurship provides ample opportunity to give back.

Those employees who are particularly purpose-driven generally will not be satisfied with pushing the company agenda. They can, however, be motivated by what the company does for the greater good. Choose a charity or three that are meaningful to you and your staff and brainstorm ways to support them. Select your most purpose-driven staff member to head up and organize those drives. Not only will your employees be more motivated to see your business succeed, but you will also make a name for your company as a concerned, responsible citizen in the marketplace.

Building goodwill is important in business, and keeping your purpose-driven employees motivated and loyal is a bonus. Include charity in your fundamental culture and your road to success will be easier and more satisfying.

About the Author

K. MacKillop, a serial entrepreneur, is founder of LaunchX and authors a small business startup blog. The LaunchX System is designed to help entrepreneurs start a business. Visit LaunchX.com to learn more about adding employees to your business startup.




Lesa Hammond

Retention

[Type a quote from the document or the summary of an interesting point. You can position the text box anywhere in the document. Use the Text Box Tools tab to change the formatting of the pull quote text box.]

Lesa Hammond

The True Cost of Turnover by Jewell Hardin

It's one of the largest costs in all different types of organizations, yet it's also one of the most unknown costs. It's employee turnover.

Companies routinely record and report costs such as wages and benefits, Workman's Compensation Insurance, utilities, materials, and space, yet most companies have no and report the cost of employee turnover. It can be much higher than you think.

How Much is it Costing You?

Several well-regarded studies have recently estimated the cost of losing an employee:

* SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, estimated that it costs $3,500.00 to replace one $8.00 per hour employee when all costs -- recruiting, interviewing, hiring, training, reduced productivity, et cetera, were considered. SHRM's estimate was the lowest of 17 nationally respected companies who calculate this cost!

* Other sources provide these estimates: It costs you 30-50% of the annual salary of entry-level employees, 150% of middle level employees, and up to 400% for specialized, high level employees!

* Do a quick calculation: Think of a job in your organization where there has been some turnover, perhaps supervisors. Estimate their annual average pay and the number of supervisors you lose annually. For example, if their average annual pay is $40,000, multiply this by .125% (or 125% of their annual pay, a reasonable cost estimate for supervisors). This means it costs $50,000 to replace just one supervisor. If this company loses ten supervisors a year, then 10 times $50,000 equals $500,000 in replacement costs for just supervisors. This is the bottom line cost. The top line cost? If the company's profit margin is 10%, then it costs $5,000,000 in revenues to replace these ten supervisors.

Do These Numbers Seem Unbelievable?

Here's an actual calculation from a well-regarded organization in my community. The HR Manager of this human services organization (housing for disabled persons, sheltered workshops, etc.), estimated that 30 entry level people leave his organization on average every quarter.

This averages out to ten people per month. Let's be extra conservative and shave SHRM's estimate (see above) down to $3,000.00 to replace each employee.

This amounts to $30,000 per month, or $1,000.00 in employee turnover costs every day of the month! Annually, this totals $360,000.00.

Actual turnover costs are usually much higher than we think they are -- until we estimate them.

You may be thinking, "Some employee turnover is unavoidable, even desirable." You're right. Some turnover is necessary, to replace marginal or poor employees with more productive ones and to bring in people with new ideas and expertise. However, high turnover costs are both avoidable and unnecessary.

Lesa Hammond

This is where companies need to focus their efforts. The goal is to retain valued performers while replacing poor ones.

Most companies group both types of performers together when looking at turnover. By doing so, they're missing the cost and significance of replacing the good performers.

Why Don't More Companies See This as a Costly Problem?

There are a variety of reasons this is not seen as a problem, all of which cost companies in expertise and dollars. How many of these occur in your organization?

1. No process is in place to tabulate costs. One survey found that only 44% of its respondents had a process in place to estimate turnover costs; 43% of companies relied on intuition, and 13% had no process at all. (1)

2. Costs are not reported to top management. It's a business axiom that one of the best ways to get top management's attention is to show them what something costs. However, most top management never gets to see turnover cost estimates because most companies don't measure them -- or if they do, they don't report them to top management.

3. It's an inescapable cost of doing business. Except, it's not! While some turnover is unavoidable and desirable, most turnover, especially among your better and top performers, is largely avoidable. Thinking that turnover is just a normal cost of doing business is the same quality of thinking which says that accidents are just an inescapable part of being in the construction business.

4. It's an HR problem. While HR needs to be a key partner in reducing turnover cost, this is a strategic issue requiring top management's attention and actions, in addition to HR's efforts, to resolve it.

5. Costs are underestimated, and so they register less concern. If costs are underestimated because the organization doesn't agree on or know what to measure, the statistics generated either register less concern than they should, or are disputed and held in disregard.

