In my younger days, I worked as an accountant for a shoe company in Akron, Ohio. The office building had a warehouse attached, and we shipped shoes to our 360 stores across the upper mid-west. It was a nice enough office. The accounting department where I worked was downstairs, so we didn’t have any outside views, but it was well lit and open. Cubes were not really the rage back then, so our accounting clerks sat in rows of desks in an open area. There was no real privacy, and only the managers had telephones.
It was nothing special, but it was ok. I had a picture of my wife and children on my desk. That was as personal as it got in those days.
We were owned by another shoe company in Endicott, New York. Three or four times a year we would get visitors from the home office and they would spend a couple of days working with us.
I always found it odd during their visits. Although nothing was said directly to us, I was always under the impression that they were sincerely thrilled to be visiting us. It was not a joke. They LOVED coming to visit and looked forward to it. And, for the likes of me, I couldn’t figure out why. After all, Akron, Ohio is not exactly a vacation Mecca.
We had a lot of young women working there as accounting clerks and I wondered if maybe they didn’t have a crush on one or two of them. But as I watched, I didn’t notice any real flirting in either direction.
It baffled me.
Then one day I was asked to visit them in Endicott. This was a very big deal for me being called to the home office and all. I was just 23 years old and considered this to be a big feather in my cap. I looked forward to this trip for weeks.
I flew to New York and spent the night before at the Holiday Inn, anxiously waiting to see what the “corporate office” would be like. The next morning I took a cab to the office and walked up the steps to the large facility with excitement building inside of me. I opened the door, walked in, and had the life sucked right out of my body.
While I always thought that there was nothing special about our offices in Akron, there was definitely something special about the “corporate office.”
I felt like I had walked right into the middle of Charles Dickens’ David Copperfield.
I had walked into a converted factory; although not much conversion had actually taken place. Instead, I heard my shoes echo against the high ceilings as I walked across the dilapidated wooden floors. The lights, what there were of them, hung some 20 feet above me flickering, but not putting out much actual light. I moved from purchasing, through advertising, store design, and finally into accounting without ever passing through a door, or walking around a wall. It was all just open, dark, and cavernous; and as depressing as a graveyard on Halloween.
Soon I was face to face with my counterparts. But these weren’t the happy, upbeat guys who seemed to enjoy their quarterly visits to Akron, Ohio. Instead these were near zombies who spoke in hushed tones, moved slowly, and never smiled. They also didn’t seem to do very much work....
We’ll discuss this topic in more depth in part 2 of this blog, to be published next week.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Measuring the Team - Part 2
As we discussed in our last posting, managing through metrics is a fairly common technique in the business world. “What gets measured gets managed” is the old adage, and while true to an extent, this can be misleading. Because if you are measuring the wrong things, you are essentially managing the wrong things as well.
Now, I didn’t really make a true breakthrough in leading until I came to another conclusion about the fallacy of measurements. It seems my boss had lied to me when he said, “Everything that is important can be measured.” While that sounded good, the most important things in my organization were not able to be measured at all. Things like creativity, passion, loyalty, intelligence, perseverance and, most importantly, employee engagement were not things that I could chart on the wall and measure progress. This really jumped out at me when I was asked to measure employee engagement by tracking and reporting on employee turnover. The message I received was quite clear.
Turnover costs money.
Turnover is bad.
Don’t turnover your employees.
At the end of the year I sat down with my boss to review the measurements on employee turnover. It seemed that my numbers were considerably higher than she wanted. One by one we walked through the reasons for my turnover. Some turnover was due to non-performance by the employee. One or two people left the company. But the vast majority of my turnover was the result of my employees getting promoted to new positions in other departments inside of the company. Promotions that I had supported them on, groomed them for, and actively helped them achieve.
