A friend of mine was critically injured a month ago - so I've been spending a lot of time at the University of Kansas Medical Center, known in our community as KU Med. After countless hours watching nurses in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit, here's what I know:
Great nurses can't not care.
I will also tell you that I didn't craft those words - Don Clifton did. Don was the Chairman of The Gallup Organization and co-author of Now, Discover Your Strengths. Don taught me about talent - he taught me that everyone can be great at something. The key for leaders and managers is to match the talent with the task. (If you'd like to know more about that, please take our free online training course, The Foundation of Management.)
There must be some great leaders and great managers at KU Med, because I can tell you from first hand observation that the place is full of great nurses - their skill, and more importantly their caring, is truly awe-inspiring. And I am grateful.
Recognition is one of the most powerful and underutilized tools in a manager's repertoire. According to The Gallup Organization, proper recognition can add 10 to 20 percent to productivity and revenue. And often, providing recognition costs nothing. Our free online training course, Reward & Recognition teaches the principles and techniques of proper recognition, I hope you'll take a look at it.
Here's some more evidence of the value of recognition. In 12 The Elements of Great Managing, authors Wagner and Harter say,
"Those who score the Fourth Element (recognition) highest are two-and-a-half times more likely to agree that 'from my most objective viewpoint, I am paid appropriately for the work I do' than those at the other end of the recognition scale."
That's strong evidence of the value of recognition.
More posts on:
Recognition,
12 The Elements of Great Managing
The question is "What do you love?", not "Who do you love?". I'm not talking about people and relationships here - I'm interested in stuff and experiences and companies. Here's a list of some stuff I love:
Any show by Cirque du Soleil - When I'm in Las Vegas, I'd like to see a Cirque show every night. They are staggering spectacles. One year we took the entire Opus staff to see "O" - first time I've ever seen them speechless.
My DVR from Time Warner Cable - Before DVR I just didn't watch television - it was too hard to be in front of the tube at the right time, and recording on a VCR was awkard with terrible quality. With DVR an entire new world is available to me.
Any novel by Robert Parker - I know if I wait a couple of weeks I could it buy it for cents on the dollar, but for me a Parker novel is like Christmas morning when you were a kid. I simply can't wait.
The point? I have very strong feelings about all of these things - and I buy them as soon as they're available, with very little concern for the cost. My feelings translate into revenue (and probably margin) for the purveyors. But I could NEVER have told someone I wanted or needed these things I now wouldn't live without. It took the imagination - not research - to create these things. The point is: We have to imagine what our clients and customers would love - and then we have to have the faith to deliver it.
In previous posts, and in our free online course The Foundation of Managment, I've outlined what I believe are the four key activities of all great managers. The first of those activities is: Communicate explicit expectations. But what happens when people fail to meet those expectations? What happens when they make mistakes, maybe even disastrous mistakes?
Here's an idea from one of my favorite thinkers and writers, Tom Morris. In his wonderful book If Harry Potter Ran General Electric, Tom says this:
"The great leader doesn't expect his people always to have been perfect, but he does expect them to be learners who always seek to improve."
There's no doubt in my mind that Tom is absolutely right. How can we expect people to grow, how can we expect our enterprises to flourish without mistakes? Safe keeps us stuck. If we want to improve we have to be willing to endure mistakes - but we have to learn from those mistakes.
More posts on:
Tom Morris
From time to time I come across references to brain research. Usually that research makes the point that the limbic system, which is in charge of our emotions, is considerably more powerful that the neocortex, the big boss of intellect. In other words, feelings count more than logic. And that's an important idea for managers and leaders. Here's why:
The holy grail for managers and leaders is the discretionary effort of workforce. It's in that last 1% or 5% or 20% that knock-your-socks-off innovation and productivity show up. It's in that last 1% or 5% or 20% that true competitive advantage resides. And discretionary effort is directly tied to how people feel.
When people feel what they're doing is important. When they feel like their boss cares about them - not just as a "human resource" but as a living, breathing person with hopes and dreams and fears and responsibilities - that's when they're willing to stretch, that's when they're willing to stay with it until the magic happens.
Do your people know you care about them? How do they know?
