Tag: Leadership

Posted on

Excellence in the Workplace – Found, Made or Elusive?

“Why is it so hard to find an excellent employee?”

That was the subject of a discussion in a leadership group on Linkedin. Responses (over one thousand to date!) can be grouped into four main themes:
1. that it is indeed nearly impossible to find an excellent person to hire;
2. that there are many excellent people, but they are in the wrong jobs;
3. that the right person may be out of work and not getting noticed; or
4. that employers are so far below excellence that no individual could be excellent in their employ.

Where’s the issue? Is it in the selection? hiring? alignment of person to role? management? something else? all of the above?

Consider-Is it that they aren’t excellent or is it that they become less so once they are in your workplace?

Continue reading “Excellence in the Workplace – Found, Made or Elusive?”
Posted on

Align YOU with what you do.

Feel great & do even better! Who doesn’t want that for themselves? Who wouldn’t want that for others? So of course we foster feeling great at work. whoops! screech. halt. back up. We don’t? Why not? Mostly because what we think we need to do is hard. But they really are NOT what is needed, or wanted. I call these Better Business Management Myths and I’ve listed three for you below: Continue reading “Align YOU with what you do.”

Posted on

Leadership -Connecting with (your) people to improve results. Step 4: Removing roadblocks

In this series we are talking about connecting – connecting to people, connecting people to the business results you want, and getting those results.

Recap:
In Step 1 you selected up to three of the most critical strategic themes or objectives. In Step 2 you mapped these themes to your Strategy so that key objectives can be prioritized and contrasted (it is not uncommon to have conflicting objectives that need to be sorted out). And in Step 3 you prioritized so that you’d be sure that what is most important gets done.

Now before we move on, it is critical to have a plan for identifying and removing roadblocks. You will face at least one. I’m going to list a few of the most common ones here, along with answers that have worked for others. I’d love to have comments and additions from readers.

Here are three common roadblocks to getting what you expect: Continue reading “Leadership -Connecting with (your) people to improve results. Step 4: Removing roadblocks”

Posted on

Connecting people to business performance!

From what is (now) to what can be (in the future)

What’s in it for me? (aka WIIFM). You may be asking yourself this right now. Do you think there has been a disconnect in communication, and strategy, in corporate America? I know there has!

When people are not communicating transparently and with empathy, the disconnect between what people do and what leaders expect (aka Strategy) grows larger.

Reconnecting people – at all levels – into performance management systems and to the performance of the company is critical. And it is do-able! 

The first step might be to shift from performance management to performance momentum! An Aligned Momentum program, powered by the A.M. software, just might be the transformative solution you are looking for. Feel free to reach out to me directly at lori[at]thepivotcatalyst[dot]com.

Posted on

Motivating employees – discover their “WIIFM”

Question: How do you get employees motivated and passionate about the mission of the organization so that they strive for self improvement and improved work performance without micromanaging from management or finger pointing at their colleagues?

Lori’s answer:

You’ve put a lot of great keywords into your question: motivated, passionate, mission…
This tells me what a great leader you are – congrats!

But guess what? -No one in your company will care about the practice in the way that you do. That is because the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) for you IS your company; that’s not the case for your employees.

I also love that you brought up finger-pointing. It is a sign of unclear roles and expectations (read: measures).

Continue reading “Motivating employees – discover their “WIIFM””

Posted on

How do you communicate bad news?

What message would you communicate to your employees if you are (or were to be) a leader of a company suffering from lost profits, lost customers and/or lost value during these still uncertain times? How would you communicate it? What would you expect the employees to do next? What might you tell employees about changes you/leadership will make? How would you handle your own emotions caused by uncertainty? How might you refocus yourself, your mastermind (those around you that help with decisions) and your employees on solutions? How might you keep the communication… and the positive sparks it should create…alive?