So what happens when the pandemic-storm is over? Presently, we are in a tight job market, especially in the hospitality and travel industries. Our employees are reluctant to change jobs now, even if they are not particularly happy.
An Envelope of Trust
Being Heard: For many of us, the employees we hire are often referred to as “knowledge workers.” The most common definition of that term I’ve come across is, “Knowledge workers are workers whose main capital is knowledge.” In other words, we hire knowledge workers and pay them to think. We hope that they are smarter than we are in whatever …
Tribal Animals
Nature Rules: There is a lot of discussion about organizational culture these days. What is it? How does it contribute to or inhibit effectiveness? How do we “manage” it? I define culture as simply “the way things get done around here.” And that means how decisions are made. That includes whether employees feel that the environment is safe for them …
The Resistance
Engagement: I was slightly amused at the recent NY Times anonymous editorial about the “Internal Resistance” to the President’s leadership. “Welcome to our world,” I said out loud to no one in particular. They are lucky that this is out in the open. We in the private sector rarely get such a heads up! According to Gallup for over two …
Meaningful Work
Engagement: There’s lots of talk about employee engagement these days. And there’s good reason for us to be discussing this topic. Gallup tells us that about 70% of our employees are disengaged. It’s been the same number, plus or minus a percent or two, since they have been doing the employee survey. Apparently, few find that they are engaged in …
The Early Bird . . .
As “They” Say . . . gets the worm. AND, the Early Worm Gets Eaten. The worm that sleeps in survives. But if too many worms sleep in, the Bird will go hungry — or learn to sleep in as well! What got me thinking about all this stuff was one of my favorite podcasts, Freakonomics, which did a two-part …
With Leadership it’s More Than Simply Knowing the Words
Sometimes novice musicians can tell you all the words to a vocal piece or what all the Latin instructions are on an instrumental score. They may be able to play or sing the piece with technical precision. Still, unless they also can interpret the passion and the full range of emotions, their performance will fall flat — that is technically …
Leadership: Clarity
Almost all the leadership topics of the day wind up talking about “clarity” at one point or another. Why is that? I noticed this phenomenon while reading such diverse topics as “employee engagement,” “vision and purpose statements,” “execution culture,” “developing leaders,” “executive coaching” and “what motivates employees.” The common thread I noticed was clarity. The online dictionary defines clarity as: …
Book Review: Drive by Daniel Pink
Daniel Pink has hit this one out of the park, again! Finally, someone has connected the dots on motivation, and why our system doesn’t work. We’ve been starring at those dots for decades. Pink points out that, for all practical purposes, management hasn’t changed in a 100 years. Leaders and managers cannot motivate employees; not really. People motivate themselves, it’s …