It didn’t matter. The bottom line was that my turnover was too high and I had to “get it under control.” Sitting down and reviewing in my mind the reasons for my high turnover, I slowly came to the realization that the most important aspects of human management could not be measured. I could not measure the loyalty that came when employees willingly worked nights and weekends to complete assignments. Nor could I measure how they counseled each other when problems arose. Nor how the team was managing itself and integrating new team members into the expectations of high standards without a word from me. I couldn’t measure what happened one Saturday when an employee was trying to solve a problem and called 3 of his teammates for support. The 3 teammates gave up their Saturday to devise a very creative solution for a thorny problem. I only knew that they had helped when one of my peers mentioned that she had seen all 4 of my employees working on this problem on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon and chided me for “being a slave driver.”
It seems that the very best things about a team are difficult, if not impossible, to measure. And while we can measure productivity increases of engaged people and teams, we can’t truly measure what is in the heart of our people. While measuring and using metrics in our business is a critical aspect of our overall success, we need to be careful in thinking that metrics ARE our business. Our long term success is tied to our ability to get the most from our people, and the reality is that our people are our business.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Now, I didn’t really make a true breakthrough in leading until I came to another conclusion about the fallacy of measurements. It seems my boss had lied to me when he said, “Everything that is important can be measured.” While that sounded good, the most important things in my organization were not able to be measured at all. Things like creativity, passion, loyalty, intelligence, perseverance and, most importantly, employee engagement were not things that I could chart on the wall and measure progress. This really jumped out at me when I was asked to measure employee engagement by tracking and reporting on employee turnover. The message I received was quite clear.
Turnover costs money.
Turnover is bad.
Don’t turnover your employees.
At the end of the year I sat down with my boss to review the measurements on employee turnover. It seemed that my numbers were considerably higher than she wanted. One by one we walked through the reasons for my turnover. Some turnover was due to non-performance by the employee. One or two people left the company. But the vast majority of my turnover was the result of my employees getting promoted to new positions in other departments inside of the company. Promotions that I had supported them on, groomed them for, and actively helped them achieve.
It didn’t matter. The bottom line was that my turnover was too high and I had to “get it under control.” Sitting down and reviewing in my mind the reasons for my high turnover, I slowly came to the realization that the most important aspects of human management could not be measured. I could not measure the loyalty that came when employees willingly worked nights and weekends to complete assignments. Nor could I measure how they counseled each other when problems arose. Nor how the team was managing itself and integrating new team members into the expectations of high standards without a word from me. I couldn’t measure what happened one Saturday when an employee was trying to solve a problem and called 3 of his teammates for support. The 3 teammates gave up their Saturday to devise a very creative solution for a thorny problem. I only knew that they had helped when one of my peers mentioned that she had seen all 4 of my employees working on this problem on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon and chided me for “being a slave driver.”
It seems that the very best things about a team are difficult, if not impossible, to measure. And while we can measure productivity increases of engaged people and teams, we can’t truly measure what is in the heart of our people. While measuring and using metrics in our business is a critical aspect of our overall success, we need to be careful in thinking that metrics ARE our business. Our long term success is tied to our ability to get the most from our people, and the reality is that our people are our business.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Measuring the Team - Part 1
“What gets measured gets managed,” my boss told me as he leaned back in his chair, imparting the wisdom of the ages on me. “That’s all you need to know to be successful in this area. If you don’t measure it, it won’t get managed. And I’ll tell you something else. Everything that is important can be measured.”
This was music to my ears. I had already built a reputation for getting results. (See A Little History and Background). With my background in accounting and finance, measuring things was pretty easy for me. I was far better than most at creating measurements of our success because numbers had a way of just speaking to me. Over the years, I created metrics in a variety of areas to measure our progress and success. In a number of ways the metrics were instrumental in helping us uncover bottlenecks, identify challenges, and improve our performance. It’s safe to say that my utilization and understanding of metrics furthered my ability to get more results than my peers and distance myself from them in terms of our managerial abilities.
