Redefining – employee commitment and work life balance

Pigs or chickens?

Too many employee’s have an entitlement attitude and its killing business owners – who’s fault is that the employee or employer?

The employee owner – divide is a constant challenge for business owners. How do you motivate your employees to go the extra mile and behave more like owners? Mastering the art of people leadership, is the toughest of all talents a business leader must acquire if they are to be successful and not die of a heart attack due to “staff issues”

Owners and employees are as different as the pig and the chicken in the “bacon and eggs” business – the pigs are committed and the chickens are involved.

Are your staff pigs or chickens?

 One of my biggest observations after working with business owners is that most people have never worked for an “inspirational leader” or in a “high performing team”.  As such they have no role models or experiences to reference to, or emulate.

 Are you an Inspirational leader and do you have a high performing team?

Yes we need to recognise that employees will never behave exactly like owners mainly because they will never have as much on the line as owners do but …

as business owners it is our role to lead and develop a culture where we can get the best out of people.

Too often I hear business owners complain about the performance of staff, in particular well-paid senior staff, yet as leaders they have not been clear and upfront with what they expect from their staff.

In my blog post on Daniel Pinks – book Drive I referenced one of his concepts that has stuck with me has been the concept of “pay people enough, to take money off the table as a motivator” and “replace it with purpose”.  Its we worth watching, RSA’s Daniel Pink Drive 10 minute video summary of the book– it is great at positioning money is not the best motivator.

A well-crafted BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) is a great way to clarify with your team the purpose. For tips on this read my BHAG blog post.

So lets set the record straight: what do we actually expect from our staff and in particular our staff paid more than $70K a year. My guess is to many people are being held ransom by their employees and are not clear enough on expectations.

 Redefining “work life balance”

One of my pet issues with “employee” logic as a opposed to “owner” logic is the distorted and biased view of work life balance.

I quote from the Department of Labour website – which typifies employee logic:

Work-life balance is about effectively managing the juggling act between paid work and other activities that are important to us – including spending time with family, taking part in sport and recreation, volunteering or undertaking further study.

Interesting all the examples on the DoL are about employees getting rather than giving.

Here is my redefined definition of work-life balance

Work-life balance is acknowledging that modern work and home life are integrated with each other and cannot be separated. 

It means: just as its ok to have time off to go watch your kids athletics, or bugger off early on a Friday to go on that Mountain bike trip with you mates, its ok to check you emails in the weekend, stay late at the office because we have a deadline.

It is not about clock watching and collating time in lieu, it’s about being part of many winning teams : at work, at our sport and  family – all simultaneously.

 Signing up staff to a new commitment contract 

How would your staff react if you asked them to sign up to a commitment pledge?

Commitment contract

I agree that I get:

• Fair compensation for my contribution to the company?
• An opportunity to share in the upside of the business? (profit share, bonus, promotions) 

 I commit to:

• Being as passionate about work as my non-work life.
• Not switching my phone or brain off as I leave the building:  So I am constantly thinking about how our business can be improved and do better , sharing my ideas with other team members
• Spend company money as if it was my own
• Not clog up our finance system with petty little expense claims (items less than $100) – noting it costs most organisations more than $100 to raise and settle an expense claim
• Go the extra mile on a regular basis including doing extra hours over and above 40 hours per week

What else would you add ? …

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Don’t let your public speaking skills limit your potential

Finding your voice – could be the easiest way to accelerate your business or careers success.

Whether you are a business owner or executive trying to get ahead, your success will be severally limited unless you can master the art of public speaking.

Standing out from the crowd is an essential element of success for people and businesses alike. Public speaking is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to stand out in the crowded market place.   Whether it is how you speak at meetings or getting a speaking engagement at trade conferences.

Some people love public speaking, others dread it… but whether it’s speaking to conferences, sales calls or just plain networking and major meetings; it is clear that even to day in the digital age you need to master the art of speaking to get ahead.

Only 7% of message impact comes from the words we use. The rest from the way we deliver it.  The way that you deliver “your words”, comes from how we process things internally and can be reprogrammed.

To develop confidence and passion into your speaking here are a few tips:

Personal brand – Consciously own a style

Too often the inexperienced speaker will put on their “speaking voice”, inadvertently becoming someone other than themselves on stage. Generally that “speaker voice” is a poor version of you and they are selling you short. Save the being someone else to the professional actors. The easiest person to be is you.

