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The Four Vs of Employee Motivation: Velocity, Visibility, Value, and Valor

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A recent Gallup poll revealed that only 30 percent of employees are actively engaged at work, and 18 percent are actually actively disengaged. Disengaged and distracted employees cost businesses money as they ‘sleepwalk’ through their workday, bringing little energy or passion to the table. Making matters worse, actively disengaged employees are more than unhappy at work—they act out their unhappiness by undermining what their engaged colleagues accomplish on a daily basis. For businesses that want to continually innovate and grow, engaged employees who work with passion and feel a profound connection to their company are required.

According to Gallup’s 2013 State of the American Workplace report, “engagement makes a difference to the bottom line,” which can have an impact on productivity, profitability, customer service, turnover, and absenteeism. Incentivizing can also make a big difference, according to a study by the International Society of Performance Improvement. The study showed a 27 percent performance increase when an incentive was offered for persistence toward a company goal.

Not all encouragement, engagement and incentive programs are created equal, however. It’s important to utilize whichever approach is best for driving your desired action. By 2001, the Incentive Federation’s biannual study found prepaid cards to be the most popular rewards for employees, consumers, and partners (dealers), but there’s more to an incentive program than just finding the right reward. Try sticking with the 4 Vs of employee engagement when you implement an employee recognition and motivation program.

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About the Author

David Jones currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of CardLab, a pioneer in the prepaid industry. The first to offer businesses the ability to customize a Visa Incentive Card with a company logo, the Dallas based company was founded in 2004. Visa Incentive Card is issued by The Bancorp Bank pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. and may be used wherever Visa debit cards are accepted. The Bancorp Bank; Member FDIC.

Five Coaching Tips to Help Business Process Management Leaders Succeed

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If your company is a successful organization, it has many excellent leaders. But those leaders have had training and experience to succeed in a traditional organization with a C-suite at the top and siloed business units and functions under each executive. The question is, do your executives have the skills and experience to lead a cross-functional process focused organization?

When organizations want to build a process culture, they need to identify leaders for each process improvement effort—namely an Executive Sponsor, Process Owner, Project Lead and Business Process Management (BPM) Team Facilitator. This blog focuses on how to motivate, engage, and coach the Executive Sponsor and Process Owner during a Business Process Improvement (BPI) project.

The Executive Sponsor and Process Owner bring different strengths to the BPI Project. The Executive Sponsor has wider authority and recognizes enterprise opportunities and challenges for the particular BPI Project. He is oriented outward to the full organization. He represents the project in the C-Suite, and advocates for it across the organization and to customers or suppliers. The Executive Sponsor may have many processes and Process Owners under him and may not be able to give a high level of attention to one particular project. Note also that the Executive Sponsor role in a BPI Project will usually go away after the initial improvement effort is completed, although hopefully the executive remains as an enterprise BPM advocate.

The Process Owner, by contrast, not only leads the phases of the BPI Project from the start but also drives the implementation of the redesigned process. He is also the person accountable for sustaining the process after the improvements from the BPI Project have been implemented.

The Process Owner is oriented inward toward the process. He articulates the Improvement Targets, Vision, Scope, and metrics during the Charter phase. But it is not enough that the Process Owner sees his role as a leader during this single BPI Project. He is accountable for achieving the desired outcome of the overall BPI initiative. And, he is the ongoing leader responsible for monitoring the improved process going forward. Without Process Owners, no one is minding the store, and processes can slip back to where they were before.

Remember that the Executive Sponsor and Process Owner may be new to these BPM roles. A BPM expert – it could be the outside consultant or internal BPM Team Facilitator – provides formal and informal coaching to them.

5 Tips to Build the Success of the Executive Sponsor and Process Owner

1. What’s in it for Me? (WIFM) – Start with making sure the Executive Sponsor and Process Owner are clear on how they will benefit from a particular BPI project. Is the project critical to a strategic initiative? Is it one of their pet initiatives, which is of great interest to them personally? Or, is it something where they will be honored company-wide for the success? It’s best to have the leader articulate both a personal win and a business win.

If these leaders have selected this BPI project themselves, you can guess that there is something in it for them. If the project has been selected by a boss or a BPM professional staff, it necessary to talk to them about why the BPI is important to the company and see if they agree. Then ask them, “What do you see that you will get personally from this project?”

2. Provide Support During the Charter Meeting – During the Charter meeting see if the Process Owner can easily articulate the improvement targets and vision. It may be easier to use common terms, like, “What are your goals for this BPI project?” and then turn them into improvement targets (e.g, Reduce time to market for this product). The Process Owner may not be able to give specific measurement categories for the improvement targets, so be ready to suggest some. Also see how he responds when you ask him to relate the improvement targets and vision to the company’s overall strategy. Ask the Executive Sponsor to contribute to this conversation as well.