Over time my ability to manage the business led me to get promoted into areas where I was not a technical expert. For some people, that can create a huge problem as they can be very insecure about an area where they lack detailed knowledge. In my case I was fortunate to have a boss who taught me how to ask questions, how to do detailed analysis of processes, and the advantages of not being a technical expert. Using these skills, I continued to get results in areas that were far removed from my accounting and finance background. I often found myself being put in charge of areas that were performing badly, where the metrics were far below the company’s expectations. I became a kind of “turnaround specialist” inside my own company. I moved from department to department reversing the numbers and improving productivity. In doing so, I learned the first fallacy of managing through metrics.
While it's true that what gets measured gets managed, not everything that can be measured matters. In case after case I found that organizations were measuring the wrong things. They measured what was easy to measure instead of what they should be measuring. So, while what they measured was getting managed, the things that they should have been measuring were left languishing because they couldn’t figure out how to measure them. Much of my success was the direct result of my ability to ascertain what SHOULD be measured and managed.
We’ll discuss this in more depth in our next posting.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
This was music to my ears. I had already built a reputation for getting results. (See A Little History and Background). With my background in accounting and finance, measuring things was pretty easy for me. I was far better than most at creating measurements of our success because numbers had a way of just speaking to me. Over the years, I created metrics in a variety of areas to measure our progress and success. In a number of ways the metrics were instrumental in helping us uncover bottlenecks, identify challenges, and improve our performance. It’s safe to say that my utilization and understanding of metrics furthered my ability to get more results than my peers and distance myself from them in terms of our managerial abilities.
Over time my ability to manage the business led me to get promoted into areas where I was not a technical expert. For some people, that can create a huge problem as they can be very insecure about an area where they lack detailed knowledge. In my case I was fortunate to have a boss who taught me how to ask questions, how to do detailed analysis of processes, and the advantages of not being a technical expert. Using these skills, I continued to get results in areas that were far removed from my accounting and finance background. I often found myself being put in charge of areas that were performing badly, where the metrics were far below the company’s expectations. I became a kind of “turnaround specialist” inside my own company. I moved from department to department reversing the numbers and improving productivity. In doing so, I learned the first fallacy of managing through metrics.
While it's true that what gets measured gets managed, not everything that can be measured matters. In case after case I found that organizations were measuring the wrong things. They measured what was easy to measure instead of what they should be measuring. So, while what they measured was getting managed, the things that they should have been measuring were left languishing because they couldn’t figure out how to measure them. Much of my success was the direct result of my ability to ascertain what SHOULD be measured and managed.
We’ll discuss this in more depth in our next posting.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Motivation Through Balance - Part II
In last week’s blog, we discussed the fact that more and more employees are citing Work/Life balance as a key factor in their professional and personal satisfaction and that Work/Life balance can mean various things to the different generations and to specific individuals.
As I mentioned last week, I believe it is important for companies to pay close attention to these differences and to how employees are spending their time away from the office.
While employees cite the need for time away from work as valuable and important, you can actually strengthen the bonds between your employees and your company by understanding how your employees spend their time and encouraging that behavior and removing roadblocks from their achieving the balance they want and need.
For example, let’s say that a survey of your employees indicates a strong social consciousness and a desire to give back to the community. Knowing that, you could contact local volunteer organizations to find projects that would interest your team and encourage your employees to participate. This has the dual benefits of helping the community while building teamwork among your employees. In addition, by showing that you are socially conscious yourself, your team members will begin to build more trust in you.
Or, let’s say you discover that your team members have a strong desire to hike on weekends. You could organize and coordinate hikes for your team and their family members. These hikes would not be “company sponsored,” but they would be made available to interested employees. This is not unlike the old concept of the “Company Softball Team.” By encouraging the activities that your employees want to do outside of the office, you are allowing them to recharge their own batteries and building team spirit at the same time.
Clearly this can be a win-win.
I should note here that it is important to get a strong grip on what your employees want to do, and not just guess at the activities or follow the lead of one or two outspoken employees. Encouraging activities that appear to be arbitrary or contrived could leave your team feeling manipulated or lead them to believe that you are out of touch with what they desire in their lives.
Creating balance for your team members is good for them, and it is good for your business. It leaves the employees refreshed and ready for new challenges and can create new levels of teamwork that would not otherwise be possible.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
As I mentioned last week, I believe it is important for companies to pay close attention to these differences and to how employees are spending their time away from the office.
