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#Leadership : 5 Reasons Employees Don’t Trust Their Boss or Their Company…Recent Report find that a Lot of Workers are Very Skeptical of their Bosses, and the Companies they Work For. In Concert, that Impacts Productivity, can Lead to a Toxic Workplace, and Hurts the Bottom Line.

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Trust and loyalty are difficult to come by in the professional world. While the millennial generation seems happy enough to job-hop their way to the top, more and more employers are looking for ways to increase employee loyalty within their organizations. Finding new and trustworthy employees is difficult and expensive, and even as many people are willing to lie on their resumes to get the job they want, most wouldn’t want their employers betraying their confidence in similar fashion.

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But there have been signs that the tides are turning. Employers have started to implement new ways to keep employees around, and the numbers show that more raises and promotions are being handed out to loyal, long-time workers. That means there is at least some sort of divide being bridged between management and labor, in some organizations.

When we dig a little deeper, however, it becomes clear that there’s still a wide gulf when it comes to confidence in our employers. The latest Trust Barometer report from Edelman all but confirms it. The annual report, now in its 16th iteration, took the pulse of tens of thousands of workers, in an effort to see just how much trust (or distrust) is prevalent in the economy.

The findings? A lot of workers are very skeptical of their bosses, and the companies they work for. In concert, that impacts productivity, can lead to a toxic workplace, and hurts the bottom line.

This is a wake-up call for any business leader who underestimates the importance of building trust with employees,” said Nick Howard, executive director of Edelman’s employee engagement business in Europe in an accompanying press release. “Edelman’s special report on Employee Advocacy shows that non-trusting employees are far less likely to say good things about their employer. And worryingly, the bad things they say will be believed by consumers.”

Christopher Hannegan, executive vice president and lead of Edelman’s employee engagement business in the United States, echoed Howard’s sentiment. “The findings are very clear,” he said. “Consumers trust companies that treat their employees well. Companies that have ethical business practices. Are transparent and open. And respond well to problems and crises. Equally clear is that these are the topics that employees are most trusted to talk about.”

Here are five of the chief reasons Edelman’s Trust Barometer says employees don’t trust their employers. Do you agree with any of them?

1. Engagement

Where there’s a lack of engagement and communication, there’s a lack of trust. We see the same dynamic at play in our personal relationships, and that extends to the employee-employer relationship as well. When there are limited lines of communication and engagement, skepticism bubbles up. You start to worry about potential changes that you may be missing. It’s difficult to manage — and employers who keep employees in the dark are feeding distrust and discontent in their ranks.

It also leads people to believe there is something to hide, which obviously leads to distrust.

 

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2. Short-term thinking

“Short-termism” is when a company or leadership team puts short-term profits ahead of an organization’s long-term goals and survival. It’s how you end up with car companies cutting corners like GM or Volkswagen’s recent scandals, or how we end up with huge disasters like Deepwater Horizon. It’s about making the quarterly numbers look good, at the expense of long-term projections. And employees hate it.

“More than two-thirds of people feel that CEOs are too focused on short-term financial results,” said Howard.

3. Belief in the company

Do you believe in your employer? That is, do you believe in the company’s mission and purpose? People want to work for employers who are addressing society’s needs, and positively impacting their communities. That may mean taking measures to protect the environment, or simply taking care of employees so that they can afford life’s necessities without struggling. But there’s an evident gap in Edelman’s numbers that show employers are coming up short. And that breeds distrust and contempt.

 

4. Product quality

This is a call back to the discussion around “short-termism.” People trust companies that create and sell high-quality, reliable products and services. It’s easy to work for a company that puts pride into its work, and pumps out products people love. Think of companies like Apple, for example. If you can personally stand behind your employer’s products, it’s easy to trust them.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of a Comcast employee. You’re consistently fielding calls from angry customers about being overcharged, and how their service is out. That’s going to take a toll on your pysche, and how much you trust your company.

5. Ethics

Most of these other points boil down to this: ethics. While we’re all taught to act ethically, so many headlines fill the newspapers and cable news networks about corporations or individuals taking short cuts, ultimately earning a big pay day at the expense of everyone else. We saw ethics go out the window during the financial crisis, and by decisions made at (again) GM and Volkswagen.

Employees want to work for ethical companies, who aren’t doing shady things, and are cleaning up after themselves. If they don’t, then what kind of example are they setting? It becomes hard to trust your company, and its leadership, when all kinds of unethical behavior is being exhibited.

If your own employees don’t trust you, you can bet that customers won’t trust you either.

Check out Edelman’s complete Trust Barometer report.

Follow Sam on Facebook and Twitter @SliceOfGinger

 

CheatSheet.com | August 21, 2016 | Sam Becker 

 

#Leadership : How to Get the Best from your Employees without Burning them Out…What is it that Drives Employees to Lose Faith in their Employers, Lose Motivation in their Careers, and Drives them Away from your Company and to Another?

