Surely Facebook didn’t intend to put the internal communication discipline back 20 years, but they did a mighty fine job focusing on outdated tactics. The headline on a recent “Workplace by Facebook” piece was: “A 9-Step Strategy for Connected Communications,” which certainly perked up my ears. Alas, the piece focused more on improving internal communication… Read more
Employee Engagement
Would Jeff Bezos Forget The Customer?
A Facebook post from a former client caught my eye recently. He believes the NFL and a few other groups have forgotten about the importance of customers. “As customers, should we be subjected to self-righteous grandstanding, whether we agree or disagree with a particular point of view?” he asked. Let’s see, what would Peter Drucker,… Read more
Measure What Matters
What gets measured gets done. Even though we’ve heard that a gazillion times, many organizations are still managing the wrong measures. Consequently, they’re getting the wrong results. Too many leaders today don’t give enough thought to what they’re measuring. The leader of a large U.S operation once suggested that training should be measured by how… Read more
Ask Me Anything
I often get great questions from people via email, social media, at conferences and in client meetings. Recently, I received a question from Chris D. who asked about ways to manage two groups of people who need to work together—those who are young, eager and willing to work within a new organization and culture and… Read more
Mixing a Powerful Results Cocktail
There’s a tremendous amount of stress today on organizations to communicate well. The pace of change continues to escalate, putting pressure on people and teams to move the right information quickly, accurately, clearly and in multiple directions. Earlier this year, I discussed how we addressed a client’s poor performance using two different solutions. One was… Read more
What’s in it for Me?
Employee engagement isn’t just liking or responding to something as it is in social media talk. Employee engagement is a condition which, if properly directed, can significantly improve organizational performance such as quality, service, sales or safety. People can be engaged to do good things or bad things. Employee engagement needs to be directed. In… Read more
Information Is Critical to Peak Performance
A recent Leadership Report discussed employee engagement and specific conditions that need to be met for people to achieve peak performance. Those conditions are: Line of sight, or the ability to connect my work to results I can affect; Autonomy and involvement, or my ability to take action needed to improve results; Information sharing (there… Read more
Autonomy and Involvement: Creating Ownership in Better Solutions
One of my recent Leadership Reports generated interest in open book management and discussed four conditions that are required for employees to be engaged. They are: Line of sight, which I addressed in my last Leadership Report Autonomy and involvement Information sharing WIIFM or what’s in it for me? A brief pause for those who… Read more
Line of Sight: Connecting What People Do With The Results They Create
Our last Leadership Report generated interest in open book management, a concept that represents the purest form of organizational transparency. In this issue, I want to discuss what high performers do to create line of sight. But first, let me back up. The classic definition of employee engagement is: People share the organization’s values and… Read more
Build a Business of Turned-On Business People
If you want to build trust and take performance into the stratosphere, open the books. Share information that matters to improving operating and financial results. Celebrate people when they score big successes. Repeat. Open book management is the purest leadership communication philosophy I’ve seen and worked with. It’s grounded in the notion of creating businesses… Read more