While employees cite the need for time away from work as valuable and important, you can actually strengthen the bonds between your employees and your company by understanding how your employees spend their time and encouraging that behavior and removing roadblocks from their achieving the balance they want and need.
For example, let’s say that a survey of your employees indicates a strong social consciousness and a desire to give back to the community. Knowing that, you could contact local volunteer organizations to find projects that would interest your team and encourage your employees to participate. This has the dual benefits of helping the community while building teamwork among your employees. In addition, by showing that you are socially conscious yourself, your team members will begin to build more trust in you.
Or, let’s say you discover that your team members have a strong desire to hike on weekends. You could organize and coordinate hikes for your team and their family members. These hikes would not be “company sponsored,” but they would be made available to interested employees. This is not unlike the old concept of the “Company Softball Team.” By encouraging the activities that your employees want to do outside of the office, you are allowing them to recharge their own batteries and building team spirit at the same time.
Clearly this can be a win-win.
I should note here that it is important to get a strong grip on what your employees want to do, and not just guess at the activities or follow the lead of one or two outspoken employees. Encouraging activities that appear to be arbitrary or contrived could leave your team feeling manipulated or lead them to believe that you are out of touch with what they desire in their lives.
Creating balance for your team members is good for them, and it is good for your business. It leaves the employees refreshed and ready for new challenges and can create new levels of teamwork that would not otherwise be possible.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Motivation Through Balance
Creating a highly engaged workforce is as much an art as it is a science. While there are a number of factors that are important to your workforce (see “10 Things Every Leader Should Know About Employee Expectations” http://ecilearning.blogspot.com/2010/02/10-things-every-leader-should-know_15.html), you can’t paint your entire workforce with a broad brush.
In other words, different employees want different things and assuming that something is “good,” and therefore valuable to your employees, is a sure fire way to miss the motivation bull’s-eye.
For example, Work/Life Balance is often cited by employees as one of the things that they care about in their job. In fact, this is one of the key areas that our current Baby Boomer Generation and our Generation Y members have in common. Both list Work/Life Balance as a key motivator. And both generations are looking to create a life outside of work for themselves.
But the expectations around Work/Life Balance can certainly be different between the generations. And beyond that, it can mean different things to different members of each generation. As a Baby Boomer myself, my perception of balance changed over the years. Early in my career I made a lot of sacrifices to get ahead in my career. I put in a lot of extra hours, working nights and weekends to try and impress my boss and the other executives as well. My career was at the top of my list. But when I did leave work, I left it entirely. Once I closed my office door, my time was 100% devoted to my wife and children. My Work/Life Balance was clearly delineated between my time in the office and my time outside the office. So again, painting with a broad brush about what our employees want can lead us into trouble.
When it comes to creating a highly engaged workforce it is important to understand the needs and expectations of your employees. Numerous studies on the subject of engaged employees cite the balance between work life and personal life as a key indicator of employee satisfaction. More than ever before, workers from all generations are trying to create a life for themselves outside of work. For Baby Boomers this outside time is being devoted to volunteer work at a service club or church, pursuing a long time passion like skiing or painting, or even just enjoying their new grand children. For Generation X and Y’ers, their time outside the office is invested in virtual worlds through the internet, social networking and gaming, as well as spending time with friends and music. So while more and more employees are citing the importance of a life outside of work as a key indicator of their satisfaction, the generations tend to have different views of how this time is best spent.
As an employer, should it really matter to you how your employees spend their off hours, creating the work/life balance so many of them seem to be asking for?
I believe it should. And next week we’ll talk about why.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create in energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
In other words, different employees want different things and assuming that something is “good,” and therefore valuable to your employees, is a sure fire way to miss the motivation bull’s-eye.
For example, Work/Life Balance is often cited by employees as one of the things that they care about in their job. In fact, this is one of the key areas that our current Baby Boomer Generation and our Generation Y members have in common. Both list Work/Life Balance as a key motivator. And both generations are looking to create a life outside of work for themselves.
