|
|
by Rick Baker
On Aug 11, 2014
Are you one of those people who has boundless energy regardless of what other people are doing?
Or are you one of those people whose energy diminishes when other people fail to perform up to your expectations?
It seems to me that many people fall into these two categories, these two polar-opposite categories. Of course the self-help gurus talk about the first type when they describe the successful people, the leaders, the people who accomplished incredible things during their lifetimes.
Indomitable - that's perhaps one of the best words to describe these high-energy/high-sustained-energy people.
Resilient - that's another good word to describe them.
Or, perhaps we should stick with the word self-reliant. Self-reliant signals the above things. It signals people who are comfortable relying upon themselves and not relying upon what other people do. Self-reliance signals people who accept the obligation of inspiring their own actions and, of more importance, it signals people who are accountable for inspiring the energies that fuel their own actions.
"Relying Upon" ... Whom ... Why not self?
"Influencing" ... Whom ... Why not self?
by Rick Baker
On Jun 2, 2014
Have you noticed, in business, many followers are frustrated?
You see it at the drive-thru, you see it when you're shopping, you see it at the office... you see it everywhere.
Employee frustrations are costly. Employee frustrations lead to absenteeism, turnover, and disputes and conflicts between employees. Employee frustrations are often the cause behind clients becoming disgruntled.
There are literally mountains of self-help literature designed to deal with employee frustrations. Regardless, employee frustrations persist.
How are you addressing this problem?
Are you getting to the root causes?
Do you realize lack of self-confidence is the major cause underlying employee frustration?
Do you realize most people - most employees and most frustrated employees - do not understand that self-knowledge is required to battle self-confidence shortfalls?
Do you take the time to help your employees learn how to develop self-confidence?
Do you provide them tools to build self-confidence?
Do you provide them a role model to illustrate self-confidence?
Do you work at maintaining and building your own self-confidence?
***
Work at maintaining and building your self-confidence. Lead by example. Help your people maintain and build their self-confidence levels. Then they will be less frustrated. Being less frustrated they will perform better. Their improved performance will be infectious in a very positive way.
This is the route to inspiring people, influencing action, and improving business performance.
by Rick Baker
On May 20, 2014
The Thinking Behind The Tweet
Your self-confidence is contagious.
So, choose to make it invigorating & inspiring.
by Rick Baker
On May 19, 2014
My son, Jack, introduced me to the TED Talk by Jason Fried, titled "Why work doesn't happen at work".
One key aspect of his TED Talk - Jason talked against business meetings.
He shared his view - Employees don't call meetings, only managers call meetings...and meetings are a waste of time.
When I watched and listened to that part, I felt a Thought Post coming on. Here it is...
***
When Jason Fried said, "Only managers call meetings....employees don’t call meetings"... that got me thinking, 'Why don’t employees call meetings?'
I think employees don’t call meetings for 4 reasons:
- They favour being on their own over being in meetings with other people,
- They don’t believe they have the right to call meetings,
- They know they are doing the right things and they see no need to spend time talking with others about it, &
- They know they are not doing the right things and they see no need to spend time talking with others about it.
Those are some examples of why employees don't call meetings. On the other hand, the reality is most employees do call meetings…it's just, when they do it, they don’t call it calling meetings.
Most employees initiate conversations with co-workers. Those qualify as meetings. In office environments, these conversations take forms ranging from helping one another with work problems to chit-chat about family woes. We could call the one end of the spectrum 'work' and the other end 'personal'. We could claim the one end of the spectrum illustrates an advantage of having office environments for employees while the other end illustrates a disadvantage. However, some employees would argue we have that backwards.
We must not underestimate the extent of people's needs for social interaction.
Even if we hear and watch it in a compelling TED Talk, we cannot accept as fact the claim employees don't call meetings.
Yes, it is true managers do call meetings.
Managers call meetings for a number of reasons:
- Habit…they have accepted the habit - 'meetings are a necessary process of business',
- Their egos enjoy being front and centre and meetings provide a vehicle to feed their egos,
- They believe their people need help [whether their people agree with that or not],
- They see meetings as an efficient way to communicate with many people,
- They see value in team communications,
- The see value in people being accountable to a team, &
- They know physical presence is key to inspiring people.
