Tag: quotes

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Engagement Training & Development

Leading Morale: a Boost to a Better Workplace

Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™

“Using emotional intelligence and showing deep human respect for employees is key. Without that, your IQ, occupational knowledge, and educational degrees mean little to employees.”  Kate Nasser

As a fellow advocate for an engaging and respectful workplace, I’ve been following Kate on social media for a while. That’s why I was thrilled to read her terrific new book, Leading Morale: The People Skills to Stop Negativity & Ignite Contributions, and interview her here.

About Kate: Known as The People Skills Coach™,  Kate Nasser is a thirty year workplace-tested consultant who continues to advise leaders and teams throughout the world on high morale and service for operational excellence. She is highly sought speaker because she brings morale issues to life and delivers solutions. In her first book, Leading Morale, she offers everyone the intersection of research and practical experience to lead morale instead of taking it for granted and scurrying to fix it later.

QSM: Please tell us why you wrote Leading Morale.

Kate:  I wrote Leading Morale because leaders weren’t doing it. They saw morale either as something that just happens (i.e. you can’t actually lead it) or cheer leading events — brief moments of appreciation — that don’t lead, build, or sustain morale.

QSM: What do you think will surprise readers the most when they read your book? 

Kate: I believe leaders will be surprised at what morale really is and how much they are influencing it. They will read insights that will stop them in their tracks and make them question what they subconsciously do. Lastly, leaders will be happily surprised at how they can easily lead morale.

QSM: In your experience, what is the biggest challenge in building and sustaining a more empowered and engaged workplace culture?

Kate: The biggest challenge is for leaders AND managers to replace their comfort of leading/managing goals to inspiring people to lead and manage their efforts to reach the goals.

QSM: I dream of an ideal world where people treat each another with genuine respect and dignity — a world where we wouldn’t need your book (no offense!). Accepting reality, however, what do you think is needed to get us closer to this ideal (beyond making your book required reading in all schools)?

Kate:  I love this question, Sybil, and I am not offended. To have a world where people treat each other with genuine respect and dignity we must:
a) Think of it as very reachable not as an ideal. As soon as we see something as an ideal, our brains tell us that we won’t get there. Some people then check out and think, well then … forget it.
b) Do it, show it, and discuss its importance daily. This is how you create a culture..
c) Politely demand it. When someone treats you disrespectfully, don’t tolerate it. Speak up civilly and say, “I treat  you with simple respect and I expect the same in return. Nothing more, nothing less.” As Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” So don’t consent to disrespect and indignity.

QSM: Thank you, Kate!
You can see her in action in video footage at KateNasser.com. She welcomes your questions and challenges.

 

Categories
Engagement

Low Unemployment – What It Means for Employee Engagement

“Companies are in a talent war. It’s a race to get the best candidates quickly since unemployment rates are lower than they’ve been in years.”

“The days of employees being thankful just to have a job are over and likely will not return for a while. Instead, the onus is on employers to cultivate and appreciate talent.”

“With the labor market as tight as it is, employers would be wise to do everything in their power to retain exceptional employees while simultaneously recruiting strong candidates.”

Business media contain similar quotes on today’s low unemployment situation. As an employee engagement advocate, you’d think I’d be excited about the flurry of attention given to employee recruitment and retention. But I’m not.

Reactive engagement

In the current economy, company execs concerned with repositioning their employer brands to be more attractive for recruiting purposes and/or seeking to hold on to their employees have re-discovered employee engagement. “We need qualified employees who want to work here and not jump ship for other opportunities. So what can we do now to engage them given the tight labor market?”

Here’s what bothers me about this situational response. Reactive engagement isn’t sustainable — particularly when applied as a short-term solution by short-sighted executives. Because what happens when the economy cycles back to high unemployment? That’s when these same execs revert to treating their employees as commodities, and management’s message changes from “What can we do to keep you here?” to “You’re lucky to have a job!”

Engagement matters regardless of the unemployment situation

Even when unemployment rates go up, companies need to invest in employee engagement, development, and retention. Because high unemployment also means reduced consumer spending; i.e., when fewer people are working, they tend to spend less. So even though companies might enjoy a “buyers market” when it comes to employees, they have to work harder to compete for customers. And to effectively attract and retain customers, you need highly engaged employees.

“If your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.”  Sybil F. Stershic

Categories
Engagement

“I know you work here, but who are you?”

That’s the message some people in executive and management positions send their employees. I’ve heard this many times, and here’s how it plays out.

