Motivation Killers

Are you guilty of any of these common motivation killers? 1. Pretending to listen What most employers don’t realize is that when they ask for employee feedback, they’re starting a conversation, and, like in any conversation, there’s an expectation they will listen and engage in a back-and-forth exchange of information. Instead of making employee feedback a springboard for dialogue, they’ll just publish it in a report months later — or worse, put it away and never speak of it again. When people invest their time and effort in offering feedback, then don’t hear back for months — if ever — they’re left with the impression no one is listening. It’s disheartening to feel like no one is hearing your voice — especially after they specifically asked you to speak up. What to do instead: If you want to motivate your employees, you need to shrink the length of time between requesting feedback and doing something with it. Report your findings promptly, and let people know what actions you’re going to take based on what you’ve discovered. 2. Hiding from the truth Another reason employers fail in handling employee feedback is they can’t handle anything negative. When employees offer constructive feedback or surveys reveal real problems in the organization, employers may tend to sweep that information under the rug and not do anything about it. This shows they’re not only not listening, but they’re actively ignoring employees concerns and problems. What to do instead: If you went to the doctor for a check-up and found out you had cancer, you wouldn’t sit on the test results for months or walk away and pretend you’d never seen them. You also wouldn’t spend time patting yourself on the back over your doctor’s finding that your heart was healthy. You’d focus on the cancer and start working on treating it right away. Employers need to stop being scared of their data. When they receive negative feedback and constructive criticism, they should get right to work examining what’s wrong and what steps they need to take to make it right. 3. Operating in secret For years it’s been standard for employers to keep salaries, sales numbers and other key statistics a secret shared only by board members, senior leaders and anyone government regulators required them to inform. The problem with this is that secrets erode trust — the foundation of great teams and teamwork. When employees don’t feel trusted and don’t have every reason to trust their employers, they’re less engaged and less motivated to do their best. What to do instead: Recognize that transparency builds trust, trust supports teams, and great teams — not great individuals — build successful organizations. Make transparency your default. Many new organizations are starting to do this. For example, Buffer, a company I respect a lot, publishes every employee’s salary from the CEO down and includes details about its pay structure and the rationale for the way it’s set it up. Buffer is also completely open about its revenue, paying customers and other metrics. When employees aren’t engaged at work, they don’t give their employers their best. If you want your employees’ best, you need to make sure you’re not inadvertently killing their motivation to give it to you. Being the sort of organization that kills employees’ motivation is not good for your employer brand either, and can make it harder for you to attract and retain great people. That may not have been a major concern in recent years with the economic downturn and slow recovery, but the jobs market is heating up again and with it competition for the best, most motivated employees.

Emotional Intelligence by Travis Bradberry, Ph.D

There is nothing wrong with making a mistake. It's what you say to yourself after you mess up that matters. Your self-talk (the thoughts you have about your feelings) can either magnify the negativity or help you turn that misstep into something productive. Negative self-talk is unrealistic, unnecessary, and self-defeating. It sends you into a downward emotional spiral that is difficult to pull out of. All self-talk is driven by important beliefs that you hold about yourself. It plays an understated but powerful role in success because it can both spur you forward to achieve your goals and hold you back. As Henry Ford said, “He who believes he can and he who believes he cannot are both correct.” TalentSmart has tested the emotional intelligence (EQ) of more than a million people and found that 90% of top performers are high in EQ. These successful, high EQ individuals possess an important skill—the ability to recognize and control negative self-talk so that it doesn't prevent them from reaching their full potential. These successful people earn an average of $28,000 more annually than their low EQ peers, get promoted more often, and receive higher marks on performance evaluations. The link between EQ and earnings is so direct that every point increase in EQ adds $1,300 to an annual salary. When it comes to self-talk, we've discovered six common, yet toxic, beliefs that hold people back more than any others. Be mindful of your tendencies to succumb to these beliefs, so that they don't derail your career: Toxic Belief #1: Perfection = Success Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. When perfection is your goal, you're always left with a nagging sense of failure, and end up spending your time lamenting what you failed to accomplish, instead of enjoying what you were able to achieve. Toxic Belief #2: My Destiny is Predetermined Far too many people succumb to the highly irrational idea that they are destined to succeed or fail. Make no mistake about it, your destiny is in your own hands, and blaming multiple successes or failures on forces beyond your control is nothing more than a cop out. Sometimes life will deal you difficult cards to play, and others times you'll be holding aces. Your willingness to give your all in playing any hand you're holding determines your ultimate success or failure in life. Toxic Belief #3: I “Always” or “Never” Do That There isn't anything in life that you always or never do. You may do something a lot or not do something enough, but framing your behavior in terms of “always” or “never” is a form of self-pity. It makes you believe that you have no control of yourself and will never change. Don't succumb to it. Toxic Belief #4: I Succeed When Others Approve of Me Regardless of what people think of you at any particular moment, one thing is certain⎯you're never as good or bad as they say you are. It's impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, but you can take people's opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what people think about you, your self-worth comes only from within. Toxic Belief #5: My Past = My Future Repeated failures can erode your self-confidence and make it hard to believe you'll achieve a better outcome in the future. Most of the time, these failures result from taking risks and trying to achieve something that isn't easy. Just remember that success lies in your ability to rise in the face of failure. Anything worth achieving is going to require you to take some risks, and you can't allow failure to stop you from believing in your ability to succeed. Toxic Belief #6: My Emotions = Reality Know how to take an objective look at your feelings and separate fact from fiction. Otherwise, your emotions will continue to skew your sense of reality, making you vulnerable to the negative self-talk that can hold you back from achieving your full potential.

