How Top Leaders Retain Top Performers

A friend told me that she was very disappointed that her employer was giving her less than a 1% raise this year, despite the fact that she is the best worker on the team (as determined by her manager's objective measures). Her manager apologized, but said that my friend had been hired near the high end of the pay scale and there was little room for salary growth.

This Fortune 500 Company doesn't get it! No wonder their turnover is more than 25%. Good people leave even in a down economy. They don't seem to have a process in place to keep good people. Do you?

Here are three keys to keeping good employees. You may not be able to implement all three, but the real question is; How will you adapt at least one of them?

#1 - Increase pay growth, not salaries

What my friend's company doesn't understand is that employees say salary matters, but science says, when it comes to retention, salary growth matters more. In other words, it's often not the absolute salary that motivates people to stay; it's the pay growth over time. So, instead of putting those dollars in base salaries put them into the range.

#2 - Improve career mobility

During my last performance review at a medical equipment company, I asked my manager what I should be doing to prepare me for a management position (at the time, I was the top salesperson and had been at the company almost 5 years). He informed me that it would take a long time to move into the management track. A year later, I was Chief Administrative Officer of an Institute at UCLA. I'm NOT trying to impress you. I'm trying to improve your retention rate. A promotion within the previous year decreases the probability of turnover by about 50%. Even if I couldn’t be promoted right away, my boss should have encouraged me to learn new skills (and/or change jobs). Research tells us that if high performers don't grow, they go. How could you adapt this idea to fit your team?

#3 – Reward what you really want

I presented at an executive retreat a few years ago. During the award ceremony, gifts were given to the top three performers in several categories. After the meeting, the director solicited my feedback. I gave it to him straight. I asked him why he penalized his people for sharing their best practices. He looked at me with the "deer-caught-in-the-headlight-look." I explained that he actually was telling his mangers that if they wanted to receive the gifts next year, they had to beat the competition... who happened to be their colleagues? That's NOT teamwork. I recommended that he reward cooperation by setting targets with his team's involvement, then give awards to all those who hit the targets. He invited me to speak again this year... He had a much better performance and award ceremony.

Next time you give a raise or reward a performance, keep these three keys in mind. They are just a few of the many ways that can motivate and retain your good employees.

Let me know what's working for you.

Dave

www.davejensenonleadership.com

How Leaders Interview and Hire the Best

The cost of turnover for a typical employee is between 48 percent and 61 percent of the employee’s salary, as discussed in a previous blog ( http://davejensenonleadership.blogspot.com/2009/06/six-hiring-mistakes-good-leaders-make.html ). In that blog, I also revealed the six most common mistakes leaders make during the interviewing and hiring process. These errors are why an average of 50% of all new hires leave during the first seven months. Let us now turn our attention to avoiding these mistakes and hiring the best fit for the job.

The eXpansive Leadership Method (XLM) is a tool to help you interview and hire well. As seen below, you can use the XLM to frame your approach to the hiring process. Adapt this process to suit your environment to hire better candidates, improve productivity, lower turnover, and decrease costs. If you’d like to read how to execute each step, click the link below or paste it in to your browser:

http://davejensenonleadership.com/HowLeadersInterviewandtheBestfortheJob.html

Apply the XLM to Interview and Hire the Best

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

http://www.DaveJensenOnLeadership.com

The Five Steps Leaders Use to Coach

Bob, the director of the YMCA youth department, called me into his office and said, "Dave, we're going to open a Junior High Team Center next month."

"That's great, where are you going to have it?" I asked.

"YOU are going to have it right here in the youth lobby." He smiled.

"You want me to lead the Junior High Team Center?" I was astonished because I was only a freshman in college.

"Why not? You are already doing a great job with our Leadership Corp Program."

I opened our New Junior High Team Center on Friday night, the next month. It was a big hit for the kids and for me because Bob was an effective coach. How effective is your coaching?

