Do You Know What Your Boss Wants From You?

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As an executive coach, I’ve worked with hundreds of people in all types of organizations. Each person has their own story, of course – a unique narrative that includes their skills, experience, strengths, weaknesses, and relationships. While every engagement is different, these people all have one thing in common; their boss always plays a central role in the story. That’s why my first coaching question is “what does your boss really want from you?”

Now, some of my clients have great bosses, so we discuss the relationship briefly and move on. However, a lot of my clients don’t work for a great boss. They’re not clear about his views, or don’t understand what she really wants… and all of this is impacting their engagement, performance, and happiness.

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About the Author

Steve Arneson is one of America’s top executive coaches and corporate leadership speakers. His follow-up to the best-selling Bootstrap Leadership is What Your Boss Really Wants from You. Both books are available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.com.

Why Our Employees Asked Us To Stop Giving Away Cars

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Easy-to-implement ideas to improve your corporate culture and drive employee engagement

 
We gave a new car away to our employees every other month, six cars in total, to keep the motivation and excitement up among our best performing sales agents. We were really impressed with ourselves and wanted to know what else we could do to improve the happiness factor. We sent out a survey (which we still do today) to ask our employees about the cleanliness, the temperature in the building, the security, the lighting, the management, the pay, the incentives, the likelihood that they’d leave if another company offered them more money, all-in-all we had about twenty five questions. Two months later the same survey showed that the work space was cleaner, the building temperature more comfortable, the security better, the lights brighter, the managers more helpful, the pay was better, our incentive plan produced better results, and less of our employees would leave for more money.

How did we manage to change our employees’ perception and why did they want us to stop giving away cars?

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About the Author

Craig Handley is a networking monster with an unstoppable combination of hard work, ingenuity, and creativity that has sparked the vision and growth that drives the success of Listen Up Español. Craig’s expertise in maximizing the sales process – and Listen Up Español’s impressive track record of higher conversion rates and higher average order value than any other Spanish language call center – was achieved from the ground up, having started his professional career in door-to-door sales and rising through the ranks in many call centers. He is well known for being an entrepreneur who lives and breathes the Maverick motto: “Make More Money, Have More Fun, and Give More Back.”

The Advisor’s Corner – How do I deal with so much on my plate?

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How do I deal with so much on my plate?Question:

There is SO much on my plate – how do I sort out priorities, recognize the blocks, and keep an open mind for possibilities?

StrategyDriven Response: (by Roxi Hewertson, StrategyDriven Principal Contributor)

You might find that you are so focused on the ‘tasks’ at hand that the most important work is getting the short end of the stick. Let’s identify some ‘buckets’ to help you navigate your way to success.

Perhaps you have just been given a challenge to solve by your leader. Your job is to identify the relevant factors, create priorities, and then execute on your own or with others on your team. My advice: start by identifying which items fall into each of four buckets: Fat Rabbits, Quick Wins, Rocks, and Who Cares.

You know what a Fat Rabbit looks like, and it probably makes you smile! These are those parts of the challenge that are foundational, have the highest/fattest impact, and must be in place to succeed at executing your assignment. These are the big fat chunks of your challenge that need to be addressed or nothing else will work matter.

Quick Wins are those parts of your challenge that require minimal effort with maximum payoff. They demonstrate tangible, visible progress. Getting them done and making them known to the appropriate stakeholders, significantly boosts momentum. Too many people think they have to get the Fat Rabbits well underway or completed before going for any Quick Wins. Ignoring Quick Wins often results in Slow Wins or No Wins.

Then there are the Rocks. These are tough blocks in the road to completion of a successful challenge. These Rocks need to be identified without denial or wishful thinking. Pretending they aren’t there won’t make them go away. Sometimes Rocks are pebble like, and sometimes they are more like Mt. Rushmore. Solutions may not be known immediately, and that’s ok. You won’t move forward without moving the Rocks out of the way one way or another, or finding a way around them. If the Rocks are too formidable, reconsider the challenge – is it the right challenge at the right time? Moving Rocks requires a lot of effort and energy, so you need it to pay off.

Finally, we have the Who Cares bucket. These might be interesting, but they are a distraction. Identify the Who Cares items so your valuable time and energy are not waste and that no one really cares about.

Let’s take one challenge, Succession Planning and dip into the four buckets for a look. This sample is by no means complete, but it will give you the idea to apply to your own work.

Fat Rabbits

  • Define the workforce realities with indisputable facts, and create the ‘burning platform’ of urgency
  • Identify current competencies and compare with necessary next generation competencies
  • Align all HR/OD functions: to meet forecasted job content and design

Quick Wins

  • Learn why people come to work at ABC Company, why they stay, and why they leave
  • Identify key positions and key people to target for succession planning
  • Analyze internal/external labor demographics/pipelines

Rocks

  • Decentralization reality vs. having one ABC Company strategy, are in conflict
  • IT Systems, as they are today, and aggregate data reporting are insufficient to collect enough accurate data

Who Cares

  • Offices need to be rennovated when people leave, thus impacting the budget (lots of things impact the budget – it’s off topic or very low priority)

When you focus on the things that really matter, you make progress. When you don’t, you don’t make progress. Make sure your Rocks are not show stoppers, then go for a few visible and happy Quick Wins as you work on your Fat Rabbits!