New employees starting with a company are likely to receive a fair amount of attention through orientation and on-boarding. This attention wanes, however, the longer employees are on the job. From the employee’s perspective job descriptions fail to keep up with changes in job scope … top-down communications predominate while bottom-up feedback is not encouraged … staff meetings are considered a waste of time … and annual performance reviews become meaningless.

As a result of management and organizational complacency, employees feel invisible — a condition that leads to their disengaging on the job.

Here’s what several thought leaders say about this:

“When employees feel anonymous in the eyes of their managers, they simply cannot love their work, no matter how much money they make or how wonderful their jobs seem to be.”  Patrick Lencioni

“When people are perceived as a cost and not a resource, when they are treated as a liability and not an asset, when no one seems to know or care that they are there, they don’t work well, and they don’t stay.”  Dr. Judith M. Bardwick

“Don’t make your employees guess about whether they’re doing enough or fulfilling [the company’s] expectations … Make people feel like they are in the loop, and they’ll feel more engaged … ”  Alan E. Hall

“Once you start treating employees as more than a job description, suddenly they go, ‘Oh, wow! Maybe I should bring my whole self to work today!'”  John Boiler

Shortsighted executives and managers who continue to ignore employees put their business in jeopardy because the customer experience is embedded in the employee experience.

If you find yourself in this unfortunate situation, you might want to share a copy of this post with them — anonymously.

Categories
Engagement Training & Development

Engaging Advice for Graduates

I am reminded in this graduation season of the time my husband and I spoke at an honors convocation at our alma mater, Lehigh University. It was back in 1987 when we were “young professionals.” It was also a time when making a lot of money was considered an indicator of success.

But financial success was not what we spoke about. Instead we focused on the importance of getting involved in both community and professional life to “give back” in positive ways — a message that’s still relevant. Here’s an excerpt of our speech adapted for this post.

What we said then 

Being in school is like being in a cocoon — you’re in a relatively insulated environment in which you grow and develop. But what happens when you graduate and enter the “real world?” The difference is your growth doesn’t just “happen” anymore. You’re solely responsible for your own development at that point. It’s kind of scary, but the good news is there are lots of opportunities out there for you.

I’m talking about “continuing education” — the personal and professional development you get through involvement in professional, civic, and community organizations. The contacts you make in these groups provide a valuable source of continued education and professional growth. They provide the opportunity to share ideas with and learn from others: to find out whether you’re on the right track with a project you’re working on … where to go if you’re having problems … or just to know you’re not alone with the challenges and frustrations you face. Besides serving as support networks, these organizations also provide opportunities for you to develop and exercise your leadership potential.

I know from my own experience that the opportunities and rewards are invaluable. From my involvement with the American Marketing Association [I served on the national board of directors at the time], I’ve traveled throughout the U.S. and Canada to meet with marketing professionals in different industries. I’ve also gotten to know many academics well known in the field. Working together with them I’ve been able to broaden my knowledge of marketing and gain insight into the different career paths that are available.

But professional development is not limited to organizations like the AMA. Through involvement in community groups such as the local Chamber of Commerce and United Way, I’ve met and worked with top executives in various capacities. Whether serving on or chairing a committee, I’ve had the chance to observe their leadership skills while exercising mine.

In a broader context, why is continuing education through this kind of involvement so important? Because it’s characteristic of the social environment in which people are looking for self-fulfillment. According to noted social observer Daniel Yankelovich, “Seekers of self-fulfillment are determined to prove that life can be more than a grim economic chore. They are eager to give more meaning to their lives, find fuller self-expression, and add a touch of adventure and grace to their own lives and those of others.”

Another reason so many professionals get involved is based on their need to be part of something, to belong. These groups serve as a valuable network; they provide an ideal opportunity to share ideas and discuss common problems. More importantly, they convert strangers into colleagues and colleagues into friends.

My husband, Michael, also spoke about his experience as a student volunteer and later as a community volunteer and leader.

This real world experience put my classroom experiences in perspective, and I was hooked. As a result, there has rarely been a period of time in which I have not been involved in some community-based voluntary activity. I learn a lot. It provides a challenge different than the challenges that I face on a daily basis. I can choose to get involved in areas in which I believe I need more experience or understanding. Everyone wins because the more and the brighter the heads there are to solve a problem, the better the solutions.

I also believe that a better understanding of the problems which affect our communities make us better citizens, more intelligent voters, and more complete human beings. The skills you gain by performing your duties as volunteers can give you confidence to do your job better or help you expand your horizons and learn more diversified skills.