Coaching is strongly associated with employee engagement, retention, and work satisfaction. Yet surveys show that while 79% of organizations report that their leaders coach, only 40% say they hold these leaders accountable with performance coaching measures; and a mere 37% say that their organization has a specific coaching framework or model for their leaders to follow. (1) In other words, leaders have the responsibility to coach but no methodology. Here are five steps to help you implement a consistent and effective coaching framework:

1. Define the vision.

Ask the person you are coaching (coachee) to answer several questions such as, where do they want to be in five years? What type of responsibilities would they like to have? What do they like most about their current job? Do they have any specific goals? Back when I was in my first year of college, I told Bob I wanted to be a director at a YMCA.

2. Assess what is true today.

Use a variety of tools, such as interviews of the coachee's coworkers, 360 feedback, self-assessments... to understand the employee’s strengths and weaknesses. To read a great article about the importance of 360 assessment, click http://davejensenonleadership.com/CrimesWeCommitAssessment.html

3. Agree on a plan.

Discuss the difference between their vision and today's reality. Brainstorm different approaches to minimize the gap. When I coach leaders, I focus on helping them lead with their strengths while managing weaknesses. This means creating a laser-focused plan that builds on their strengths and deals with their weaknesses. Bob and I put together a plan that increased my responsibilities, such as running the new teen center.

4. Experiment and practice.

Encourage them to try new behaviors and test different approaches. This stage also works best if you are able to employ those with whom the coachee interacts on a regular to help reinforce their practice. I just don't do 360 assessments when I coach, I use 360 COACHING to help the coachee put the plan into practice. We learn by doing.

5. Conduct after action reviews.

Meet with your coachee on a regular basis to assess their progress against the plan. It is also helpful to begin building systems that help reinforce the new behaviors. For example, Bob had me create checklists for opening and closing the Junior High Team Center in order to grow my organizational skills.

These are the fundamental steps I use to coach executives and to teach leaders how to coach. I encourage you to adapt them to fit your organization. Let me know what methodology you are using or how you adapt this one to help your leaders coach.

Keep on coaching,

Dave

http://davejensenonleadership.com/

PS These are the steps that Bob used 35 years ago. He continues to be a great friend and wonderful coach today.

1. Annette Fillary-Travis and David Lane; Does Coaching Work or Are We Asking the Wrong Question?, ‘International Coaching Psychology Review,’ Volume 1, Number 1, April 2006, 23-36.

20 Tips Leaders Use To Create a Development Culture

Leaders are judged by their team’s performance. This is one of the reasons why coaching for improved performance is critical. Yet, coaching individuals is not enough. The most effective leaders also make development an important aspect of their unit’s culture. They understand that developing all their direct reports is critical to their overall success. Listed below are 20 practical tips to help you create a culture of development on your team.

1. Dedicate a small portion of each meeting to education.

2. Invite key stakeholders from other units to educate your team as part of “brown bag lunches.”

3. Encourage job shadowing.

4. Have a book-of-the-month club.

5. Require those who travel to association meetings to educate those who did not go to the meeting.

6. Reward those who earn educational achievements.

7. Applaud those who join their professional associations publicly.

8. Conduct after-action-reviews after delegating tasks to team members.

9. Create project teams dedicated to continuous improvement.

10. Create project teams dedicated to innovative growth.

11. Rotate team members through key positions in your unit to help them grow key skills.

12. Meet with all your employees individually at least once a week to discuss how you can help them be more efficient and effective on the job.

13. Disseminate articles that highlight relevant issues, trends, and development opportunities.

14. Help team members develop skills by having each individual share the progress they are making on one development need every week.

15. Maintain a development file for each of your employees.

16. Ask team members to brainstorm ways to encourage the development of skills for the team and each other.

17. Confront poor performance privately, immediately, and directly.

18. Groom at least one high-potential employee to replace you.

19. Make time to coach by delegating small portions of your job to others.

20. Communicate monthly regarding how the team's ongoing development relates to the organization's strategy.

The most effective leaders coach individuals and create a culture of development. Which of these 20 tips have you used to create your culture? What others have you found useful?