The BPM Team Facilitator provides this guidance during the charter meeting. This role could be filled by a Business Architect, Process Improvement Expert, Lean Six Sigma Practioner, Business Analyst or Project Manager. The lead subject matter expert may also know specific content that could help.

3. Help Them Tell Compelling Stories – The Process Owner and Executive Sponsor need to be talking continuously about the BPI project, but you need to help them know what to say. It is their elevator pitch for the BPI project. They need to know what the BPI project is, its goal, some challenges, and memorable stories that reveal interesting facts or show early successes. So help them have some bullet points and sound bites to do this. Besides comments from the customer and highlights on the visual analysis map, another good sound bite is about quantitative data. Once the baseline values are known, the executive can easily say, “Today the hiring process takes 6 – 18 months and our target is to reduce that in half.” He could go on and say, “The BPI team sees many opportunities to streamline the process and we will use technology to make workflow easier and information transparent to all involved.” Another example, would be data on some Quick Wins. For example, he could say, “ We currently have 15 different hiring processes across our organization. Each one uses different templates and forms. We are going to standardize the information from the best examples, and will have two of these available online for a Quick Win in just two more weeks.”

From your role as a BPM Team Facilitator or Project Lead, it is helpful to have these compelling sound bites ready for the Process Owner and discuss them; then have a shared repository where you can put them for their use next time they need them.

4. Guidance During the BPI Project – During the BPI project the Project Lead and BPM Team Facilitator have scheduled meetings with the Process Owner and Executive Sponsor. This meeting should take place about 3 times during the BPI project, after each phase, e.g. after Process Discovery, Process Analysis, Process Design, and Implementation Plan. The Project Lead and Team Facilitator are sharing what has happened in the project during each phase. For example, during the Process Discovery phase they would be sharing the current state process diagram(s), the baseline values for the metrics, and what challenges and improvement ideas have already surfaced. The Process Owner needs to know what questions to ask, and also know what actions he should volunteer to take. I provide them a cheat sheet ahead of time with relevant questions and actions at each phase. The BPM Team Facilitator can bring some of those questions up as well. Of course, you always want to know what interests them, or what their perspective is at each phase.

5. Engage the Process Owner and Executive Sponsor Provocatively – At each of these BPI review meetings with the leaders, think about how to engage the leaders meaningfully. In other words, look at the process from their level and identify what will interest them and focus on those topics. I have two that always work: (1) the voice of the customer and (2) visual analysis. After the team has collected input from the customer, everyone wants to know about it. So have it summarized in a simple but meaningful way – such as what they want, need and desire from the process, how the process is evaluated today, and what an excellent evaluation would look like in the future. In addition to the overall summary, have a few anecdotes that come from the customer’s mouth.

Visual analysis is another method. Here show the current process diagram in swimlanes (This is a ‘yawner’ by itself.) and put icons on it to show where there are wastes, where the customer needs new functionality or says something is missing, or how long certain sub processes take. Turn the process diagram into a picture with key problem or opportunity areas highlighted. This makes the diagram come alive and is a great conversation starter with the executives.

As a good coach, your client is both the organization and the leaders. So keep looking for strategic benefits and personal rewards to engage the leaders about the BPI project.

About the Author

Shelley SweetShelley Sweet, the Founder and President of I4 Process, and author of The BPI Blueprint, is a highly respected BPM Practitioner. She provides consultation, workshops and training programs for clients ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, educational institutions, and government organizations. Her programs are based on a unique 3-PEAT method of modeling processes and analyzing data that accelerates operational improvements, and builds leaders and employees who sustain operational excellence. Want to learn more about BPM metrics? Email Shelley at: [email protected]

Business Performance Assessment Program Warning Flag 6 – Massaging the Message for the Boss

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StrategyDriven Business Performance Assessment Program Warning Flag ArticleConstructively critical business performance assessments often present executives and managers with a difficult to accept performance message. While intended to improve overall organizational performance, leaders may take these assessments as an affront to their authority or condemnation of their performance and some leaders may even retaliate against assessors. (See StrategyDriven Evaluation and Control Best Practice article, Don’t Break the Mirror) Additionally, lead assessors and team members seeking to gain the approval of those executives and managers who may positively influence their careers might themselves be overly concerned about the evaluation’s messaging.

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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.