What Costs Need to be Fully Estimated?

A comprehensive program measures the following costs:

Exit costs Recruiting Interviewing Hiring Orientation Training Compensation & benefits while training Lost productivity Customer dissatisfaction Reduced or lost business Administrative costs Lost expertise Temporary workers

There needs to be advance agreement among Human Resources, Finance, and Operations as to which cost measures will be considered valid. Then, it has to be measured and reported.

6. Waiting until there's a crisis. I was amazed when the executive director of one organization told me she knew that one of her capable managers was unhappy, but decided it wasn't necessary to take action because she hadn't received a letter of resignation yet.

Prevention is what works best. Begin to measure your turnover costs and, very importantly, look at who is leaving so you'll know if you're retaining your best people.

Lesa Hammond

The time to do this is now. Waiting until there's a crisis to take action limits your options and success rate. It also often triggers the common response of offering more money to get someone to stay, instead of fixing the original problem. Why Do So Many Retention Efforts Fail?

These are among the most common reasons company retention efforts fail, even when they're implemented by capable people.

1. No assessment, so ineffective solutions are chosen. In their hurry to correct a costly problem, companies often forgo conducting a relatively brief and cost-efficient assessment in order to correct the situation faster. However, implementing a solution without diagnosing who is leaving, and why they're leaving often results in solutions that are incapable of solving the root causes behind turnover.

Diagnosing the reasons behind turnover always pays for itself. Don't start without an assessment.

2. Implementing too many solutions instead of the most effective solutions. Managers often brainstorm a number of plausible solutions, then implement many of them -- especially those favored by top management. However, what is most needed is to select and implement a limited number of solutions which will be most effective at solving the problem. Implementing too many solutions, even good ones, will diffuse your resources and weaken your efforts and success.

3. No way of measuring success to know what works. How do you know which retention solutions you've implemented are working effectively and which aren't, where you need to make refinements, and what strategies you need to drop if you don't have a way of measuring your results?

How Do We Do a Better Job of Retaining Employees -- Especially Our Most Valuable Ones?

First, rank your employees in three categories: best performers, middle performers, and lowest performers. Your objective is to retain your top performers; develop and retain your middle performers, turning them into near-top or top performers if possible; and potentially replace your lowest performers.

Second, agree internally on the measures you'll use to calculate turnover costs. Be certain you're taking all costs into consideration. Most organizations greatly underestimate them.

Third, report turnover costs to top management on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis.

When turnover costs are unacceptably high, or higher than your industry's average, do an assessment. Find out who is leaving and why they're leaving. Exit interviews can help you find out why.

You need to know if it is your top, middle, or lowest performers who are leaving so you can gauge the expertise level leaving your organization. You're obviously going to employ (and pay for) different strategies if your top performers are voluntarily leaving, compared to middle or lowest level performers.

Develop solutions capable of solving the problems you uncover, and only implement a limited number of them.

Measure the success of your retention efforts, and refine them.

Two Very Key Strategies to Save a Large Amount of Time and Money.

Lesa Hammond

Very key strategy # 1: Don't wait until turnover costs become unacceptably high before you implement an ongoing retention program. Put a retention program in place before you have crisis situation. You not only must find out why employees leave your organization, you must also find out why others stay.

Very key strategy # 2: Survey your top performers now in order to find out what keeps them there, why they might leave, what type of competitive offers they may find attractive, and what they need to be happier and more productive in their jobs. You'll do a better job of keeping them (along with their expertise and value). You'll also find out highly beneficial information about improvements your organization needs.

This means driving improvements in your organization by what your best people tell you, instead of focusing on taking care of the ever-present complainers in every organization.

Just How Valuable are Retention Efforts? One source estimated that a 10% reduction in employee turnover was worth more money than a 10% increase in productivity, or a 10% increase in sales!

Retain and gain.

About the Author Visit the Knowledge Galaxy website to learn about jealousy, coping with jealousy, dealing with jealousy, finding good engagement gifts, engagement gift etiquette , getting engaged and other information.

http://www.knowledgegalaxy.net/�

http://www.knowledgegalaxy.net/coping_with_jealousy/coping_with_jealousy.html�

http://www.knowledgegalaxy.net/engagement_gift_etiquette/engagement_gift_etiquette.html�

Lesa Hammond

Employee Retention: Confronting Problem Managers by Ross Blake

"People leave managers, not companies," the saying goes, and many times it's true.

The number one reason employees on all levels of organizations leave for other employers is due to an unsatisfactory work relationship with their immediate boss.

