Sing It All You Want, But You Better Show Respect!

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Success Requires People

It’s a fact: no one has achieved any real, lasting success on their own. They have always done it by working with other people.

John Maxwell (Teamwork Makes the Dream Work), Jim Collins (From Good to Great), Ken Blanchard (High Five! The Magic of Working Together) and many others emphasize again and again, both from research and anecdotal evidence, that we are designed to achieve success with and through others. None of us is as smart as all of us.

So if you really want success, you need to work with and through other people.

And that means we need to get along with them.

Respect is the Start to Good Relationships

Respect is crucial to being able to get along with and work effectively with other people.

Herbert Casson once wrote:

“In handling men, there are three feelings that a man must not possess-fear, dislike and contempt. If he is afraid of men he cannot handle them. Neither can he influence them in his favor if he dislikes or scorns them. He must neither cringe nor sneer. He must have both self-respect and respect for others.”

Respect for others means that we truly care for others, we believe in others. We may not always agree with their politics or religion or even their choices, but we care for them and believe in them. Respect means we accept them for what they are now, not as we would hope them to be; even more importantly when they don’t think like we do.

This is the foundation of great marriages, fabulous families, thriving and relevant churches, and productive and effective organizations.

Granting Respect

Many will tell you that respect is earned but it’s not.

[snaptweet]Respect is granted; it is a conscious choice of the respecter to the respected.[/snaptweet]

You can do all the good and positive things in your life you want and there will be some who simply WILL NOT RESPECT YOU.

Does that mean you didn’t earn it?

Not necessarily; they may have simply refused to grant it.

Some will grant respect until you prove unworthy of it, based either on your position or standing or simply because of who they are as opposed to who you are. I tend to fall into this category.

Others require proof that you are worthy of respect and even power, position, or standing or status will not get you their respect until you can demonstrate your worthiness. I have always found this position to be kind of self-serving. I would rather have you prove me wrong for respecting you than spend a lot of time trying to meet an undeclared, usually unreachable, bar to earn my respect.

Self-respect then becomes critical because we can’t possibly respect others unless we respect ourselves. If we don’t measure up, then no one else does either. People who have low self-respect will never really respect others because they see no value in the relationship–because they see no value in themselves. Many who demand you earn their respect fall into this category.

Respect yourself, grant respect to others and you are well on your way to working effectively with others and achieving your dreams.

Keys to apply today:

DEVELOP YOUR SELF-RESPECT – Find the good in yourself. Write a list of what’s good about yourself.
BE A GOOD FINDER – It is easier to like and care for others when you focus on whats good about them.
Pick one person you encounter daily. Write down what you like about that person. Even the most obnoxious have something. If you can’t find anything, then the problem is you need to go back to number 1 because if you can’t find the good in yourself you can’t possibly find the good in others! Call them, write them a note or an email or visit in person and tell them how you appreciate them for those things you like about them.

Why Aren’t Your Employees Loyal?

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Loyalty Is…..

Loyalty Generations

loyalty - Boy Scout

Technically, I am a Baby Boomer, although I am right near the end of that generation and in some ways identify with Generation X‘ers as well. So call me a Boomer X. I mention that because early on, Baby Boomers were taught what the previous generation shared with them in terms of work and loyalty. You left school, went to work for a company and stayed with them your entire career (at their discretion). Very rarely did you have any control over what role you filled, whether or how you advanced, how you grew, when you retired, etc. You were expected to be loyal to the company at all costs. Very rarely was that loyalty returned. Some organizations rewarded loyalty by returning loyalty to their people, but most focused on punishing disloyalty and showing very little appreciation for those who were loyal. One of the reasons I identify with Generation X as well as the Boomers is that Generation X started to reject that. Generation Y and Millenials even more so.

This topic is also covered in the Ah-Ha! Moment of the Week!

Changing Loyalty Landscape

The landscape of what loyalty means in the business world has changed. Most people don’t stay with an organization more than about five years before they move on. You can attribute that to poor work ethic if you wish, or lack of loyalty; but the reality is simply that today’s worker refuses to buy into the one-way street of loyalty. They expect loyalty to be a two-way street. If they are loyal to the company they expect some loyalty in return. Since as a manager or business owner you will almost inevitably have to hire at least some people from Gen Y, you must change your thinking to follow that theme. Change your focus on what you expect out of loyalty. You have to be willing to commit resources to help somebody become better at what they do with the knowledge that they most likely will be with you forever and may eventually take what they have learned from you and go somewhere new. That’s the gamble of investing in people, but the alternative is a bigger gamble with consequences even more significant if you lose (and you will). So think in terms of how you can maximize your investment over the short term and long term. If you can get somebody up to speed, maximize what they can produce for you, and maximize their potential over the time period they are with you, then it’s a win-win.