How you can lead the life you want

If you're searching for "work/life balance" you'll always be disappointed because "balance" connotes a zero-sum equation. But if you shift your mindset to asking, "How can I initiate change that's good for my family, and my community, and my career, and my private self (mind, body and spirit)?", then you are more likely to produce harmony in your life. So, forget balance! Instead, gain greater control and learn to pursue meaningful change in your world by building your skills as a leader in all parts of your life, no matter what your job or age. You can assess your skills for free here. In this post, I describe five of the three dozen exercises I offer in Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life. Try one and see how it enhances your capacity to integrate the different parts of your life. Let's think about the following: The Conversation Starter. This simpler exercise is another way to help you increase connections among different parts of your life. You might start by putting something about your family or outside interests in a prominent position in your work place. When colleagues notice, you can mention why it's important and how it helps you at work. Then try the reverse, by bringing something from work to your home so you can talk with your family or friends about it. This creates awareness of who you are as a whole person and might clue others in to how these hitherto unknown aspects of your life might be valuable to them. Your boss may be interested in the skills you have developed organizing activities at the food bank or see a chance for the company to partner with that operation. Who Matters Most. To lead the life you want, you need help from others. No way around it. To build supportive networks, try this exercise by listing the names of a handful of people or groups who matter most to you in each domain of your life. Write down why each is important to your future and why it's in their interest to assist you. Then come up with one thing -- the simpler the better -- to provide help for some or all of these people or groups. To do that, you will probably have to hold some conversations about mutual expectations, which might create some anxiety initially, but help you (and them) over time. The Tune Up. Here's another easy one. When you're doing something that you do regularly, but not daily, like getting your car tuned or going to the dentist, why not build into that time a chance to look inside yourself and see if you need to make any adjustments to your life? Ask yourself: Am I living in a way that's consistent with what matters to me? Take 20 minutes to see how your inner engine is running. The Talent Transfer. Take an inventory of the key skills and talents you've developed and think about creative ways to apply them in different parts of your life. If you play piano, maybe you can teach kids how to play or you can play for people at work or when you visit relatives.

3 ways to keep your next negotiations on track

3 Ways to Keep Your Next Negotiation on Track We waste too much time and emotion during negotiations. We argue about items that don’t really matter and let our feelings override our logic. If you want to move a negotiation forward and advance to where you want to be: 1.- Understand the common goal. You both should articulate your goals and interests in writing and share them to ensure clarity and alignment. 2.- Be transparent and explain the why of your points. It’s surprising how seldom people explain why they’re fighting for something. The other side likely doesn’t know why you’re asking for a term or condition. If something is going to impact you personally, think about disclosing it – the other party may understand. 3.- Calculate what’s actually important. Figure out how material each point is. Then determine what’s really worth fighting for in the bigger picture – and what you might be able to use as leverage. Adapted from “Keep Time and Emotion from Killing a Negotiation” by Anthony K. Tjan.