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

http://www.DaveJensenOnLeadership.com

How Leaders Stay Positive – Part III

Leaders who execute with passion understand that while managing time is important, managing energy is mandatory. Listed below are 12 additional tips I gleaned from interviewing dozens of leaders who maintain their vitality and positive attitude when they encounter obstacles.

· Eat well. Forget all the fad diets. If you go on a diet, you’ll go off it. The first three letters of the word “diet” tell you all you need to know. My favorite scientific, yet very practical, resource for health advice is The UC Berkeley Wellness Newsletter. (www.WellnessLetter.com) They offer these general guidelines:

• Eat high-fiber foods, such as fruits, vegetables, beans and whole grains
• Consume more fish and nuts
• Decrease your intake of sugary foods, like white bread and junk food
• Cut back on animal fats, meats and fast food

· Exercise regularly. A little daily exercise will do wonders for your attitude and weight. You don’t have to become an Olympian. Top performers stay fit by exercising aerobically every day, even if it’s a quick power walk. One mile burns about 100 - 125 calories, whether you walk it in 20 minutes or run it in ten. There are 3,500 calories in one pound. You do the math. A mile a day melts the pounds away.

· Keep Good Company. Limit the time you spend with those who are “optimistically challenged” or “Negaholics.” Spend more time with people who make you feel good about who you are.

· Be a Life-long Learner. The best leaders are lifelong learners. Zig Ziglar told me that he was not a good student in school, but that he became a great one after he graduated. Take courses, read books, go to association meetings, and so forth. Your customers, products, and environment are constantly changing. Spend at least one half-hour per day soaking up new information to stay current and positive. One leader told me that she and her team have a book of the month club. They spend 10 minutes at their meetings discussing how to apply what they are learning. She says that they don’t have time to moan about what they cannot influence because they’re always working on issues they can influence.

· Enjoy Hobbies. Get away from work on a regular basis. When you’re at home, be at home. The word recreation comes from re-create. You’ll be more motivated and creative if you engage in active leisure during your down time.

· Get Rest. Make sure you get the rest you need. Experts tell us we need 7 – 8 hours of sleep per night. Few of us get it. Take a 20-minute power nap or meditation mid-day. The late, great Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi was right when he said, “Fatigue makes cowards of us all.”

· Turn off the TV. Go for a 20-minute pep walk and talk with a loved one, instead of watching television the entire evening. Focus on positive events of the day during your walk.

· Tell Stories. Start meetings or dinner at home by reading a humorous and uplifting story.

· Express appreciation. Make a list of things you are thankful. When things are not going well, focus on what you do have. Let others know how much you appreciate who they are and what they do.

· Review goals daily. We move in the direction of the dominant images we place, or let others place, in our minds. A goal is our North Star. Focusing on a goal also decreases the sting of those little pinpricks we all experience every day.

· Write positive affirmations. Write a few of your favorite, positive affirmations or quotations on 3x5 index cards. Keep them with you and repeat them aloud to yourself throughout the day.

· Listen to uplifting audio-programs in the car. Do you spend or invest time in your car? Top-performing leaders invest the time and money to turn their car into a “Rolling University.”

How surprised will you be when you and your team strengthen your belief in achieving your goal because maintained your energy and positive mood using these tools? What's working for you?

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

How Leaders Stay Positive – Part II

Mood is the final “M” (after Modeling and Mastery) to building the strong belief that a team can reach their goal. Many leaders don’t reach their goals because they let obstacles bring the team down. The top leaders I have studied choose to stay positive when things seem negative. Listed below are three more techniques to help you maintain a positive mood at work. Adapt them to suit you and your team.

1. Walk tall, feel better

How you move affects how you feel. Your motion influences your e-motion. Don’t believe me? Try the following exercise:

Sit down and start thinking about something that is bothering you. It might be a difficult employee, a problem at home, a health-related issue... As you think about this problem, create the clear sounds, pictures, and feelings that accompany this problem. Let your whole body feel the burden and pain of this situation. Please put this book down for minute and use your imagination to feel this exercise emotionally.