Encouraging Loyalty

So here’s some tips to help you along.

Focus on Relationships — Building relationships with your employees. Understand their desires, understand their dreams so you can help them move towards that. Remember the three questions you must answer for them are do you care for me, can you help me, and can I trust you.
Focus on Growth — Invest in your employees with formal training, modeling, mentoring, and providing them with challenges to push them out of their comfort zone. The more you can help them and move them closer to their potential, the better they are going to produce for you.
Focus on Empowerment — Equip them and authorize them to take the steps they need to take to produce for you.
Focus on Communication — Communicating with them at all times. ALL TIMES!
Focus on NOW — Forget about forever. Work on building loyalty for the time they are with you, allowing them to give you the best return while you are giving the best to them.

Here’s the Bonus

When you invest in your employees and give them time, resources, training, caring, and influence – show them loyalty – then many of them will be loyal in return. Not all of them, maybe not even most of them. But the ones who count. Remember you are looking for the golden ones anyway; the ones who will yield greatest returns for you. You are mining for gold. As Dale Carnegie says,

“Developing your people is a lot like mining for gold. You have to move a lot of dirt to get to the gold. But you don’t go looking for the dirt, you go looking for the gold.”

Your Action

What will you do today to begin looking for the gold?
How can you best invest in your employees for the short and long term?
What are you willing to give up to reach that?

Why Survival Mode Won’t Help You Survive

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Focus on Survival

You see it and feel it out there. It was panic for a few years. Many organizations, particularly small business, watched the numbers on the economic recovery and bought into the doom and gloom of quasi-authoritative prognosticators. They decided that “yes, Chicken Little, the sky really IS falling!”

Panic.

A 2010 monthly report from the National Federation of Independent Business reported that businesses were panicking. Severe cutbacks. Layoffs, even laying off productive people, simply because we have to spend less. Not spending money on things necessary to thrive. I am always reminded of that line from the movie Ghost Busters:

“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together… mass hysteria!”

But never to fear, things are getting better. According to the latest report, businesses have advanced from panic to simply negativity. In other words, no longer doom and gloom, just the gloom. Business owners and managers still don’t feel very good about the economy. The result is

Only a VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE of businesses are adding employees this year.
Very few project adding employees
Very few think sales will go up
Most don’t expect the economy to improve.

Side Note: that’s not reality based. According to Economic Expert Sean Snaith of the UCF Institute for Economic Competitiveness, while economic recovery is happening, even though it will be slower than what we have experienced in the past. And things will be looking up starting as early as the second half of 2013.

Surviving and Not Thriving

How are businesses reacting to all this? By staying in survival mode. Focus on nothing but keeping themselves afloat. Bare bones.

Big Mistake!

There certainly is something to be said for survival. It’s the first order of business. If you don’t survive the now, there’s not much to look forward to in the future.

The problem with only being in survival mode, however, is that it practically guarantees you will not make it past the short-term. As things gradually get better (and they will!), new opportunities for businesses of all kinds will emerge. Opportunities that will require quick action and quick results. Opportunities that will require businesses that are agile and equipped to move on those opportunities.

In other words, businesses that are PREPARED! You must be ready not just with the right equipment and supplies, but with the right people. You need effective leadership, not just management. You need effective teams who have been developed to be productive and work together. If leadership is not prepared to see and exploit opportunities, they will pass you by. If your teams have not already been developed past the initial phases of team formation and are ready to hit the ground performing, you will not produce results on time and opportunities will be lost.

Do more than survive

Your organizations prosperity more than anything else depends on your PREPARED LEADERSHIP and EFFECTIVE TEAMS.

If you don’t position yourself this way, you have a reason to be gloomy!

What actions are you going to take today to prepare yourself and your organization? Share in the comments.

Who Learned the Most About Leadership?

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Return From Camp

As I mentioned in the last post, I recently escorted 19 Boy Scouts to summer camp at Raven Knob Scout Reservation near Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Being as there is generally not a lot for adults to do there, I was able to spend a lot of time observing, reflecting, and planning. This is our second straight year at this camp and we plan to return next year as well, primarily because this particular camp is so well run. The amazing part of it is that the program is almost entirely run by Boy Scouts, not adults. And by almost entirely, I mean that the adults involved are in supporting roles and primarily managerial roles. The Program Director on down are Scouts running the show!