Our communities need us more than ever … Use your energy and your minds creatively. Get into your community. Don’t try to escape it; invest in it. You stand to gain personally as well as professionally.

And now
As we plan for retirement in the future, we will continue to seek opportunities to learn, grow, and give back as volunteers. It’s a fulfilling form of “engagement” that we still strongly recommend.

Best of luck to all graduates in your professional and community engagements!

 

Categories
Customer service Engagement

You Can Forget the Customer Experience

Not that it doesn’t matter, because it does. But you can forget the customer experience IF you neglect to take care of the employee experience.

Here are several favorite quotes that capture the essence of the employee-customer experience connection.

“Paradoxically, to achieve an emotionally connecting customer experience, employees come first, ahead of the customer.”  Tom Peters

“When you improve your employees’ lives, they work harder and ultimately improve your customers’ lives.”  Jeanne Bliss

“The only reason your business is successful is because every interaction between employees and customers is positive. This only happens when employees are treated super well.”  Ann Rhoades

“Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers.”  Stephen R. Covey

“We can’t expect to win in the marketplace until we’re winning in the workplace … That means employee engagement is job one.”  Douglas Conant

“There is no way to deliver a great Customer Experience with miserable employees.”  Steve Cannon

As McKinsey & Company’s Sylvie Bardaune, Sebastien Lacroix, and Nicolas Maechler write in their article, When the Customer Experience Starts at Home:

“The closer a company can align its commitment to customer-centricity with the interests of its employees, the closer it will get to achieving its customer-strategy goals.” 

 

 

Categories
Engagement

3 Questions that Determine Whether Employees Choose to Engage

Workplace engagement is a both a responsibility and choice shared by employees and employers:

  • Employees are responsible for their own engagement in that they choose to show up in their jobs ready, willing, and able to do their best work, and
  • Employers are responsible for choosing to foster an engaging workplace where employees are enabled to do their best work.

What drives an employee’s decision to be engaged at work is based on how that person answers these three questions:

  1. What’s in it for me besides a paycheck?
    This is a primary consideration that gets to the heart of why an employee chooses to stay with an employer based on the nature of the work involved, how meaningful it is, quality of organizational culture, and benefits.
  2. What difference do I make?
    Employees want to know how their efforts contribute to the organization’s mission and goals. This involves having a clear line-of-sight as to how their work impacts the people they serve (customers, clients, patients, members, guests, etc.) co-workers, stakeholders, the community where the organization is located, and the organization’s overall success. Think of the NASA janitor who wasn’t just cleaning floors — he was helping to put a man on the moon.
  3. Does my employer care about me and my work?
    Employees also want their employers to recognize and respect their roles within the organization and support them with the tools necessary to do the best job possible.

Takeaway questions for managers
What are you currently doing to positively or negatively impact your employees’ choice to stay engaged?

And what will you do about it?

Categories
Marketing

3 Customer Questions That Belong in Every Marketer’s Toolkit

Working on new product/service development or re-positioning an existing offering? Then you can’t afford to ignore what your customers and prospects are thinking.

“It’s very easy to think you are the expert on your own product. But in many ways, that’s a myth. The true experts are your customers.” Jamie Wong

That’s why you need to consider your customers’ perspective. Answering these inter-related questions are crucial to your success because they’re what your customers and prospects are asking as they decide whether to purchase from you or your competitors:

  1. “Who cares?” What, if anything, about this product/service offering appeals to me?
  2. “What difference does it make?” Does this offering solve a problem or meet a need (physical, emotional, social, financial, etc.) that I have or anticipate having?
  3.  “What’s in it for me?” Based on real and perceived benefits, is this offering worth paying for in terms of money, time, and convenience; i.e., is it of value to me?

How to get the answers 

Finding the answers is simple: intentionally listen to your customers. Pay attention to a combination of listening posts such as customer surveys, feedback from front-line employees and other employee-customer interactions, call center analysis, complaint tracking, social media, etc., and any additional “voice-of-the-customer” market research that addresses these questions.

Most customers are eager to will tell you what they think, and they’ll tell others as well. Successful marketers respectfully listen.

“Listening is a commitment and a compliment.” Omar Khateeb

 

 

Categories
Customer service Marketing

How Careful are You with Your Brand?

Your brand is conveyed in everything you do to communicate and deliver your product/service offerings; i.e., what and how people think about your brand is based on the experiences they have with your business.

This story illustrates how a business manager formed her impression of a company’s brand when seeking a new payroll processing firm.