Wait a second -
They know physical presence is key to inspiring people.
by Rick Baker
On May 15, 2014
Business Contains Only 3 Things: People, Processes, & Situations
Processes come in two classes: processes done by people [thinking, acting, and communicating] & processes done by machines [created by people].
Some Processes are called 'Procedures'. Procedures are communicated in different ways: word of mouth, written documents, how-to videos, computer coding, etc.
Procedures are created in an effort to cause People and machines to perform Processes in 'proper ways', i.e., ways that are considered good ways...essentially Good Habits...ways that allow People to achieve desired results...ways that allow People to achieve Goals.
While procedures do help People achieve goals, procedures do not inspire people. Only People inspire People: People are self-inspired and People are inspired by others.
When People are inspired procedures can influence their actions.
So, the sequence for getting the most bang for the buck out of procedures is: Inspire People first, then Influence Actions and Build Business.
by Rick Baker
On Feb 11, 2014
In business, should we reward the efforts people make or the results people achieve?
I've seen the following conflicted pieces of advice from the 'experts', the psychologists and the behavioural scientists:
- reward efforts and don't reward results,
- praise efforts and reward results,
- set small, short-term goals and reward results as they are achieved, and
- be careful when you reward result...you may not like the behaviour behind the results.
And, over the last 10 years, there has been much said about how to apply rewards.
For example:
- Is money a reward that motivates people? Some argue "No", intrinsic rewards are the drivers behind motivation,
- Should we use negative rewards? [I wrote a bit about that in no carrots, no sticks...no donkeys, inspired by seeing Dan Pink in action in 2011], and
- celebrate failures.
In the 2007 book ' INFLUENCER', Patterson, Grenny et al recommend:
- Intrinsic rewards come first.
- Social support, encouragement, and rewards are the essential second step.
- Then apply extrinsic rewards.
Consider the above 3 steps for Influencing.
Step #1: Consider your work-situation and the people you work with. When work-tasks are being doled out, do you think any of your people ask themselves questions like: " Can I do this thing?", " Do I enjoy doing this thing?", and " What's in it for me if I do this thing?" Likely, you will agree - most people do ask themselves those intrinsic-motivation questions. And, if their answers to those questions are negative then their intrinsic motivation to do the work-tasks will be low. And the next domino...your ability to spark their flames of motivation will be small, perhaps non-existent. You may be able to force the people to do the work, using a 'stick'. However, the behaviour that follows will be lacklustre and the positive results [if they happen at all] will be short-lived. And, of course, think about yourself. How do you behave and perform when you think the tasks are beyond your capability or offer little of interest to you in return for your effort?
Step #2: Again, consider the real people in your work-situation. Does your work environment contain social support to enable change? As one example: when changes are in the works do your people rally around the change, helping one another perform the new behaviours? Or, is change more like a bunch of singular events where every man is expected to change for himself and every woman is expected to change for herself? Is the former succeeding? Is the latter failing? In summary - What do your real-life experiences tell you about Step #2: Social support, encouragement, and rewards are the essential second step?
Step #3: How much time do you spend considering the effect extrinsic rewards have on your people? For example, does money help motivate your people? Does an annual cost-of-living raise motivate another year of top-notch behaviour? Do you see direct evidence of that? Does a year-end bonus help motivate another year of top-notch behaviour? Do you see direct evidence of that? Can you identify a direct connection between any of those sorts of routine money additions and your people's positive work-behaviour? Or, are money increases more like a 'necessary evil'...a necessary evil because they are required to keep your people from leaving to work elsewhere?
When I think through these sorts of questions - how they apply to people I have worked with and how they apply to me - I know:
- There are times when money motivates behaviour...this motivation is highest when money is short; this motivation is lowest when financial independence has been achieved.
- I know intrinsic rewards work...when work-tasks are enjoyable, regardless of why they are enjoyable, it is easy to spend the time doing them; when tasks are not enjoyable and the other benefits linked to the tasks are not clear or large enough it is easy to say "I'm too busy" or procrastinate
- Social support does influence behaviour...most people go the extra mile when they feel they are part of a unified team; most people struggle when they are forced to perform in isolation
|
|