But the expectations around Work/Life Balance can certainly be different between the generations. And beyond that, it can mean different things to different members of each generation. As a Baby Boomer myself, my perception of balance changed over the years. Early in my career I made a lot of sacrifices to get ahead in my career. I put in a lot of extra hours, working nights and weekends to try and impress my boss and the other executives as well. My career was at the top of my list. But when I did leave work, I left it entirely. Once I closed my office door, my time was 100% devoted to my wife and children. My Work/Life Balance was clearly delineated between my time in the office and my time outside the office. So again, painting with a broad brush about what our employees want can lead us into trouble.
When it comes to creating a highly engaged workforce it is important to understand the needs and expectations of your employees. Numerous studies on the subject of engaged employees cite the balance between work life and personal life as a key indicator of employee satisfaction. More than ever before, workers from all generations are trying to create a life for themselves outside of work. For Baby Boomers this outside time is being devoted to volunteer work at a service club or church, pursuing a long time passion like skiing or painting, or even just enjoying their new grand children. For Generation X and Y’ers, their time outside the office is invested in virtual worlds through the internet, social networking and gaming, as well as spending time with friends and music. So while more and more employees are citing the importance of a life outside of work as a key indicator of their satisfaction, the generations tend to have different views of how this time is best spent.
As an employer, should it really matter to you how your employees spend their off hours, creating the work/life balance so many of them seem to be asking for?
I believe it should. And next week we’ll talk about why.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create in energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Two Bosses
A Tale of Employee Engagement
As I write this blog entry, I’m sitting in sunny Las Vegas in March. This is my chance to get away, clear my head, and do some writing. But as I was preparing for this vacation, I had a quick flashback to a conversation with a boss, many years ago.
I had been a manager for several years, but this was my first executive position. I was with a new company, in a new city, and excited about my future. One of the key benefits of being an executive was the three weeks of vacation that came with the position. I had little kids, so this was a real plus for me.
I’d been with the company for about 2 months when the topic of vacation came up rather innocuously. I mentioned that I was excited about having 3 weeks off to enjoy my kids and growing family.
“Well,” the boss said, “you get 3 weeks of vacation, but take 4.”
“Excuse me?” was my reply.
“These are high stress jobs,” he told me. “It would be better for the company if you took 2 vacations of two weeks each, rather than 3 single weeks.”
I was puzzled, and it probably showed on my face.
“When you go on vacation,” he continued, “it will take you a week just to relieve the stress. Then the second week you can actually relax and enjoy yourself.”
“Wow! That’s really nice of you.”
“Nice has nothing to do with it,” he snorted in reply. “This is not about you, it’s about the company. I need you at 100%. I need you fresh and creative. I need you to tackle the big challenges. And you won’t be able to do that if you don’t get the proper time away.”
As I got to know this boss better, I realized that he was right. He was not being nice. It wasn’t in his personality. What was in his personality was the ability to get the most from the people who worked from him. And giving me and others an extra week of vacation to really clear our minds was one way of getting the maximum from his people.
Contrast this with a later boss who had a different view of vacation. I witnessed a number of pre-vacation conversations between him and my co-workers. Those conversations went like this:
“Bill, we need to take a look at our hours per install and create some action plans to reduce them by 25%. I’ll need that plan from you by next Friday.”
“Ok. I’ll have my staff work on it next week while I’m out. I can either get it to you early Monday after I’ve returned or they can give you a draft that I haven’t reviewed on Friday.”
“No. I don’t want your staff involved in this. I want you to do it. And I want it by Friday.”
“But I’m off next week on vacation.”
“You’ve got a laptop, right? And a cell phone? And an internet connection? That’s all you need for this. Get me that analysis by Friday.”
I was privy to a number of conversations like this. In fact, none of my peers ever took a vacation that did not have one of these requests attached to it. Several times the request was not to complete the report while on vacation, but to cancel the vacation entirely.