Now, how would you describe the position of your shoulders, head, and eyes? If you’re like most people, your shoulders are slumped, your head is tilted forward, and your eyes are looking down.

Next step: Please stand up. (Come on, humor me for a second and stand up.) Now, shake your legs and arms. Look up, walk across the room with your head up, shoulders back, and smile. Pretend there's a cape blowing in the wind behind you and that you’re listening to the theme song from Rocky, Superman, or Wonderwoman. How does that feel? Are you as down as you were before?

Act as if it were impossible to fail.

Dorthea Brande

Long before Dorthea Brande etched these words in her 1936 classic, Wake Up and Live, two giants of science observed that how we move affects how we feel. (1) In 1872 Charles Darwin wrote, “The free expression of an emotion intensifies it.” (2) In 1890 William James, the father of modern psychology, presented the flip side when he penned these words, “Refuse to express a passion and it dies.” (3) Recent research confirms that your motion affects your emotion.

Professor Carroll Izard, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Delaware, reviewed the large body of research on what is called “emotion activation.” (4) Her three key conclusions are:

1. More than 30 studies confirm that facial muscles play a role in mood alteration.

2. Facial muscle contractions change cerebral blood flow and neuro-chemical activity.

3. Specific body postures elicit specific emotions.

If you want to feel better throughout the day, move better. Put a smile on your face, head up, shoulders back, and march confidently. Stride as if you are unstoppable. Positive posture produces positive performance. Don’t take my word for it. Try it and see if you feel better when you move better. The proof is in your action, not my words.

2. Ask positive questions

Leaders who find themselves in a negative mood usually ask themselves and others negative questions, such as: Why does this always happen to us? Who screwed up this time? When are they ever going to get it right? These questions are legitimate and negative because they lead to negative thoughts.

As I told a Wells Fargo executive, there is no failure, only feedback. Think of a setback as feedback waiting for meaning. Remember, it's only failure if you don’t learn anything. To learn lessons from difficult situations or setbacks, ask positive questions like these:

• What was supposed to happen?
• What did happen?
• Why?
• What went well?
• What could I do differently next time?
• How can I grow from this?
• What are some possible next steps?

3. Reward yourself and the team

Positive reinforcement is a great way to keep yourself and your team in a positive mood as you execute your plan to achieve your goal. Invite your team to create fun methods to apply the power of rewards to each other. You may also want to pat your team members on the back using these steps:

1. Have each team member give you a list of little things they enjoy as rewards (i.e., favorite ice cream, soda, candy, local restaurant...)

2. Pick one of these items as a reward whenever that team member makes significant progress towards the goal.

3. Give the reward to the team member at a team meeting.

For example, a few of my favorite things include: reading inspiring books, biking in the mountains, taking an afternoon nap, walking our dogs, eating yogurt, seeing great movies... So, when a client called a few days ago confirming a large contract, I celebrated by biking in the mountains and taking a mid-afternoon nap. Very simple and rewarding.

When you provide rewards, you need to be careful not to over-focus on the reward and under-focus on the work. So, apply the five I’s of effective positive reinforcement to maintain a good balance:

- Immediate: Give the reward as closely to the behavior as possible

- Intermittent: Reward randomly, not every time

- Important: Make sure the reward has motivational impact

- Interesting: Brainstorm fun, little ways to reward others

- Involvement: Include team members in the process

How surprised will you be when you and your team strengthen your belief in achieving your goal because stayed in a more positive mood using these tools? Let me know what works for you!

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Brande D: Wake Up and Live. Cornerstone Library: New York, 1936.

2. Darwin C: The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals. University of Chicago Press: Chicago, 1965. (Original manuscript published in 1872.

3. James W: Principles of Psychology (Vol. 2). Dover: New York, 1950. (Original manuscript published in 1890.

4. Izard C: Four Systems for Emotion Activation: Cognitive and Non-cognitive Process. Psychological Review 100: 68-90, 1993

How Leaders Gain and Maintain Commitment in Tough Times

To achieve a goal during difficult times, leaders need employees committed to reaching the goal. The word commit actually comes from the word Latin committere, “to connect.” Where there is no commitment there is no connection to the goal.