Now, summer camps by necessity are pretty well-structured and offer lots of programs. A Boy Scout camp is no different, offering opportunities for the boys to work towards rank advancement or earning merit badges. All that structure requires a lot of staff members to make it go, providing administration, program, food service, and other elements. When you have a program that is well-organized and runs smoothly with that many factors and personnel involved, and it is run by boys; well, that deserves a little looking at to find out why. So, I did.

The Raven Knob Difference

The Camp Director is Keith Bobbitt and my understanding is that his philosophy and approach is what drives the success of this camp. Keith is what we call a Professional Scouter, an adult who gets paid to do this. In talking with Keith both last year and this year, I am struck by the awesome leadership he exhibits with the summer camp program. Keith has developed a vision and core values that are the cornerstone of the program. Applicants to work summer camp are carefully reviewed and selected. All staff members are required to attend ongoing training in how the camp runs, their roles, and their leadership. As camp goes on, Keith and his team identify staff members who exhibit extraordinary competence and leadership. Those candidates are then provided with additional training and guidance, moved to more challenging roles, and return the next year to serve in higher capacity.

As I mentioned, even the Program Director is a Scout. He is responsible to lead all the section directors (also mostly all Scouts) and lead daily meetings with adult leaders from all the troops that attend to keep them informed. If you have an issue during camp, you will speak to Scout to get it resolved. When I asked Keith Bobbitt about the Program Director role and how he can confidently fill it with a Scout, he told me that the person for the that position has actually been trained over a few years to fill it. He even confidently boasted to me that when the current Program Director ages out of Scouting or moves on, he has 3-4 others already prepared to take that role on and maintain the consistency in the effectiveness of the camp.

Vision, Empowerment, and a Commitment to Excellence

A few take-aways for me stood out from observing the week, not all of it new but certainly reinforced:

Vision helps everyone perform better. What’s amazing about Camp Raven Knob is not just that it is run by boys — other Boy Scout camps do that as well — but rather that it is run so smoothly and efficiently by boys. They were always courteous and helpful. And while those two words are part of the Scout Law and you would expect them to be that way at every camp; the reality is that not all of them go the extra mile with it like they do at Raven Knob. I believe it is because the vision of what they want the camp to be is consistently communicated to the staff. Once they understand the vision, it sets an expectation, which then makes it easier for the staff to behave in a manner consistent with that vision.
Empowerment lets each person contribute and spreads the load. When you provide the vision, tell them to go make it happen, and get out of their way then most everyone will rise to the occasion and perform based on the vision. By empowering the Program Director to run things, make decisions, and make changes as necessary, Keith not only allows that Scout to truly contribute to the success of the camp, he is making his own load lighter as well. When the Program Director allows his section directors to do their jobs and make decisions, he also is developing people and lightening his own load. I daresay that if the Program Director kept all the decision making to himself, he would go crazy around week 2 or 3.
Boys teach me more than I ever teach them. They had challenges of bad weather at points, being in a totally unfamiliar environment, hustling around from session to session all day, and yet took the time to thoroughly enjoy themselves and get to know each other better. I believe our troop firmed up their relationships that week through the shared experiences and the resulting “inside jokes” from that. Litigious spiders, “are we there yet? Yes, get out!”, playing SetBack, and “Hey, Hi!” will all become cultural components of our troop. And it reminded me of things I often forget in “the real world”.

Zombie Nation Rises!

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Beware Your Workplace Zombies!

Are you worried? Even if you don’t believe in Zombies (and I don’t) you should be worried. A Forbes Magazine article (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jacobmorgan/2013/06/26/most-american-workers-are-zombies-but-theres-hope/) released this week summarizes a Gallup survey recently conducted that found that 70% of US workers are “disengaged” from their employment. In other words, they have become mindless zombies at work, going through the motions of their jobs. Now the poll defines engagement as being actively involved with the company goals and vision, feeling passionate about what they do, and working to innovate and improve the company. I would add working to improve the company bottom line as well. So by contrast disengaged means that they are simply doing the minimum; showing up, doing what is required and nothing more, not applying any creative thought. And the extreme is worse; they are UNHAPPY in their job and more than likely exhibiting that in a variety of ways, including a reduction in productivity. They estimate that this is costing us collectively HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS through lost revenue and lost productivity. The real concern is that the trend seems to be growing instead of shrinking. And it is not relegated to simply large corporations.