“I created a short list of companies and decided to do a bit of research before contacting any of them. My research was to simply visit each applicable website.

Turns out one of them had so many typos I immediately deleted them from the shortlist. Perhaps I should have contacted someone to tell them about the numerous errors, but I suspected they probably wouldn’t care. After all, if they cared there wouldn’t have been any typos, especially on their home page.

My thought process was this: if their website is so grammatically messed up, what will they do with our payroll?”

Organizations in all sectors — B2B, B2C, and nonprofits — need to be vigilant with their brands. In a study of mobile customers, 55% agreed with the statement “A frustrating experience on a website hurts my opinion of the brand overall.” That’s just one segment of customers, and it’s just one channel of brand communication.

Details, details, details …

While a brand is an intangible concept, its impact on the company’s bottom line is tangible. A spectrum of even minor product problems, customer service missteps, and communication errors can impact people’s perceptions of a company’s brand and its ultimate ability to attract or lose customers.

“The most successful people know that you either pay attention to the details now or you will absolutely pay the consequences later.” — Steve Keating, The Wisdom of Brown M&M’s

Can you afford to be careless with your brand?

 

 

 

 

Categories
Engagement

After Onboarding, How to Prevent the Descent into Disengagement

New employees are easy to engage given the fair amount of attention they receive at the outset. They’re likely to be welcomed with open arms and treated to meetings with executives who explain the company’s mission, vision and goals; reinforce their value to the company; and introduce them to their respective departments to meet their managers and co-workers. Knowing where they fit in the organization and how they can contribute, these new employees are anxious and eager to get started.

This level of attention wanes the longer employees are on the job, and that’s when the potential for becoming disengaged sets in due to organizational complacency; i.e., “You know what you’re supposed to do, so do it. We’ll be in touch eventually.” To illustrate, I often ask participants in my internal marketing workshops how they get reminded of their fit and value in their respective organizations. Many of them acknowledge that their job descriptions are out of date. They also admit that job-related expectations and goals are typically discussed only during the annual performance review – an event about as welcome as a root canal.

More than organizational complacency

Another contributing factor involves marketplace dynamics. Evolving customer needs, competition, financial pressures, etc., also prompt changes in company goals and strategies. Yet revised strategies and adjusted expectations of employees may not be communicated top-down to everyone in the organization. Employees know things are changing within the company – but they don’t know the reasons for it and what they’re supposed to do about it.

To learn what’s going on in the company, some employees will take the initiative to approach their managers. Over time, however, they become frustrated if they have to continually seek out company and job-related information beyond the grapevine. Other employees just hunker down as they quietly disengage.

You can avoid this situation and keep employees engaged with this basic two-pronged approach:

  • proactively share what’s happening in the company and why
  • continually reinforce employees’ alignment and fit within the organization, including how their efforts individually and collectively contribute to the bottom line.

Onboarding new groups of employees may be once-and-done, but communicating the company’s purpose, its future, and how employees can make a positive impact, is ongoing.

“Don’t make your employees guess about whether they’re doing enough or fulfilling [the company’s] expectations… Make people feel like they are in the loop,  and they’ll feel more engaged… ”
– Alan E. Hall

 

Categories
Engagement Musings

Not So Different – Helping Children Understand

He’s a writer of a popular blog, a book author, and sports freak.

He’s cofounder of a growing nonprofit that helps others live better.

He’s an in-demand speaker for audiences that range from elementary schools to universities to pharmaceutical companies.

He loves to travel with his girlfriend and his family.

He’s Shane Burcaw, and his new children’s book about what it’s like living with a disability was just released. 

This book is so Shane

Based on the questions he’s typically asked (Why is your head so much bigger than the rest of your body? …  How do you play with your friends? … Do people ever make fun of you?), Shane explains how he lives with spinal muscular atrophy. He describes why and how he relies on his family and friends to help him get dressed, shower, eat, and go to the bathroom — written in his inimitable style — with humor, directness, and a positive attitude.

Shane advocates the “power of positivity” in his writing and his nonprofit, Laughing At My Nightmare, to help others better cope with stress and adversity. Shane wrote his new book to help children understand that people who look different aren’t so different after all.

“So many of the social stigmas that people with disabilities face could be squashed if we were able to instill in young people the idea that we are all different; we have different strengths, weaknesses, and abilities, and that’s not just okay, it’s beautiful.” 

I highly recommend Not So Different: What You Really Want to Ask About Having a Disability and have already bought several copies: one for my personal library and the others to share.

It’s a great gift idea for children, schools, and libraries.