How to – Keep Your Newest and Youngest Hires Recent studies indicate that at any given time, 62% of your workforce is actively seeking a new job and would be ready to leave your employ if a better opportunity emerged. Even in tough times, people are looking towards improving their situation rather than hunkering down and waiting things out.

Since excellence is developed over time, it follows that if your employees aren’t investing themselves with you over time, they aren’t developing. This trend indicates that excellence - as a measure of quality, productivity and service - will vanish.

If you want to get your new, young employees to stick around long enough to be developed into outstanding assets to your firm, some strategies need to be employed.

Compensation Pay them for their results, regardless of their level within your organization or the amount of time they put in. Position and longevity do mean something, but it shouldn’t mean everything. Reward people based on their individual goals and objectives. It doesn’t have to always be cash. Gift certificates, time off, lunch with the CEO or movie tickets can work too.

Recognition What gets noticed gets done; and behavior that gets rewarded gets repeated. Younger employees are used to getting feedback, so going without it can deter motivation. Many employers find that the moment you stop noticing is the moment they stop improving. Make it personal and prompt. Rather than comparing them to one another, compare them to a standard. If everyone surpasses the standard you set, the whole company wins!

Change things up Younger employees can get bored and that can be a challenge to traditional and Boomer employers. The landmark Hawthorne experiments conducted at the Westinghouse factories found that by simply changing the wattage of the light bulbs, productivity was increased. Nothing should go on too long without a change: layout, standards, deadlines, rewards, incentives.

Turnover takes a toll in terms of money, time, investment, training and reputation. While you will never be able to eliminate what can often feel like an endless repetition of “recruit, hire, train, quit”, you can slow the cycle down.  7:58 AM •  0 Comments •

How to – Understand Recognition Smart professionals at all levels look for creative ways to reward employees and colleagues who perform well. I’m not talking about a salary and benefits. Those are the things that are negotiated, mutually agreed upon, and expected at regular intervals. That’s your basic "cake". If you want them to go above and beyond, or repeat that desired behavior, you need to add a little "frosting" to your cake!

There are many ways to give people recognition. The best way to reward the positive performance involves the following:

Make it Personal
One size does not fit all, and the perceived value of the recognition and reward you give is elevated when it’s customized for the specific employee who receives it. I know it will take more of your time, planning, and creativity; and it will require that you need to know these people at a deeper level, discovering more about who they are and what they enjoy. But it’s that extra effort that communicates that you value them.

Keep it in Proportion
If you are overzealous in your praise or heap huge incentives on people for minor accomplishments, it’s hard to show proportionate enthusiasm for the bigger things. Your acknowledgment or reward should match the level of performance being recognized.

Make it Timely
Timing can make all the difference. A small token of appreciation today can be much more effective than something worth twice as much delivered next week. Always be prepared to reward desired performance promptly. If you can write people up for something done wrong, you should be able to write them up just as easily (if not more) for doing something above and beyond what’s expected. Gift cards, crisp new bills, gift certificates delivered immediately get noticed; and recognizing extra effort right away will double the impact of any reward.

Praise In Public
Often the value of your recognition (especially with younger workers) can be doubled if it’s done when friends and colleagues are looking on. The receiver wants to know they are doing well, but they often like their coworkers to know as well. While not everyone likes praise in public (another reason to know the people you work with better), everyone does like to hear that their efforts are appreciated.

Outstanding performance comes in all shapes and sizes and in many different areas of your business. You don’t have to recognize all of your employees and colleagues – just the ones you want to develop and retain.  2:00 PM •  0 Comments •

How to – Get Noticed Although email is a great way to connect with people, it falls short in some critical areas. Digital communication will never be an adequate substitute for meeting with someone in person.

How much distance is between you and your manager, employee, client or colleague has no relation to how conflicts can arise. With so much of how we communicate done through non-verbal behaviors, physical distance can result in an increase in the problems that arise from trying to convey our intentions.

A rule that you should consider unbreakable under any circumstances is: Never ever try to resolve a conflict using email.

With no non-verbal cue to clue people in to your intention, the receiver of your communication has to guess what you mean. Amazingly, most people make negative assumptions, not positive ones. So take the guesswork out of it. As soon as you get a sense that you are being misunderstood, DO pick up the phone. And, if you cannot talk to the person you need to in real time, DON’T leave a message that can be left open to misinterpretation. Make it clear that you need to talk to them and ask for the best time to do so.

When you get them on the phone:
• Pay careful attention to the tone of your voice. You want to sound as you intend.

• Remove distractions. You need to be focused on this conversation. If you are doing something else while talking (such as checking your email), they will get the impression that this conversation isn’t that important to you.

• Check to make sure they are hearing your message accurately by asking them.

• Listen to their tone and see if it is hesitant, uncertain or disbelieving. If it is, they may still have some doubt about your message.

Resolving conflict when you are separated by distance, even if it’s on another floor of the building, takes a little more effort and time. Clarifying the message and your intention to insure effective communication saves time in the long run.  4:07 PM •  0 Comments •

How to – Rise Above the Rest People who are interested in getting ahead often have a great deal of terrific information, ideas and suggestions to impart. However, that is not what impresses most professionals today.

The ability to make someone feel that they are the most important person in the room is the skill that is the most rare and the most prized. Listening to others, giving them your full attention, and finding them of interest NOT because they can do something for you, but because they are interesting to you, is a rare and precious skill.

If it’s so easy to do, why is it such a rarity? People today get distracted easily and many simply don’t have the mental discipline to use this skill in a routine and automatic way.

How to develop the most prized and elusive skill:

• Listen. Don’t allow yourself to be distracted.

• Don’t interrupt. This is all about you paying attention to them, not you talking to them.

• Don’t finish their sentences. Let them talk.