How do you know when someone is committed? (I said it is committed, not should be committed!) Here’s a clue: psychologists measure commitment by the steps taken in the face of adversity. Because achieving goals is filled with many obstacles these days, the true measure of your leadership is what is done when your team encounters obstacles. Listed below are four of the many ways to gain and maintain commitment to your goals during tough times.

Four Ways to Gain and Maintain Commitment

I. Involvement

II. Authority

III. Competition

IV. Expectancy

I. Increase Involvement

I used to think that I needed to have all the answers when I was an executive at UCLA. My perception began to change when I was asked to be course director for an international symposia. This ambitious goal required involvement of many of our over-worked staff and faculty. It became clear from the very start that the more I involved people, the more excited they became about the symposia. The meeting turned out to be a huge success and provided a valuable lesson about leadership - increasing involvement increases commitment.

This was also the conclusion of Professors Alex Bryson and Michael White from the London School of Economics and Political Science. (1) They surveyed 22,451 employees in 2,295 organizations on a wide variety of high-performance workplace practices. They found that the most effective approach to increasing commitment was increasing an employee involvement, especially in decision-making.

II. Demonstrate authority

The trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann began in the spring of 1961 in Jerusalem. Three months later, Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram devised the experiments to answer this question: How could Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust say that they were “just following orders?”

Milgram set up a simple experiment to see how much pain a person would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an authority figure, in this case, an experimental scientist. The answer: A LOT! The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of a perceived authority constitutes the chief finding of this classic study. (2)

Notice that the person must be perceived as a legitimate authority. Your followers will perceive you as a legitimate authority when you are supportive, trustworthy, likable, knowledgeable, and provide convincing rationale for the goal.

III. Create competition

Comparing your team’s performance to others’ is another way of increasing commitment to a goal. One of the reasons competition increases commitment is that our brain is wired to compare our successes and failures to those of the people around us. (3) Researchers at the University of Minnesota used skin conductance to measure the emotional arousal of volunteers as they played a lottery game either alone or with a partner. The investigators discovered that the subjects’ emotions were much more intense when they compared their winnings or losses with those of the peer, as compared to their emotions when they played alone.

You can promote competition as a form of motivation by giving the team feedback in relation to group norms, posting scores so everyone can compare their performance with others, reminding the team what the competition in the market is up to, and so forth. Your team will be more committed because they’ll be trying to “keep up with the Joneses?”

IV. Expect the best

Pygmalion was a sculptor in Greek mythology who carved a lifelike ivory statue of a beautiful woman. He came to love his statue and treated it as if it were alive. During a festival, the Greek god Venus heard Pygmalion's heartfelt prayers, and turned his statue into a living woman. His expectations were fulfilled.

Professors Rosenthal and Rubin reviewed 345 separate studies on this Pygmalion effect (also referred to as the self-fulfilling prophecy). They concluded that “the reality of the phenomenon is beyond doubt.” (4) People tend to perform to the level expected of them.

The professors reported on a study of elementary school children who were all administered a test that supposedly predicted intellectual "blooming." At the start of the school year, 20% of the children were chosen at random to constitute the experimental group. Each teacher (grade 1 -6) was given the names of the children from her class who were in the experimental group and told that these children had scores on the intellectual "blooming" test, indicating that they would show remarkable gains in intellectual competence during the next eight months of school. In reality, the only difference between the experimental group and the control group children was in the minds of the teachers (i.e., their expectations).

The same IQ test was administered to all the children in the school eight months later. Those children whom the teacher had been led to expect greater intellectual progress showed significantly greater gains in IQ than did the children of the control group. The teachers expected more from these children and the children rose to their expectations. Your team will too. Great expectations fuel great accomplishments.

Use these four keys to gain and maintain your (and your team’s) commitment to your goals during these tough times. How surprised will you be when you overcome tough times and reach your destination? Let me know how you’re doing.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Alex Bryson and Michael White; Organizational Commitment: Do Workplace Practices Matter? Centre for Economic Performance Discussion Paper No 881, July 2008.