Leading by Serving—5 Essential Ingredients to Becoming a Leader People Want to Follow

That’s the message that Ken Blanchard and Mark Miller share in the 10th anniversary edition of their bestselling business book, The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do. Leaders can find countless ways to serve the people they lead, and they should always be on the lookout for new and different ways to do this. However, there are at least five critical ways leaders must serve if they want to be as effective as possible. 1.- See the Future. The ability to envision and communicate a compelling picture of a preferred future. Leaders must help the people they lead see the destination, as well as the advantages of going there. Everybody needs to see who they are, where they are going, and what will guide their journey. 2.- Engage and Develop Others. Recruiting and selecting the right people for the right job while creating an environment where people wholeheartedly invest themselves in achieving the vision. Blanchard and Miller believe that engaging is a two-part proposition. The first part is to recruit and select the right people for the right job. That means to get the right players on the team. The second part is to do whatever it takes to engage the hearts and the heads of the people. Historically, the authors point out that many leaders have employed the hands and nothing else—and that’s probably where the term “hired hands” comes from. The best leaders engage the head and heart of their employees in addition to their hands. 3.- Reinvent Continuously. To possess a never-ending focus on improvement. Blanchard and Miller believe a leader must be willing to reinvent on at least three levels. The first is personal. Some key questions they recommend asking are: How am I learning and growing as a leader? and What am I doing to encourage others in my group to constantly learn and reinvent themselves? The second level of reinvention is systems and processes: How are we doing the work? How can we do it better? and What changes would enhance our ability to serve our customers and each other? The third type of reinvention involves the structure of the organization. A recommended question to ask here is: What structural changes do we need to make to be more efficient and effective? 4.- Value Results and Relationships. The ability to generate positive, measurable results AND cultivate great relationships with those you lead. Leading at a higher level includes both results and relationships. The authors encourage leaders to put equal emphasis on both. According to Ken Blanchard, “We traditionally teach people the important skills they need to get results: problem solving, decision making, and so on. Leaders need to put an equal emphasis on building relationships and connecting with people. It’s both/ and, not either/ or.” 5.- Embody the Values. To live in a fashion consistent with your stated values. This is fundamental and ongoing, explain Blanchard and Miller. If a leader loses their credibility, their leadership potential will be greatly limited. Aspiring leaders must do more than articulate values—they must live their values every day.

Do you want to be a great leader?

For some reason, leaders struggle to embrace their "inner weirdness." But if you don't figure out how to do it, you'll miss out on one of the simplest ways to strengthen your team and build an amazing company culture. When we talk about building weirdness in our team, the ultimate goal is to develop a company with perfect authenticity. Tony Hsieh is a firm believer in this, and it's allowed him to build one of the best company cultures in the world with Zappos. There are plenty of benefits of acting weird around your employees. Here are a few to get you started. 1. You'll encourage your employees to be themselves. When you start building your team, many times new hires will be nervous meeting everyone for the first time. The best way to get them to open up is to immediately share embarrassing stories about yourself during a company meeting. This will get them to start laughing, and they'll notice that the leader of the company is down to earth. Some leaders believe they need to be stern and appear perfect 24/7 to fill their role. This is one of the worst beliefs a head of a company can have. You need to be open with your team about your weaknesses, because that's how you build respect and credibility. No one wants to work for a leader who seems fake, just as you don't want your employees acting inauthentic. Once you start opening up and acting weirder around the office, you'll notice the rest of your team will follow suit. Pretty soon, everyone will act like themselves in the company, and your office will become much more fun. 2. Your company will be more innovative. As a leader, it's tough to get all team members comfortable enough to speak up when they have an idea. Voicing out-of-the-box ideas in company meetings is a perfect way to get everyone else to start chiming in with ideas. In rare cases, you might even want to throw out a really weird idea that you know your team will not like. This will register to your team members that their ideas can't be as bad or weird as yours, and they'll start speaking up more. Because you're the leader, your employees will feel empowered when their ideas are picked over yours. Will you lose the spotlight? Sure, but your team will build enough confidence to start innovating without you. 3. You'll hire better people. Once your team members start showing their inner weirdness, it will start rubbing off on people whom you interview. Right off the bat, they'll be able to see what working at your company will be like. Ideally, you'd want them to appreciate the fact that everyone is a little quirky and proud of it in your office. Sometimes, people won't be looking for that in an organization, but those are the people you want to keep out of your company. Try asking an applicant a few funny questions. Then gradually move the weirdness scale further by inviting the person to a company social. At the social, share embarrassing stories, and try being as authentic as possible. By the time you're done, both you and the applicant will know if the applicant is weird enough for the job.