• Don’t tell them that you know what they mean. Try to keep your mouth closed!

• Don’t disagree. Avoid using the words “but,” and “no.”

• Stay focused. Don’t let your attention wander. Don’t look up or around to see who else has entered the room.

• Keep up your end of the conversation. Ask good questions. Indicate that you are paying attention by asking for more detail or clarification.

• Don’t try to impress them. This interaction is not about how smart or funny you are. It is about them.

Oddly enough, the more they get to shine, the better you look! You probably have already done this: on a first date, in a job interview, or with the boss. Doing it consistently is something most people don’t do. If you can behave this way all the time and make others feel special, you will rise above the crowd.  7:54 AM •  0 Comments •

How to – Support Improvement When I do “Shadow Consulting” (working with someone on a one-on-one basis) with clients, it’s for a wide variety of reasons: the person needs to create a strategy in order to accomplish a goal, wants to change a behavior, develop a new skill, or have me hold their “feet to the fire” to insure that they stay focused on attaining a new or especially challenging objective.

There are times when their boss, employees, colleagues and coworkers can assist in the process. Improving performance may not be solely determined by the client. Improvement can also be defined by others. If change happens, there are benefits for everyone. In order to weight the scales on the side of improvement, it requires some effort on the part of others in the workplace.

What we can ask of others:

Forget the past
You can’t change history but you can let it go. It requires a shift from critic to helper.

Tell the truth
Without honest feedback, the chance of improvement is severely diminished.

Be supportive
It’s easy to be cynical and judgmental (especially if it’s your boss who is trying to improve his or her performance); but a helpful optimist is more likely to see improvement than someone who is betting against it.

What about them?
If everyone is moving toward improving something, support can be reciprocated. Now people are equals who are engaged in the same effort to improve.

I like to ask managers how they know they are doing a good job. While the boss’s opinion is important, and a job title might appear to be validation, the people who are really in the know are the person’s direct coworkers. In the workplace, changing and improving performance is about more than the person who is improving. It is also about the people who notice it and are impacted by it as well.  12:02 PM •  0 Comments •

How to – Apologize for Misunderstandings If the words “I’m sorry” stick in your throat, you aren’t alone. Few people look forward to apologizing. While it’s probably true that the reasons to apologize are anything to celebrate, the value of an apology itself has great merit because it is a chance to strengthen your relationship with the receiver.

When things are going smoothly at work, relationships go well; but the real test is when a crisis or problem occurs. How you help one another in the wake of an error is the test and the builder of effective relationships with people. If you owe someone an apology, the way you handle it can be the difference between being seen either as professional or inept.

When an apology is called for:

• Don’t wait. You shouldn’t have to be asked for your apology or an explanation. Take the initiative and be proactive.

• Offer help. Don’t only apologize, but offer whatever assistance you can to make things right. You are not seeking to simply repair the damage, but trying to improve relations.


Not only is it important to offer a remedy, but how you go about making that offer is important as well:

1. Apologize; say that you are sorry.

2. Empathize; express understanding of the other person’s feelings.

3. Shape the conversation so that, as you are working towards a solution, “I” and “you” become “we.”

Be aware of the difference between an explanation and an excuse. You owe the injured party an explanation. Outline the facts and circumstances that surround the error. They don’t want to hear why the problem wasn’t your fault. If your explanation serves to vindicate you, that’s good. If not, offer no additional defense.

Sometimes the words are hard to find. If you are in search of a script, see if the following can be adapted to your situation:

“I’m very sorry that I was late with the data you needed. I know that put you in a difficult position.”

“I’m willing to explain to the VP that the problem was on my end. We didn’t get the results back from the client on time. There was nothing I could do about that, but I should have told you as soon as I saw that there was going to be a problem. I’d like to explain that to the VP.”

“I know the VP has a short fuse about that sort of thing. I’m sorry to have put you in the line of fire.”  7:32 PM •  1 Comments •

How to – Create Spontaneity in Your Meetings So many meetings - so many that are a waste of time! Even when clients know this, I’m rarely asked to help people develop the skills and strategies to create more productive and efficient meetings. Whether it’s a question of an inflexible corporate culture or a lack of openness to learning on the part of meeting leaders, the complaints about meetings abound. At the same time, folks create them, arrange for them, attend them and endure them. I often hear that the best ideas come from those informal discussion people have in the hallways.

That is often the case! And it’s true that many meetings are boring and unproductive. The problem is that meetings in the hallways and elevator lobbies are too spontaneous. You can’t control them and you can’t create them when you want them! The situation with the best potential seems to be a formal meeting with a little planned (or “forced”) spontaneity. Your meetings can be transformed into interesting generators of ideas.

Here are three techniques you can use right now:

Small Group Discussion - Break into small groups of four and assign each group a specific problem or issue to discuss. Appoint someone in the group to keep the conversation focused. Someone else should record the results of the discussion. After a period of time, reconvene into the larger group and ask the recorder to share the results of the discussions.

Brainstorming - This works especially well for groups of about 8. Define an issue and then ask for ideas. Allow no judgments, opinions, negative comments, or criticism or even praise. There should be no discussion of the ideas either. Have someone write out each idea on a white board or flip chart. After the flow of ideas stops, analyze each idea. Focus on how to create criteria for judging the value of each idea. This should help you winnow the list to a few viable ideas.

Problem Polling - Using a white board or flip chart, ask participants to call out the problems or issues that are of the greatest concern for them. Have someone write them where everyone can see them. Don’t discuss or analyze the problems and issues. Don’t interrupt the flow until it stops. Then restate each concern in positive terms. So, “I’m worried about quality assurance” becomes, “Our goal is to improve quality assurance in order to reduce returns by 10%”.  11:07 AM •  0 Comments •