About the Author

Leadership authority Roxana (Roxi) Hewertson is a no-nonsense business veteran revered for her nuts-and-bolts, tell-it-like-it-is approach and practical, out-of-the-box insights that help both emerging and expert managers, executives and owners boost quantifiable job performance in various mission critical facets of business. Through AskRoxi.com, Roxi — “the Dear Abby of Leadership” — imparts invaluable free advice to managers and leaders at all levels, from the bullpen to the boardroom, to help them solve problems, become more effective and realize a higher measure of business and career success.

The StrategyDriven website was created to provide members of our community with insights to the actions that help create the shared vision, focus, and commitment needed to improve organizational alignment and accountability for the achievement of superior results. We look forward to answering your strategic planning and tactical business execution questions. Please email your questions to [email protected].

A penny saved is a penny earned. Or is it?

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Ben Franklin sought to cultivate his character by a plan of 13 virtues, which he developed at age 20 (in 1726), and continued to practice in some form for the rest of his life.

His autobiography lists his 13 virtues as:

  1. Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
  2. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
  3. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
  4. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
  5. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
  6. Industry. Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
  7. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
  8. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
  9. Moderation. Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
  10. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths (sic), or habitation.
  11. Tranquility. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
  12. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
  13. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

Franklin didn’t try to work on them all at once. Instead, he would work on one and only one each week, leaving all others to their ordinary chance. While Ben did not live completely by his virtues, and by his own admission fell short of them many times, he believed the attempt at living them made him a better man. He believed these virtues contributed greatly to his success and happiness.

In his autobiography, Franklin listed and wrote about the virtues, “I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example and reap the benefit.”

His list is certainly no be-all end-all list of virtuous characteristics, BUT it gets you thinking about yourself and your virtues. Impossible not to.
Not wanting to in any way infringe on the genius of what was Ben Franklin, I’d like to offer some of today’s characteristics of virtue and add to Ben’s list.

I’ll add a few words of definition to each, but more important, think about each of these virtues as it relates to you, your self-disciplines, your actions, and your ethics. Maybe even RATE YOURSELF on each one as you read.

Were he alive today, Ben’s virtues might have included:

  • Truth. Your ability to be truthful to others and truthful to yourself.
  • Honesty. Take honest actions you can be proud of.
  • Trust. Be trustworthy and trusting. Trust others until proven otherwise. Be trustworthy by example.
  • Ethics. The right way you conduct yourself in business and life.
  • Speed. Response it today’s world is immediate. How immediate are you?
  • Reliable. People want to deal with reliable people. How reliable are you?
  • Loyal. Getting loyalty because you earned it. Giving loyalty because it’s your philosophy.
  • Responsible. Not just responsible to others, but both to yourself and for yourself.
  • Observant. Having value based peripheral vision, both of others and yourself.
  • Consistent. Making the highest and best decision – all the time.
  • Independent. Not a follower to be ‘safe,’ but a self-ruler of your time and fate.
  • Faith. Not just religion, faith in people, faith in family, and spirituality of self.
  • Self-belief. Belief in company, product, customer, and especially in yourself. Be a believer.
  • Confidence. Confidence is evident often without saying a word. Radiate yours.
  • Enthusiasm. Generate the inner spark of self-induced energy that lights up a room and the people in it.
  • Study/Student. Learning more leads to earning more. Resolve to learn something new every day.
  • Respect. Things and people deserve initial respect. Give it to get it.
  • Kindness. Every ounce of kindness is worth a fortune to those on the receiving end of yours.
  • Forgive. Until you forgive the past – both actions and people – you are likely to repeat it.
  • Thoughtful. Expressing both thanks and feelings. Remembering events and people.
  • Open-minded. Willing to accept new things. Willing to encounter at ‘change’ and see it as ‘opportunity.’
  • Appreciate. Art and life. Look and see the beauty that abounds, the opportunity life affords, and appreciate your ability to choose the values you represent.
  • Grateful. For health and happiness. Saying grace. Counting blessings, daily.
  • Loving. Give love to get love. Give love to be loved.

Wow! Those are some values. How many are yours?

Why not tackle one a week? I’ve given you a six-month supply.

Reprinted with permission from Jeffrey H. Gitomer and Buy Gitomer.

About the Author

Jeffrey GitomerJeffrey Gitomer is the author of The Sales Bible, Customer Satisfaction is Worthless Customer Loyalty is Priceless, The Little Red Book of Selling, The Little Red Book of Sales Answers, The Little Black Book of Connections, The Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude, The Little Green Book of Getting Your Way, The Little Platinum Book of Cha-Ching, The Little Teal Book of Trust, The Little Book of Leadership, and Social BOOM! His website, www.gitomer.com, will lead you to more information about training and seminars, or email him personally at [email protected].

Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice 13 – Capture Improvement Opportunities within the Corrective Action Program

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StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Program Best Practice ArticleSelf-critical business performance assessments yield multiple opportunities for performance improvement; yet their benefits often go unrealized because assessment recommendations are not acted upon. To ensure the organization profits from each self assessment, it is necessary to programmatically pursue the recommended performance improvement actions*. The structured approach employed should drive accountability for implementing the improvement activities balanced with the organization’s other priorities.

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About the Author

Nathan Ives, StrategyDriven Principal is a StrategyDriven Principal and Host of the StrategyDriven Podcast. For over twenty years, he has served as trusted advisor to executives and managers at dozens of Fortune 500 and smaller companies in the areas of management effectiveness, organizational development, and process improvement. To read Nathan’s complete biography, click here.