employee performance

Posts Tagged ‘employee performance’

Ordinary or Extraordinary – Your Choice

Monday, July 11th, 2011

I was on a Southwest Airlines flight last week. One of the flight attendants had great one-liners, an amazing singing voice and outrageous and entertaining lyrics; she raised the quality of the service event. And why not? If it could be ordinary or extraordinary, why do ordinary?

I was recently at a Starbucks. I watched as one of the staff danced around the store to some really upbeat and fun music, handing out samples of this week’s coffee. It was fun and completely extraordinary.

I was at a great Italian bakery this week – artisan bread and pastries that are incredible. Yum! I asked about one pastry I did not recognize. The woman behind the counter took it off the plate, cut it into pieces and offered one to me and to the others in line, then told us with great passion how it was made. Extraordinary.

I was talking to colleague whose child has an amazing teacher. As they study geography, this teacher brings in authentic food, plays the country’s music and introduces some of the language. The kids are captivated and interested. They learn. Extraordinary.

Notice that I did not bring up the ordinary events – I don’t remember them. They are bland, boring and leave no impression. If you want to get noticed in the workplace, you have to do something “extraordinary.” If you blend and are boring, you lose. Your business loses. No one remembers. They expect you to get it right; what they don’t expect is that you do some form of Wow! They remember the Wow.

The employees in the above situations chose to do extraordinary things. In fact, they did far more and far better than anything management could have suggested. They chose to make the service event personal, engaging and extraordinary. They chose to show up, step up and stand out. Doing the extraordinary is rarely about spending more; it is almost always about contributing greater effort, creativity, interest or passion. It is about choice.

Management can inspire employee greatness when they define the outcome (“do extraordinary things for our customers”) but not the steps to achieve it. Micromanaging the response takes all the life, energy, and “extraordinaryness” out of it – and stops employees from thinking through (and having some fun in) their workday. Hire the right employees then have them go impress your customers. Don’t impose limits – create expectations.

Tags: creativity, customer loyalty, employee effort, employee performance, extraordinary, hire the right employees, management, performance expectations, Southwest Airlines, Starbucks
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Build Your A Team

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

In tough economic times, most organizations’ first and most predictable reaction is to cut expenses; in today’s service economy, the largest expenses are manpower-related. The result is that thousands of talented employees have been dumped into the marketplace. This increase in talented unemployed workers creates a great opportunity for you to create your A team. So when other organizations are cutting, now is the time for you to redefine, realign and hire to pick from the best and create your best performing team.

Your people are your profits. And as such, you need the right ones, connected to what they do and passionate about doing it. In the past, it was more difficult to assemble your A team because there was less great talent to choose from. Today, due to layoffs, organizations have the choice of truly outstanding talent – the talent that can create their A-level performers. So as others are terminating and cutting, use the three steps of redefine, realign and hire to attract and hire the best talent now available to improve the performance power of your team. This talent surplus may not last long.

Use this three-step process to build your A team:

1. Redefine – In today’s intellectual workplace, employees make more unique decisions – they think their way through the day. Since each of us thinks differently, not every employee is a good fit for every role. Therefore, it is critical to clearly redefine the talents and strengths (thinking), skills and experience needed to be successful in each role. This allows you to source the right employee from inside the organization, or from the pool of unemployed talent in the market.
2. Realign – After redefining what you need in each role, assess your existing team. Determine who currently is working in the right role, and who could improve performance if moved to a more appropriate role. And, be aware, this review may indicate some employees are not right for the organization. Complete your realignment. This will show you the open roles that need hiring from outside of the organization.
3. Hire – For those roles that do not have the right talent from within, it is important to go to today’s market of unemployed talent. This is effective when you have clearly defined attributes needed in each role; you now know what attributes to hire. From this point, you can develop a sourcing strategy to attract and hire those employees who have the performance profile (talents, skills and experience) you defined as required to excel in the role.

Our tough economy has actually created an opportunity for many organizations to rebuild an A-levek team. Key to using this unique moment in time is to spend the time to define what you need, then hold firmly to these requirements as you hire. This is how to make your (hiring) plan come together in true “A Team” fashion.

