Don't Rely on Luck: A Simple Succession Planning Example

Hearing lots these days about Succession Planning.  A client passed this blog post/link along to me (thanks, Jennifer).  This is a simple way to get you started (if you haven't already)...  http://xyzuniversity.com/2012/08/succession-plan-example/.

SHINE ON!

When Crucial Conversations Go Social - From VitalSmarts (www.crucialskills.com)

Why is Employee Engagement Important?

Does it matter if your employees are engaged?  YES (or the above might be going on)!!!

If organizations increased investment in a range of good workplace practices which relate to engagement by just 10%, they would increase profits by $2,400 per employee...  And here are ten more reasons to invest in employee engagement:

10.  Dollars & Sense
Less than one in 10 middle managers deemed the quality of their management training to be excellent.  (Source: Accenture)

9.  People are People
Engagement and involvement are critical in managing change at work; 9 out of 10 of the key barriers to the success of change programs are people related.  (Source: PwC)

75% of leaders have no engagement plan or strategy even though 90% say engagement impacts on business success.  (Source: ACCOR)

8.  Triple Your Pleasure
Engaged organizations grew profits as much as three times faster than their competitors.  They report that highly engaged organizations have the potential to reduce staff turnover by 87% and improve performance by 20%.  (Source: Corporate Leadership Council)

7.  I've Got a Problem With My Boss
75-80% of people leave jobs because of relationship issues.  (Source: Saratoga Institute)

75% of people voluntarily leaving jobs don't quite their jobs; they quit their bosses.  (Source: Roger Herman)

6.  Is It Ignorance or Apathy?
I don't know and I don't care.  69% of US employees are either "no engaged," or are "actively disengaged."  (Source: Gallup)

5.  What's Your Return on Engagement?
Less than 50% of chief financial officers appear to understand the return on their investments in human capital.  (Source: Accenture)

4.  Show Me the Plan
Based on a recent study by Chris Zook, only 40% of the workforce knew about the corporation's goals, strategies, and tactics.  (Source: Bain)

3.  Recognition Matters
43% of highly engaged employees receive feedback at least once a week compared to only 18% of employees with low engagement.  (Source: Towers Watson)

2.  Moving the Needle
Earnings per share (EPS) growth of 89 organizations found that the EPS growth rate of organizations with engagement scores in the top quartile was 2.6 times that of organizations with below-average engagement scores.  (Source: Gallup)

1.  Sincerity and Trust
Of 75% possible drivers of engagement the one that was rated as the most important was the extent to which employees believed that their senior management had a sincere interest in their well-being.  (Source: Towers Watson)

SHINE ON!

Don McMillan: Life After Death by PowerPoint

Have you ever sat through a horrible PowerPoint presentation?  (Guessing most everyone is saying YES right now...)  Bad use of PowerPoint is one of my biggest pet peeves.  Here is a hilarious look at how not to use PowerPoint.


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How Google Sets Goals

The video embedded below is from Google Ventures.  It's a great summary of how Google sets performance goals - how they make choices on goals that individual contributors are going to chase, how they negotiate what goes into that valuable space, how the goals are supposed to cascade, how they are (or aren't) part of the performance process, etc.  In short, it's "Goal Setting 101" from Google.  

Much of what you will hear you may have heard before.  But, as you might expect, there's plenty to learn from "The Google Way" related to goal setting and the great news is that none of it is out of reach for you and I and your organization.

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50 Potential Behavior Based Questions for Your Next Interview

 

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Engagement & Team Member Recognition Activity

Here is an activity to use with your team to shed more light on the concept of engagement and also to promote peer-to-peer recognition.  Let me know how it goes!     

Read the following or show the YouTube video news report on the incident to remind the team:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCSfkzoFg_Y ... 

Steve Slater.  Remember the name?  It was August 9, 2010 when JetBlue flight attendant,     Steven Slater, decided to quit his job in spectacular fashion. 

After having an altercation with a passenger about luggage in the overhead compartment, upon landing, Slater cursed everyone out over the PA system, grabbed two beers, deployed the inflatable emergency slide, and slid down to freedom.  

What’s amazing isn’t the crazy incident itself, but rather what happened afterward.  Within 24 hours, Steven Slater dominated the news.  “Felon or working class hero?” screamed the     headlines.  He topped Twitter trends and his Facebook page quickly gained 182,000 fans. 

Clearly, the Steven Slater incident touched a nerve of popular culture.  It's as if everyone understood that people everywhere are unhappy and stressed out at work.  It was an intersting example of these statistics (according to a 2011 Gallup Employee Engagement Index):

• 29% of the U.S. working population is engaged (loyal and productive);
• 54% are not engaged (just putting in time); and
• 17% are actively disengaged (unhappy and spreading their discontent).

What is Employee Engagement? 

Engaged doesn’t mean happy—someone might be happy at work, but that doesn’t mean they are productive. 

Engaged doesn’t mean satisfied—someone can be satisfied at work, but will still take the call from the recruiter who is promising them a 5% bump in pay.  Satisfied isn’t enough. 

Employee engagement is when an employee is committed to the organization and its goals.   Engaged employees actually care about their work.  They aren’t doing it because they have to, or just for the paycheck, or even just to get a promotion.  When employees care—when they are engaged—they use all their effort.  They go the extra mile, they give 110%, they go above and beyond (ok, you get the point). 

We know that strong teams are made up of engaged individuals.  We often don't take the time to notice the 110% effort our co-workers have put forth on a project or on behalf of our team.  We need to stop to recognize and appreciate what's going right among us (and maybe if Steve's teammates or leader would've done that, he would've been more engaged?).  

We’re going to do a quick activity to help us focus on the things our team members have done to help our team achieve its goals.  Hopefully this will remind you of why we need you on the team—how important it is to keep you engaged in your work here…  

Bring: 

Pick something (or a couple things from the list below and bring them for team members to give one another - Kudos bars, Extra gum (the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is the little "extra"), M&M's (magnificent & marvelous award), Lifesavers, Smarties, Crunch (can always count on you in a crunch), etc.

Activity:

• Show the "treat" that you brought to the group.
• Explain that they are to use the goodie to recoginze each other for things they have accomplished or how they have helped the team move forward toward a goal.
• Anyone can give anyone else a goodie (and if you have enough, they can give more than one, if they like).  (As a variation, you could have each person give one to every other member of the team, along with their positive feedback...)
• The only stipulation is that when you give the goodie, it must be accompanied with a brief and SPECIFIC explanation of why.
• The leader of the team goes first.  Give a treat to a participant.  As you do, explain what that person did to receive the goodie.  (See example below.)
• Encourage the participants to follow your lead - anyone can give a treat to someone else.  (Don't worry about taking turns or going "in order".)
• Continue until the enthusiasm dies down or until you run out of goodies.

For Example:

"Kudos to Vanessa for helping me research that billing error last Thursday.  She helped me whittle down the possible causes for the error.  I was able to get back to the customer with an answer much quicker than if I had worked on it by myself."  (If others aren't specific when giving the goodie, ask them to share an example...)

Debrief:

• How difficult (or easy) was it to give each other recognition?  Why?
• How does recognition from your peers differ from recognition you get from me?
• What do you think would happen if we gave feedback like this to colleagues outside our group (internal clients, customers, support staff, etc.)?
• As a team, what can we do to ensure that our co-workers feel engaged and appreciated on a day-to-day basis?
• What can I do, as the leader of this team, to better ensure that as a team, you all feel engaged and appreciated?  

SHINE ON!