Can you guess which boss got the most from his employees? Care to guess which employees always went the extra mile to ensure things were done right, on time, and under budget?
Even though that first boss was definitely not being nice to us, he did understand what we needed to be successful, and he made sure that we got it. His primary focus was on the company getting what it needed, but he ensured success by doing the right things for the employees.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com
As I write this blog entry, I’m sitting in sunny Las Vegas in March. This is my chance to get away, clear my head, and do some writing. But as I was preparing for this vacation, I had a quick flashback to a conversation with a boss, many years ago.
I had been a manager for several years, but this was my first executive position. I was with a new company, in a new city, and excited about my future. One of the key benefits of being an executive was the three weeks of vacation that came with the position. I had little kids, so this was a real plus for me.
I’d been with the company for about 2 months when the topic of vacation came up rather innocuously. I mentioned that I was excited about having 3 weeks off to enjoy my kids and growing family.
“Well,” the boss said, “you get 3 weeks of vacation, but take 4.”
“Excuse me?” was my reply.
“These are high stress jobs,” he told me. “It would be better for the company if you took 2 vacations of two weeks each, rather than 3 single weeks.”
I was puzzled, and it probably showed on my face.
“When you go on vacation,” he continued, “it will take you a week just to relieve the stress. Then the second week you can actually relax and enjoy yourself.”
“Wow! That’s really nice of you.”
“Nice has nothing to do with it,” he snorted in reply. “This is not about you, it’s about the company. I need you at 100%. I need you fresh and creative. I need you to tackle the big challenges. And you won’t be able to do that if you don’t get the proper time away.”
As I got to know this boss better, I realized that he was right. He was not being nice. It wasn’t in his personality. What was in his personality was the ability to get the most from the people who worked from him. And giving me and others an extra week of vacation to really clear our minds was one way of getting the maximum from his people.
Contrast this with a later boss who had a different view of vacation. I witnessed a number of pre-vacation conversations between him and my co-workers. Those conversations went like this:
“Bill, we need to take a look at our hours per install and create some action plans to reduce them by 25%. I’ll need that plan from you by next Friday.”
“Ok. I’ll have my staff work on it next week while I’m out. I can either get it to you early Monday after I’ve returned or they can give you a draft that I haven’t reviewed on Friday.”
“No. I don’t want your staff involved in this. I want you to do it. And I want it by Friday.”
“But I’m off next week on vacation.”
“You’ve got a laptop, right? And a cell phone? And an internet connection? That’s all you need for this. Get me that analysis by Friday.”
I was privy to a number of conversations like this. In fact, none of my peers ever took a vacation that did not have one of these requests attached to it. Several times the request was not to complete the report while on vacation, but to cancel the vacation entirely.
Can you guess which boss got the most from his employees? Care to guess which employees always went the extra mile to ensure things were done right, on time, and under budget?
Even though that first boss was definitely not being nice to us, he did understand what we needed to be successful, and he made sure that we got it. His primary focus was on the company getting what it needed, but he ensured success by doing the right things for the employees.
At ECI Learning Systems LLC, we are dedicated to helping companies get the greatest return from their most valuable asset: their employees. We work with you to align 3 key organizational factors:
• Your Company Culture
• The Leadership Styles of your key managers
• The Expectations of your Employees
When these 3 factors are aligned, you create an energy in your company that improves productivity, reduces absenteeism, increases creativity, and positively impacts your bottom line. Contact ECI Learning Systems LLC today to get your free Workplace Evaluation.
Until next time.....
Dave Meyer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Thinking Time
Dave and I recently had a conversation about creativity, and the environment that helps each of us generate new ideas, build on existing thoughts, and strategize for the future. That conversation reminded me of an article I read in the newspaper about a local company called ReadyTalk.
It seems ReadyTalk, a Denver area provider of audio conferencing and webinar services, has taken innovative steps to spark creativity in their workers. ReadyTalk gives its engineers one “free” day a week. Employees spend this day learning, experimenting, thinking, visioning, etc… Basically, they spend 8 hours each week focusing on passions, interests, and side projects, rather than their usual day to day tasks.
