April, 2012 | Behavior Matters!

Month: April 2012

Are you spending more on office cleaning than staff motivation?

There was a recent blog from HRZone UK that claimed, “Blog: Most employers spend more on office cleaning than staff motivation.”  I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this statement or info in the article.

That being said, accuracy is not the point.  The point is, you get what you pay for – right?  So what is it that your organization is paying for?

How is your company spending its money?  Is it on it’s people or on systems?  Is it on sales or is it on customer support?  R&D or discounts to suppliers?  The money often points to where the focus is for your company?

Two things that I often do when working with companies trying to improve their employee motivation is 1) interview key leaders to understand what the key drivers of the business are and 2) conduct a total rewards audit.   I use step one of this process to get at the underlying drivers of the business.  This often isn’t the first thing that comes out of leaders mouths.  In fact, it usually requires me to probe with them to really get at the root cause.  This understanding of the key drivers is vital to being able to motivate the appropriate behaviors and performance.  What we find in step two of this process is that the company’s Total Rewards are NOT in alignment with the key drivers.  In other words, companies are often spending their money on things that are not key to driving their success (similar to the clean office analogy in the HR Zone article).

This is not a good way to spend money.

Hopefully your company isn’t doing this.  But a simple way of finding out is to look at where you are spending money and then seeing if that aligns with the key drivers of the business.  If it aligns, you are doing well, if not, you have a problem.

Here is a link to the HR Zone article if you care to give it a glance: http://www.hrzone.co.uk/topic/managing-people/blog-most-employers-spend-more-office-cleaning-staff-motivation/119615

Have a great day!

The happiness advantage

Tying into the video from yesterday, this presentation by Shawn Achor, author of “The Happiness Advantage” reminds us that we are fulfilled and happy, not because we are successful, but we are successful because we are fulfilled and happy.  Again, we need to focus in on the journey.

Take a moment to think about how this applies to motivation and to work?  How do we instill happiness as a part of our job role?

In the 1990’s, I was introduced to Appreciative Management and Inquiry as laid out by Dr. David Cooperrider.  In his books he identified that many organizations and leaders focus in on the negative.  What get’s attention in the business world, is not so much the successes, but when we make a mistake.  Think about the last time you got a call from your boss or boss’s boss – was it when you achieved your sales target or when you missed it?  Which had more salience for you?  Organizations, Cooperrider contends, need to do a better job at focusing our thoughts and effort on the positive.

When we look for the positive inside organizations (positive inquiry) we tend to find positive things.  This reinforces our mindset and we start seeing the positive things all around us.  Restating the line from Field of Dreams, “if you look for it, you will find it.”  It is a reinforcement loop that helps us weather the downturns and firestorms that always occur.

We all need to start looking for the positive things in our lives – both at work and at home.  I start by trying to be grateful for something everyday.  You can try it too.

A big hearty thanks goes out to Bob Ebbers of Workplace Stars for sharing the Shawn Anchor video with me – as Bob said, “Enjoy this gem!”  I couldn’t agree more!

Leave a thought by clicking on the comment section below!  Come on – its fun.

Who do you want to be?

This short film from Nic Askew has a few good points in it (and it is just plain fun).  I think that we are all someone on a journey…and the best learning is the learning we take from everyday.  Enjoy!

 

http://soulbiographies.com/the-perilous-journey/

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