Cure for Zombie Nation

The good news is that there is HOPE! There is a CURE FOR ZOMBIFICATION! And it begins with the LEADERSHIP of the organization; whether the executive level of a large corporation or the owner of a small business. You can re-engage your employees and turn this around. The secret lies in FIRE. No, not firing them all and hiring someone else; you are simply getting rid of a known in favor of an unknown; not to mention the expense involved in recruiting and hiring a new employee. It also doesn’t lie in lighting a fire under them. Threats and intimidation has proven time and again to be highly ineffective in both the short and long-term in today’s workplace. In fact, I don’t think it was ever truly an effective tool. The real solution lies in LIGHTING A FIRE IN THEM! The employee who finds their own motivation and passion will awake from their zombie slumber, re-engage, seek performance excellence, improve their productivity, and as a result positively impact YOUR BOTTOM LINE. In fact, the Gallup poll strongly suggests that the highly engaged employee leads to the kind of growth you desire for your organization. But you cannot provide this motivation, it has to come from within the person. All you can do is provide the environment in which an employee can find that motivation. Employees find motivation and passion when the feel hope; hope for their future, hope for the future of the organization. If you can provide that, you will begin curing the zombification process.

Administering the Cure

So how do we get there? Here’s a some things to consider that have been proven over time in many situations to provide the right environment for employee engagement.

Communication

For too many managers and business owners, the extent of their communication with their staff consists of mumbled good mornings and “how are sales today?” Employees respond to open communication; this is especially true if you employ GenX and GenY people. You need to do more than just acknowledge their presence, you need to acknowledge their impact….to them directly and also indirectly by going public with it. You need to communicate your vision to them. How can they have hope in their future and the organization’s future if they don’t know where it is you want to go with it?

They also need to know that the door is open for two-way communication. They need to have confidence in the knowledge that their opinion and input is valued. They need to know they have room to make mistakes and to take responsibility for those mistakes and learn from them.

Mostly, they need to hear that they matter to you and the organization. If your attitude is that employees are a dime a dozen, be prepared to set aside those dimes because it will be all you will be able to pay because it is all you will have left.

Connecting

Confidence in open communication occurs when you have made a connection to your employees. When you take the time to talk with them, learn about them and their situations and their hopes and dreams, then you are able to connect with them and build that confidence in a relationship. Building that relationship does not necessarily mean going out for beers together, but it does mean recognizing that there is, beyond all the titles and roles, a person there who feels things just as personally as you do. You are invested personally in what you do which is why YOU are productive; how is that any less for your employees?

Focus on Strengths

This was mentioned in the article but has been a mantra of mine for some time. In job interviews and performance evaluations, the topic of strengths and weaknesses is brought up and then never addressed again. In the evaluation, we identify what we think their weakness is and then tell them to work on it. STOP! If you make an employee focus on their weaknesses you are creating two negative situations; one is that you have placed focus on their deficiencies instead of on where they make a positive impact and the other is they will ignore bolstering their strengths to focus on improving their weaknesses. Where are they the most productive for you, in their strengths or in their weaknesses? And let’s say they do work on their weakness, by how much? At best, they move from poor to mediocre. Meanwhile, their strengths are not improving and their productivity is lower and they are unhappy because they are not in their sweet spot. Find ways to increase their strengths and team them with others (inside or outside) to overcome their weaknesses.

Reward the Behaviors You Desire

Too often, we only focus on employees when something is wrong. So we emphasize the wrong behaviors because that is the only time anyone pays attention. It’s the same with your kids; if the only way a child gets attention is when they do something wrong (and they CRAVE attention) what do you think they are going to choose to do? You can’t ignore bad behaviors, but you can minimize the attention spent on them and spend more time focusing on the positive impacts. Spend time EVERY DAY catching them doing right.

Immediate Action

This is especially a challenge for small business owners but I have found it is often a challenge for corporate management as well. The time to act is now. Go to your calendar and open up some time to casually sit and talk with your employees one-on-one. Not in your office, but in a breakroom or on a bench somewhere or take them to a coffee house. Talk about where they feel they are most effective and ask them how you can help them be more effective. Assure them that they have value. Do it today, because the longer you wait the less likely you are to do it. What you don’t want to do is look back and say, “I shoulda…”