2. Milgram, S.; Obedience To Authority. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1974.

3. Karen Frenkel; Even Better Than a Personal Best, Scientific American Mind, April/May 2008, page 17.

4. Rosenthal, R and Rubin, D; Interpersonal Expectancy Effects: The First 345 Studies. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences 3: 377-415, 1978.

How Leaders Gain Commitment to Difficult Goals

Last week, a leader (Len) told me that one of his veteran middle managers (Mark) had mishandled another customer complaint. This time, a customer had criticized the poor service she received. Mark defended his team and showed little empathy for the customer. The customer then wrote a scathing editorial in the local paper.

When Len questioned Mark about his approach, Mark said he cared so much about the company that he didn’t like his team being criticized. How would you motivate Mark to achieve a better customer service outcome?

I coached Len to focus on what Mark had already told him was of high value to Mark. That’s when Len got it. He understood that the best way to obtain Mark’s commitment to better service was to communicate how Mark’s current approach was actually hurting the company. Len told Mark that if he really cared about the company, he and his team would finally come up with a plan to manage customer complaints better.

Len’s approach to gaining commitment to the service goal is working. The plan is in place. Service has improved. Mark has moved from compliance to commitment, based on what Mark values. That’s the power of value.

As you embark on your journey to achieve any goal, the first key to an effective plan is to make sure those who need to execute are fully committed to reaching the destination. That's what the story is about.

The word commit comes from the word Latin committere, “to connect.” Where there is no commitment there is no connection to the goal. How do you know when someone is committed? (I said it is committed, not should be committed!) Here’s a clue: psychologists measure commitment by the steps taken in the face of adversity. Because achieving difficult goals is filled with many obstacles, the true measure of your leadership is how connected your team stays when they encounter these barriers.

In their comprehensive goal-setting book, Professors Locke and Latham identify the numerous factors that affect commitment. (1) Seven are listed below. The opening story, and this entire blog, focuses on the valence.

The Seven Secrets of Gaining Commitment

A. Valence

B. Rewards

C. Involvement

D. Authority

E. Competition

F. Publicness

G. Expectancy

A. Valence - The Value of Value

Valence is defined as, “the value placed on achievement.” Thus, value is first on the list because it reveals the why beneath what we do. It is the steam behind the “MOTORvation” engine. Have you seen the consequences of leaders who do not communicate the value - the why - of a difficult goal? If not, it’s because under normal circumstances you seldom see the negative consequences of low commitment. Lack of commitment only surface when a storm hits. Those who don’t see the value of a goal point fingers and blame others in the face of adversity. Employees who highly value the goal find a way to “get er done” despite difficulty. One of the biggest mistakes leaders make is confusing commitment and compliance. Committed employees give their heart and soul as they pursue a difficult goal; those who comply merely put in their time.

When the Corporate Leadership Council surveyed more than 50,000 employees in 59 organizations worldwide, they found that the employees performed at a 20% higher level when they valued their jobs. (2) Leaders communicated value by: telling employees how important they were to the success of the business, giving them numerous opportunities to contribute, and helping them believe in the worth and credibility of the organization.

Another way to help others see their value in your goal is to brainstorm the benefits they will receive when the goal is achieved. Here's how I did it with 100 executives at their leadership retreat: I gave each leader a blank sheet of paper and told them that I would give a prize to the person who wrote the most answers, in 59 seconds, to this question: If we achieve this new goal, what benefits might you personally receive?

At the end of 59 seconds, I gave a prize to the leader who had the most answers (I wanted quantity, not quality). They then shared some of their answers as I wrote them on a flipchart. Within minutes, they had sold themselves and each other on their leader’s new goal. They had found their value in his goal. How can your team find what they value in your goal?

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Locke E and Latham G: A Theory of Goal Setting & Task Performance. Prentice Hall: Englewood Cliffs, 1990.