Apparently this concept, often referred to as a “labs” structure, is not new and has been implemented by several high-tech companies responsible for some of today’s most well-known, leading-edge innovations. While it may seem difficult, if not impossible, to take employees away from their billable tasks for an entire day, investing that 8 hours of overhead is a strategic move that can generate greater productivity and profitability for your organization now and in the future.
This long-term strategy allows employees to vary their routine, keeping their minds fresh and energized. It gives employees the space to be creative and to follow through on innovative ideas. Often this "lab" time leads to improved processes and procedures, increased efficiency, new solutions to existing problems, and ideas for new products and services.
Providing the right environment to jumpstart your employees’ creativity not only benefits their current billable tasks, but can also position your company for future success. And “lab” days are just one idea for creating this kind of environment. Other ideas for inspiring employee creativity include:
Identifying brainstorming partners – Two brains are always better than one. If the company encourages employees to spend time collaborating with each other, people are more likely to request and receive useful and insightful technical feedback.
Creating mastermind groups – Like brainstorming, the purpose of a mastermind group is to harness the power of multiple minds. Hearing thoughts and gathering ideas from a diverse group gives you the added benefit of multiple perspectives.
Offering cross-training sessions – Being too close to a problem can sometimes mask the easiest, most obvious solutions. If you teach employees enough about other aspects of a project or about company operations, they often bring fresh, new ideas to the table.
Providing time and resources for reading – Reading often leads to those key “ah-ha” moments. Reading leads to thinking and ultimately to problem solving. Whether these are solutions to today’s problems or solutions for the future, your organization will reap the benefits.
We’d love to hear what you, as a leader, and your company do to ensure that your employees have the time and space they need to refocus their attention and jumpstart their creativity.
Thanks for reading,
Laurie Valaer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
It seems ReadyTalk, a Denver area provider of audio conferencing and webinar services, has taken innovative steps to spark creativity in their workers. ReadyTalk gives its engineers one “free” day a week. Employees spend this day learning, experimenting, thinking, visioning, etc… Basically, they spend 8 hours each week focusing on passions, interests, and side projects, rather than their usual day to day tasks.
Apparently this concept, often referred to as a “labs” structure, is not new and has been implemented by several high-tech companies responsible for some of today’s most well-known, leading-edge innovations. While it may seem difficult, if not impossible, to take employees away from their billable tasks for an entire day, investing that 8 hours of overhead is a strategic move that can generate greater productivity and profitability for your organization now and in the future.
This long-term strategy allows employees to vary their routine, keeping their minds fresh and energized. It gives employees the space to be creative and to follow through on innovative ideas. Often this "lab" time leads to improved processes and procedures, increased efficiency, new solutions to existing problems, and ideas for new products and services.
Providing the right environment to jumpstart your employees’ creativity not only benefits their current billable tasks, but can also position your company for future success. And “lab” days are just one idea for creating this kind of environment. Other ideas for inspiring employee creativity include:
Identifying brainstorming partners – Two brains are always better than one. If the company encourages employees to spend time collaborating with each other, people are more likely to request and receive useful and insightful technical feedback.
Creating mastermind groups – Like brainstorming, the purpose of a mastermind group is to harness the power of multiple minds. Hearing thoughts and gathering ideas from a diverse group gives you the added benefit of multiple perspectives.
Offering cross-training sessions – Being too close to a problem can sometimes mask the easiest, most obvious solutions. If you teach employees enough about other aspects of a project or about company operations, they often bring fresh, new ideas to the table.
Providing time and resources for reading – Reading often leads to those key “ah-ha” moments. Reading leads to thinking and ultimately to problem solving. Whether these are solutions to today’s problems or solutions for the future, your organization will reap the benefits.
We’d love to hear what you, as a leader, and your company do to ensure that your employees have the time and space they need to refocus their attention and jumpstart their creativity.
Thanks for reading,
Laurie Valaer
ECI Learning Systems, LLC
http://www.ecilearning.com/
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