Last week, stuck in the middle seat on an American Airlines flight sitting on the runway trying to get out of O'Hare, I read the following in Marty Neumeier's book, ZAG.
"The best rule to follow when mapping your value proposition is to forget about so-called best practices."
That reminded me of something I had read in Funky Business by those two bald Swedish guys:
"Many companies need to reinvent themselves. And reinvention is not changing what is, but creating what isn't. A butterfly is not more of a caterpillar or a better or improved caterpillar; a butterfly is a different creature." (attributed to Richard Pascale)
In a world of way too many choices, our companies need to become "different creatures." That's easy to say and hard to do - remarkably hard. But it's what we need to be thinking about.
You know, sometimes what worked like gangbusters in the past just doesn't work anymore. When that happens there are basically two choices: Stomp your feet and wail about how unfair the world is, or change your business to make it compelling once again. I'm thinking about this because of an article I read in yesterday's Kansas City Star - here's the backstory.
Rainy Day Books is a small local bookstore that has enjoyed some level of success for 30+ years in Kansas City. Obviously, the book selling business has changed a bit in those 30 years - i.e., Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Borders. For a number of years, Rainy Day Books has been flanked a couple of miles to the east by Barnes and Noble. Now, redevelopment of a shopping area a couple of miles to the west might bring a Borders.
To keep that from happening, (the owners) have met with key community leaders. They’ve met with key political figures at the state and federal levels. They’ve talked to publishing and financial contacts in New York. They’ve talked to members of the Northeast Johnson County Chamber of Commerce. And they’ve met with Tom Valenti of the Cameron Group Development (developers of the new shopping area).
Valenti has offered them a spot in The Gateway (the new shopping area), as well as discussed other ways they might be involved. But Rainy Day Books said it is not interested in just replacing the space that was slotted for Borders.
“We are not designed to be a box, so we are not going to change the intimate experience and the product mix that has been very successful for us and is what our customers want,” (From the Kansas City Star)
Good grief. If Rainy Day Books is still "what our customers want", then the big box book stores will do them no harm. On the other hand, if the customers prefer the experience of Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Borders, then Rainy Day Books better figure out how to make their charming little book store relevant and compelling. This stomping of feet and wailing is ridiculous, and ultimately, doomed.
You may not have ever thought of employee engagement as a life or death matter, but apparently it is - at least in some circumstances. According to 12 The Elements of Great Managing, by Rodd Wagner and James Harter of The Gallup Orgainzation, in an analysis of research across 152 medical facilities, a significant predictor of whether a patient lived or died was the engagement of the employees who cared for that patient.
"Risk-adjusted "avoidable complications" were 12 percent higher and risk-adjusted "avoidable deaths" 21 percent higher in units staffed by the least engaged quartile, as compared with the most engaged quartile."
Staggering. That means n hospitals, people die because employees aren't engaged. What does it mean in your business?
Today we're introducing the fourth of our free managment training courses, The Foundation of Management.
Sir Issac Newton once said, "An object persists in its state of rest or uniform motion in a straight line unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed on it."
Now I don't think Sir Issac was thinking about management when he said that, but it's a pretty good description none-the-less. Some things you just can't get around – gravity and spam, for instance. They seem to be natural laws.
There are some natural laws of management as well. But far too often, managers act in opposition to these laws. The results are unpleasant at best. This course explains the natural laws of management and makes them actionable through the four key activities of all great managers.
Click here to access The Foundation of Management.
One of the most powerful tools available to great managers is recognition. Don Clifton (management genius and co-author of Now, Discover Your Strengths) once said that productivity can double with proper measurement and recognition. Find out how with our course, Reward and Recognition. Here's a short description of the course:
Your Mother taught you to say thank you, right? Well, your Mother was on the money. Saying thank you isn't just the right thing, it's maybe the smartest, most productive thing any manager can do.
Research (and common sense) will tell you that when you recognize people properly all kinds of good things happen: productivity surges, customer satisfaction soars and profitability increases.
Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, said it this way, "There are only two things people want more than sex and money – and that's recognition and praise." How true.
Click here to access Reward and Recognition.
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