2. Leigh Buchman: The Things They Do for Love, Harvard Business Review, December 2004, 19 -- 20.

How Leaders Coach

Effective leadership coaching is strongly associated with employee engagement, retention, and work satisfaction. Yet surveys show that while 79% of organizations report that their leaders coach, only 40% say they hold these leaders accountable with performance coaching measures; and a mere 37% say that their organization has a specific coaching framework. (1) In other words, you may have the responsibility to coach but no methodology. Here are five steps to help you implement a consistent and effective coaching framework:
1. Define the vision. Ask the person you are coaching (coachee) to answer several questions such as, where do they want to be in five years? What type of responsibilities would they like to have? What do they like most about their current job? Do they have any specific goals?
2. Assess what is true today. Use a variety of tools, such as interviews of the coachee's coworkers, 360 feedback, self-assessments... to understand the employee’s strengths and weaknesses.
3. Agree on a plan. Discuss the difference between their vision and today's reality. Brainstorm different approaches to minimize the gap. When I coach leaders, I focus on helping them lead with their strengths while managing weaknesses. This means creating a plan that builds on their strengths and deals with their weaknesses. Dealing with weaknesses includes spending a little time every day working on those weaknesses if they’re important to the vision.
4. Experiment and practice. Encourage them to try new behaviors and test different approaches. This stage also works best if you are able to employ those with whom the coachee interacts on a regular to help reinforce their practice.
5. Conduct after action reviews. Meet with your coachee on a regular basis to assess their progress against the plan. It is also helpful to begin building systems that help reinforce the new behaviors.

These are the fundamental steps I use to coach executives and to teach leaders how to coach. I encourage you to adapt them to fit your organization. In fact, I'd love to hear what methodology you are currently using or how you adapt this one to help your leaders coach.

Keep on coaching,
Dave

1. Annette Fillary-Travis and David Lane; Does Coaching Work or Are We Asking the Wrong Question?, ‘International Coaching Psychology Review,’ Volume 1, Number 1, April 2006, 23-36.

How Leaders Find Meaning In Work?

Ron was a successful senior executive with an insurance firm. I say successful because he had all the appearances of success. He had money, prestige, friends, family, and three homes. But he wasn’t happy at work. At age 60, he retired in order to take care of his ailing mother. He recently told me that he has never experienced such fulfillment as he does now caring for his aging Mom. Ron had found much more meaning in his new "career" as a caregiver. How about you and your team? How much meaning is in your work?

The definition of meaningful work is “the ability to earn a living doing that which satisfies an individual’s psychological, spiritual, and social sense of purpose and contribution.” (1) The four key elements of meaningful work are shown below. The list represents Professor Miller's modification of Neal Chalofsky’s model. (2)

I. The Sense of Self

• Bringing one’s whole self (mind, body, emotion, spirit) to the work (and the workplace)

• Recognizing and developing one’s potential

• Knowing one’s purpose in life and how work fits into that purpose

• Having a positive belief system about achieving one’s purpose

II. The Work Itself

• The act of performing – mastering one’s performance

• Challenge, creativity, learning, continuous growth

• The opportunity to carry out one’s purpose through the work

• Autonomy, empowerment, and a sense of control over one’s environment

III. The Sense of Balance

• The balance of work self and personal self

• The balance of spiritual self and work self

• The balance of giving to oneself and giving to others

• The balance of family self and friendship self

• The balance of individual self and supportive others

IV. The Sense of Contribution

• Using one’s skills, strengths, and talents to serve others

• Making a difference

• Making the world a better place

• Feeling part of something larger than ourselves

• Experiencing mutual benefit -- by helping others, I help myself

Ron was missing in several of the areas identified in this list of meaningful work. Where are you and your team members lacking?