Here are six of the most common behaviors supervisors, managers, and executives use that increase employee turnover:

1. Refusing to listen to concerns.

2. Not understanding the needs and expectations their direct reports have of them--and in their jobs-- in order to work effectively and comfortably.

3. Making unrealistic demands, including work schedules that negatively impact work-life balance.

4. Not recognizing and praising good performance.

5. Not helping direct reports learn new skills and develop their careers.

6. Being abrasive in what they say, and how they say it.

There are other reasons for employee turnover of course, but all of these are detrimental, and it's not unusual for difficult managers to be using several of them.

Why Organizations Don't Directly Confront Harmful Behaviors

You'd think any organization would move quickly to put an end to such behaviors and their harmful consequences, yet there are several reasons some managements hesitate to take action.

The offending manager may be a charter employee or partner of the company; s/he is a member of the family who owns the company; past efforts to improve their behavior have failed; management doesn't realize the costs of their actions including turnover; management mistakenly sees employee turnover simply as a cost of doing business; or the manager otherwise has a good track record, especially in terms of "getting things done."

Avoid These Common Mistakes and Ineffective Strategies

One of the biggest mistakes managements make is waiting until displeasure with the manager reaches a breaking point--when confronting them becomes less threatening or unpleasant than tolerating their behavior.

There are two problems with waiting: one, it sends the message that non-productive behaviors are acceptable since they haven't been challenged, and two, you're much more likely to have an emotionally-charged confrontation, making progress much more difficult.

Lesa Hammond

Among the least effective strategies is to send the manager to training seminars about team building or conflict resolution skills hoping they'll see their difficult behaviors on their own, and make needed changes. This rarely happens.

A second ineffective strategy is sending managers and their group or department to training thinking they'll make a transformation together. Doing so usually requires a skilled facilitator. Plus, while most training sessions deliver knowledge and skills, they're usually not directly applied to participant situations--that's something we all hope will happen later. Sometimes it does; often, it does not.

Both of these strategies avoid working directly with the manager, typically allowing problem behaviors to continue.

A third ineffective strategy is threatening to fire the manager or executive without first giving them an opportunity to hear concerns about their behaviors and a means to resolve them.

Is your management fully aware of the person's behavior and its negative impact and costs? If not, request that a meeting be held to review them.

Meeting Purpose

Top managers need to plan out a meeting in advance to describe the manager's behaviors and their impact in a non-blaming, non-accusing way.

The meeting's purpose is not to criticize or condemn them, but to make them aware of how their behaviors hinder the organization in meeting its objectives, and retaining valuable employees and customers.

Some organizations delay or avoid holding such meetings because they fear the manager will become angry and defensive, or may quit as a result.

However, there's a solution to this that's successful most of the time.

How to Greatly Defuse Potential Anger and Defensiveness

You can greatly reduce the likelihood of their becoming angry or quitting by packaging concerns about their behaviors with a viable and mutually-beneficial solution that'll help them make improvements and save face.

That's the key: concerns stated firmly but politely, and instantly followed with a solution.

This accomplishes two valuable things:

1) It demonstrates to the manager that the organization's purpose is to help improve and retain them, not criticize or dump on them.

2) It puts immediate focus on a solution and how to move forward.

Some managers will still become angry and defensive, believing they're being unfairly criticized no matter what, but many, if not most, will want to focus on the solution.

Replacing the manager is often not the best option if they can alter their behaviors or working style.

Lesa Hammond

Replacement costs for most supervisors and managers range from 150% to 200% of their annual salaries; others, including IT specialists, engineers, top salespeople, and some executives cost as much as 200 to 400% of annual salaries to replace.

With skillful guidance and corrective feedback, many managers are capable of making needed changes.

One option to help them do so is to use an internal facilitator provided they have sufficient skills, and if both management and the manager believe their interests will be represented fairly.

External facilitators have the added advantage of more objectivity; they can better offer confidentiality; and they have no internal loyalties or emotional investment. They can be a strong part of your talent management and employee retention strategies.

The time and dollars to coach managers and executives with poor people skills is far less costly than replacing them; knowing how to wisely and effectively confront them will help you do so, and avoid costly manager and employee turnover.

About the Author Ross Blake, the Employee Retention Manager, trains small to mid-size employers, businesses, and HR professionals how to develop employee retention strategies specifically for their organizations, and save tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee turnover and recruiting costs.

Learn more, and get this Free Special Report, "How to Stop Losing $5,000 to $50,000 by Keeping Your Valuable Employees Longer." Go to: http://www.EmployeeRetentionManager.com

http://www.employeeretentionmanager.com/�

Effective Staff Management (e-book)

Documents

Transcript of Effective Staff Management (e-book)