Tags: careers, employee performance, hiring, job description, management, right employee, talents
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You Say You Want A Great Company…

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

But you know how it goes. You can’t have a great company without great people.

This past week the NY Times columnist Tom Friedman wrote an OP-ED titled, Americans Want the Greatness Back. He presented some startling statistics that nearly half of the Americans who vote feel that our best days are behind us, not ahead of us. And though his OP-ED is more about what changes may need to happen in our political process, his message is clear. Greatness as a nation can only happen when we each recommit to personal greatness.

So back to my opening line, you can’t have a great company (country, town, organization, family, etc), without people who choose to be great. How do you inspire each employee to choose greatness over just showing up?
Consider these ways:

1. Clearly define what your company believes in and its commitment to greatness in all it does; this attracts like-minded people. You set a standard and belief that guides not only who you hire, but what behaviors are expected once they are hired.

2. Hire the best people for the job; hire based on talent and fit, not just on experience. This way you hire people capable of greatness because their work matches what they are intrinsically good at. Employees who feel capable and competent perform at greater levels.

3. Connect employees emotionally by customizing their jobs around what they love and are interested in. There are few jobs that employees love everything about. But if jobs are sculpted around employees’ interests, passions and values, employees become more emotionally invested in their work. This raises their effort, interest and performance – their greatness.

4. Openly value your employees by building strong personal relationships with each through constant communication and contact, performance feedback and honest interest (see this issue’s Recommended Read). Employees who are personally connected to their managers, team and organization, feel more part of the team and therefore commit greater effort.

Personal greatness must be inspired, encouraged, developed and applauded – this is part of management’s role. And the more personal greatness grows, the more organizational greatness will grow. Great organizations realize that they are great because their employees have chosen to bring their best and to make an impact – they have chosen to be great. And if we can rekindle it in the workplace, we may be able to rekindle it across the nation.

Please share this with someone who can benefit from it and contact me to help you learn how to activate the personal greatness of your employees. More information at www.FireUpYourEmployees.com.

Tags: bottom line, employee performance, greatness, hire the right employee, impact, job fit, management, managers
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So, What Are You Good At?

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

I hate to be the one to tell you but you are not great at everything. That is just how it works.

But even though you aren’t great at everything, you are great at some things. Find those and build them into your job and you excel. Find those and you have the potential to move from good to great.

Today’s best performance happens (supported by Gallup, Marcus Buckingham, Daniel Pink, Seth Godin) when an employee is both good at what the job requires and likes doing it. This means today’s managers must function more as “engage-and-inspire” coaches than “command-and-control” sergeants. They must get better at building strong relationships to know their employees’ talents, values and interests, to find ways to activate their emotional connection to their work. And it all starts with a clear understanding of what employees are good at – because great performance can never happen if employees do not feel capable and competent.

I am working with an organization that is in the process of changing its hiring process away from using standard job descriptions requiring candidates to have similar work experience. Remember, just because an employee has done a job before does not ensure the employee was both good at the job and liked doing it – both now required for exceptional performance. Instead, this organization now uses a Talent Matrix, a summary of the key talents, team talents and core skills that will encourage success in the role. They look for people are are naturally capable and interested in the responsibilities of the job. From this information they can better advertize what they need, source candidates that are a better fit and more successfully hire higher performing people.

At a time when employees are now more in front of customers (and therefore constantly building or destroying your brand), hiring the right employee is now the most critical component of activating sustainable and exceptional performance. This requires finding employees who are capable, competent and passionate about the responsibilities of the job. When these employees are hired, they are good at and interested in doing exceptional things for customers, which actives customer loyalty and strong results.

Call to action:
Do you know how to hire in an intellectual age? Do you know the attributes that will make an employee successful in each role?

Resources to get you where you need to be:
Check out Awesomely Simple by John Spence and my book, Fire Up! Your Employees and Smoke Your Competition. Contact me if you need my help to learn how to attract and hire the right employees.

Tags: Daniel Pink, employee performance, FIT, hire the right employee, john spence, manager, Marcus Buckingham, seth godin
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