Get clear about who you are and what your personal brand stands for. Develop a written list of key characteristics of your person brand, values and style in your normal non-speaking business life. Then use this list to encourage and challenge yourself to be that on stage. Remember being “consciously competent” is the step in learning before “unconscious competence”.

If you work for a corporate do not loose your individualism and personal brand completely to the company brand. For “owner managers”

Use a topic you are passionate about to start

Ask yourself “What part of my topic am I most passionate about?”  Use this in your opening, if you are truly passionate about it, your body will change its physiology and you will become alive on stage.

Stand for something: Have a few “soap box” topics

Have a few pet topics that you can speak on, so that given short notice you always have something to talk about. Make a bold claim; debate is one of the most powerful ways to engage audiences.

Just Do it

Yes nothing will get you better at speaking than practice. Take every opportunity to practice. Start by always asking questions at conferences and large meetings. Hunt down speaking opportunities; industry associations are a good place to start.

If you lack speaking opportunities join a toastmasters club. Toastmasters provide a friendly and inspirational environment to learn and improve every week. I personally got a lot out of attending a club for a while and was blown away by the relaxed format and inspiration speeches I heard.

Get Help

The quickest way to improve you learning is to get some one on one coaching and critique.

Basic steps to finding your voice:

1. Personal commitment to fix it
2. Process of creating a conscious personal brand – and using it as a strength in presentation style
3. Learning some mechanics / tools of delivery that are compatible to you
4. Creating the message to deliver for the voice medium.
5. Personal coaching on all above – including follow up coaching

At GMC we help business owners and executives who want to “find their voice” in the business environment,  helping you discover what to say and how to say it. Unlike traditional speaking coaches we get business and business people – and come from a business perspective rather than entertainer or actor mind-set.

Breaking the owner – employee attitude gap

How do you get employees to operate as though they own the business?

This is an ongoing dilemma for all business owners.

I have just finished an enlightening book on creating performing teams in this modern age by Paul Marciano – “Carrots and Sticks Don’t Work”

 This book should be compulsory reading for anyone who has staff.

It’s amazing what people managing people, claim to know about leadership – but seldom practice.
Paul has a way of bringing this point home with some simple questions in each of the early chapters, clearly illustrating this point.

When was the last time you said an individual “thank you” to your staff?

I cringe when I hear executives say “people our most important asset” yet there is no evidence in their actions.

Paul like others, I have recently reviewed take an axe to reward and recognition programmes (carrots and sticks), stating that these only stimulate short-term change and never influence culture.  He gives numerous  (20) examples of the harm these programmes can bring into companies. In many cases all that happens is a culture of entitlement is formed.

Paul separates motivation from engagement.  “Employees who are motivated will work hard when there is something in it for them, engaged employees work hard for the sake of the organization and because it gives them fulfillment”

Another differentiation between engagement and not: “When I feel highly engaged with a project, I find myself thinking of it all the time-inside and outside work.; when I’m not engaged , I think about the project only when I am on the clock”

Engaged employees do things like: bring ideas to work, when did you last get an email in the weekend from an employee saying …”I’ve been thinking…”, or an employee informs you of problems solved, rather than bringing you dead bodies.

The interesting point he does make is that “it is all to do with the organization and manager and less to do with the employee”.

Motivation is what gets you started; habits are what keep you going.

Habits are persistent and resistant to change and do not go away because we are motivated.

Culture derives behavior and behavior reinforces culture

So given we accept carrots and sticks don’t work, what do we do about it. Paul’s model is based on an acronym RESPECT.

• Recognition (& acknowledgement)
• Empowerment (do your staff have the tools to succeed)
• Supportive feedback
• Partnering
• Expectations
• Considerations
• Trust

Building on Pink’s Drive purpose, Paul emphasizes the importance of people understanding the context of their role in the organisation and knowing that their efforts make a difference to others and the business.

Some other quick notes I made give you a taste of Paul’s approach:

• Giving effective Praise:  The winning formula Timing, specificity, proximity, enthusiasm.
• Lack of training and advancement are the 2 leading reasons for staff turnover
• “Your Job gives you authority, your behavior gives you respect”

This book is going on my top 10 list to recommend to owner managers who want break the employee – owner attitude gap.

Read more on Paul’s respect model on his web site:  http://www.paulmarciano.com/respect-model/

Paul was looking at coming to NZ in 2012, so keep an eye out for his name on the speaking circuit.