Although it is not entirely your responsibility to make work meaningful for employees, it is in your best interest to help them see that work can be meaningFULL. You can accomplish this by helping them master all aspects of the job, presenting them with challenging and creative tasks, and providing them with a sense of autonomy and control. In addition, frequently reminding your employees that they are making the world a better place will contribute to their sense of meaningful work. As you increase meaning, researchers remind us that your employees' performance and retention improve. (3)

Ron said he had to leave work to find more meaning in his life. You don't have to. Could you and your team find more meaning if you distributed the meaningful work list and invited employees, individually and collectively, to brainstorm ways to increase the meaning in their work? Let me know how it goes. I'd love to hear from you.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. Cynthia S. Miller; Meaningful Work Over the Life Course, Dissertation, Fielding Graduate University, 2008, p22.

2. Chalofsky, N; The humane workplace: Aligning of value-based organizational culture, meaningful work, and life balance. Presentation delivered at the Organization Development Network Conference, Baltimore, October 23, 2007.

3. Wesley A. Scroggins; ‘The Relationship Between Employee Fit Perceptions, Job Performance, and Retention: Implications of Perceived Fit,’ Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal, 2008, 20:57–71.

Leaders Reveal 7 Tips to Engage Employees

Terry delivered results. He knew how to get things done, and the senior leadership rewarded him. He rose quickly in the sales organization; from district manager to regional sales manager to senior vice president. As the senior VP, Terry was not afraid to shake things up in the complacent, bureaucratic company known for quality, but sorely lacking in innovation.

Within three years, most of the top salespeople and sales managers left. Market share dropped rapidly and Terry was fired. Terry’s over-bearing style had enraged, not engaged, his employees. How well do you engage your employees?

Employee engagement is defined as the connection employees have to their jobs, careers, and organizations that leads to value-added effort. When engagement is high, employees go the extra mile to get the job done. Without this connection, leaders like Terry may get employees to comply, but they won’t ignite the fuel of commitment needed to drive the engine of growth. Leaders who push for results without engagement are driving with one foot on the break.

Despite the importance of engagement, the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study of 90,000 employees found that only 21% are fully engaged in their work, 41% are enrolled (they occasionally go the extra mile), 30% are disenchanted (they rarely go the extra mile), and 8% are fully disengaged (1).

This means that on any given day, an astounding 71 per cent of employees worldwide fall into the muddled middle of engagement. This is the “engagement gap” - the distance between what employees actually contribute and what they are capable of contributing. Terry's team and many of his top salespeople disengaged soon after his arrival and it eventually cost him and the organization dearly.

According to the Gallup organization, the cost of lost productivity due to disengagement is $300 billion in the United States, $226.5 billion in Germany, and $6 billion in Singapore. (2) The U.S. economy is estimated to run at only about 30 percent efficiency because of a low engagement (3). Imagine walking into your organization and telling 70% of your employees to go home! That's effectively what leaders do when they don't engage their employees on a routine basis.

The Corporate Leadership Council surveyed 50,000 employees at 59 global organizations and reviewed more than 300 drivers of engagement across the globe. The good news is that they found that increasing an employee’s level of engagement improves performance 20 percent and reduces the probability of departure by 87 percent. (4)

Here are several tips science says will help you increase engagement, performance, and retention:

- Ask each employee how they feel about their work.

- Help team members do their best every day.

- Demonstrate that you care about what is important to them by involving them in decision-making whenever possible.

- Create meaningful work by frequently delegating tasks that help employees grow in a mutually beneficial way.

- Discuss organizational goals on a regular basis.

- Find ways to remind employees that what they do on a daily basis influences the long-term organizational strategy.

- Demonstrate a strong commitment to diversity in your hiring and promotion practices and by encouraging diverse opinions in daily discussions.

These are several tactics to engage employees. How do you engage your team? As you adapt these to fit your style and culture, you’ll also eXpand your empowering leadership style – one of the four key styles research reveals is critical to leadership success.

Keep eXpanding,

Dave

1. http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/lobby.jsp?country=global

2. Rodd Wagner and James Harter; The Heart of Great Managing, ‘Gallup Management Journal’, June 12, 2008.

3. Bates, S. Getting Engaged. ‘HR Magazine’, Vol 49, No. 2, 2004.

4.http://www.lloydmorgan.com/PDF/Driving%20Performance%20and%20Retention%20Through%20Employee%20Engagement.pdf