Lessons Learned from Corporate Branding and Rebranding Efforts of Note

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Lesson: Don’t fix what’s not broken
Coca-Cola learned not to tamper with a beloved brand in 1985 when it decided to re-stage its iconic brand with “New Coke.” The public was outraged and let Coca-Cola know they didn’t want a “new” Coke. They wanted their old Coke, literally a quintessential icon in American popular culture. Coke responded within a few months and brought back “Classic Coke.” Classic Coke sales rebounded. Although New Coke remained on the shelves, it eventually faded from store shelves. Some commentators felt the move to New Coke was a marketing gimmick to regenerate interest and sales in the brand after sales erosion due to the “Pepsi Challenge” taste test campaign. Don Keough, company President, responded to the charge saying “We’re not that dumb, and we’re not that smart”.

Lesson: Expansion may require a bigger umbrella
International Harvester changed its name to Navistar International in 1986 when it sold its farm equipment business and entered the truck, diesel engine, and bus markets. Although the name is “made up,” it broadened the brand and has strong connotations of movement and direction. As a 2013 company report* stated, “Navistar was selected as a name with a strong sound, a resonance to Harvester, and a connection to its root words “navigate” and “star.” It does all of those things and has since become the name of the holding company over multiple Navistar divisions, International Trucks, and MaxxForce Diesel engines.

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About the Author

CEO Miller IngenuityWith more than three decades of management, executive, consulting and speaking experience in markets all over the world, Miller Ingenuity CEO Steve Blue is a globally regarded business growth authority and ‘turnaround specialist’ who has transformed companies into industry giants and enthralled audiences with his dynamic keynotes. In his upcoming book, Outdo, Outsmart… Outlast: A Practical Guide to Managed, Measured and Meaningful Growth, he reveals why seeking growth and surviving growth are equally perilous, and require different sets of plans to weather the storms. Steve may be reached at www.StevenLBlue.com.

The Advisor’s Corner – How Do I Establish a Decision-Making Protocol?

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How Do I Establish a Decision-Making Protocol?Question:

What can we do to clean up decision-making habits in my workplace? No one seems to know who is making which decisions and it’s driving us all crazy!

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

Leaders get into trouble far too often simply because they don’t have good decision-making protocols in place on their team or in their business. If a decision matters to you, then make your decision matter!

Here are several all too common scenarios:

  • People keep wondering, “Who is making the decision about…?” and feel they are powerless to do anything in the meantime.
  • Someone comes up to you and says, “Why didn’t anyone tell me about that decision; it impacts my work?”
  • Another person says, “Well, if she’d already made the decision, why did she ask me my opinion?”
  • You hear, “When will he decide – he’s holding up everything at my end!”

There is such a simple way to prevent these and many other ‘dropped balls’ from happening in your workplace. Once you get in the habit of asking these 5 questions of yourself and/or your team, each and every time, you’ll find it could take as few as 60 seconds to get to the answers. Even better, it will save you and others frustration, confusion, hard feelings, lost time and lost profits. Best yet, you’ll gain more respect from those you lead because they can trust you to make decisions well.

5 Key Decision Making Questions

1. WHAT IS THE DECISION that needs to be made? BE EXPLICIT including who and what will be impacted. You need to know exactly what is to be decided. There are often layers of related decisions that need to be made – that’s why you need to start here. When you can clearly articulate the decision, you know what it is – and when you can’t, you don’t. So begin with a lot of clarity.

2. WHOSE DECISION IS IT? Again, you must BE EXPLICIT. This is essential to know and communicate upfront to the people who are impacted. Are you the decision maker? Is it a group? Do you want input or do you want others to make the decision? I’ve often observed that more anxiety is created by not knowing who is making a decision than even the decision itself. And, people lose trust if you pretend their input matters when you’ve already made the decision.

3. WHAT METHOD will you use to decide? Will this be a consensus decision everyone must be able to live with and support? Is it a majority, a plurality, or 2/3 vote, a unanimous agreement, or something else?

4. WHEN WILL THE DECISION BE MADE? The timeline is important for you and other people who are impacted. With a timeline, the decision can be managed well and people can get on with their work. Taking too long or not long enough can be frustrating and create unintended and even dysfunctional outcomes.

5. HOW AND TO WHOM WILL THE DECISION BE COMMUNICATED? This is often overlooked, and yet the success of a decision depends so much on how well it’s communicated. Consider who needs to know, who’s the messenger, how it will be shared, and through what means – in person, by email, over a loud speaker…Often the choice of messenger sends a message all it’s own – is it you, a team, your boss, someone else? The message will be perceived differently depending on the messenger.

It takes a lot of time and energy and sometimes money, to clean up the messes that happen when your decision-making is reactive or ad hoc. I really hope you will make it a point to be proactive in your decision-making because it’s a lot more fun when you are running your life and work instead of letting life and work run you.

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].