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We all want to maximize productivity within our businesses, large or small, yet the techniques of the past are rarely sufficient for a modern workforce. More and more, I’m finding that the personal touch goes a long way toward employee productivity, as well as morale and retention.

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What is it that drives employees to lose faith in their employers, lose motivation in their careers, and drives them away from your company and to another?

I find that it’s often a combination of bureaucracy and stress. To minimize both, you need to identify what it is that your employees reject, and figure out a way to fix the issue.

1. Minimize the red tape

One of the most frustrating walls an employee encounters is requiring permission to do their job, time and time again.

Yes, there are security reasons for some measures. But often, old policies from petty managers trying to hoard power have led to “the way things have always been done” inertia, which keeps bad rules in place.

Just like in marketing with conversion rates, minimizing the number of obstacles between employee and desired outcome will increase productivity.

2. Be liberal with non-financial benefits

I completely understand that many businesses operate on tight margins. Your best employees deserve raises and bonuses, but when the budget doesn’t allow it, you have to do something.

Why not offer a bit more paid time off or allow the occasional work-from-home day? Sometimes it can be as simple as setting up a room for the occasional sanctioned, on-the-job nap.

Personally, I’d much rather have an employee feel safe nodding off for half an hour than having them doze at their computer getting barely anything done for half their shift.

 

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3. Ditch the performance review

Or, rather, make sure they’re relevant if you have one. Performance reviews are a source of stress even for good employees — check out impostor syndrome — and they’re often just filed away and never referenced again.

Unless your reviews are both accurate and used regularly, they’re probably doing more harm than good.

Frankly, I think official performance reviews are an antiquated relic from the ghost of management past. If you’re paying attention and have a working relationship with your employees, you’ll be able to tell how they’re performing.

More importantly, if you’re open and they can come to you with problems they face, you can help stave off the issues that drive down their morale. Half of the reason for a negative performance review is toiling under strict conditions that limit an employee’s ability to work in the first place.

 

4. Establish a way to report and address problems

Part of this comes from fostering a culture of gentle management. I’m not saying you need to make friends with all of your employees, but you should be approachable and attentive when they have something to say.

If the problem is a business system, consider why it’s causing an obstacle to productivity and look into alternatives. If it’s not something you can change, at least consult with the employee about why that’s the case.

One circumstance that may come up is when an employee is the problem. Sometimes a new hire just isn’t working out, and their coworkers are better positioned to see it than you.

You don’t need to set up an anonymous tip line for bad behavior, but you can accept employee advice when a developer tells you the new guy is consistently breaking things and barely doing their job.

5. Trust your employees to do what they do best

Ideally, you will avoid the above situation by hiring a competent, intelligent team. The number-one thing you can do is stay out of their way and let them do their thing. Eliminating red tape and bureaucracy is one part of it, but another is being more of a facilitator than a dictator.

Provide guidance and advice. Establish goals and plans. Don’t micromanage their hours and set unrealistic deadlines. If they need more resources, help them obtain them or explain why the restrictions exist. Keep them in the loop and aware of what’s going on in the bigger picture, so they know what they’re working toward.

The ideal situation is one of trust, awareness, and facilitation. The days where management is a harsh gatekeeper of information and resources are gone. We live in a world where your best employees will be more than happy to jump ship unless you give them a reason to stick with you.

Sometimes, yes, that’s going to be money, and yes, you’re going to lose some good employees when your budgets are tight. You’d be surprised, however, just how many good people are willing to stick around when you simply have a pleasant place to work.

James Parsons is a content marketing influencer, entrepreneur, and writer. He writes for large publishers including Entrepreneur, Inc., and The Huffington Post. You can reach contact him on his website or on his Twitter profile.

 

Businessinsider.com | August 18, 2016 |  James Parsons 

 

Your #Career : 4 Ways To Bounce Back When You’re Treated Unfairly At Work…You can Get Even, Or you can Take the High Road—Where the Outlook’s Much Better for your Health and Career.

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Depending on how you see it, there’s more than just death and taxes on the short list of things life throws at pretty much everybody. There’s also unfairness (which cynics might even see as the umbrella term for both death and taxes), as many a parent has informed a 5-year-old who’s too young to know what taxes are but has no trouble grasping what’s not fair.

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But simply accepting that life isn’t fair doesn’t mean we respond to its injustices with perfect equanimity—especially where our careers are concerned. Maybe you’ve been passed up for a promotion you deserved. Or management made a big decision impacting your job without you having a say. Maybe you were just disrespected by a colleague.

Organizational researchers like the University of Georgia’s Jason Colquitt call these types of offenses “distributive,” “procedural,” and “interpersonal” injustice, respectively. And they’ve been linked to lower levels of self-esteem, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and performance.

That may not come as a shock—it’s just about impossible to avoid feeling mistreated at some point or another at work. Georgetown professor Chris Porathestimates that 98% of the thousands of workers she’s surveyed have experienced incivility at work firsthand, and 99% have seen it take place.

But the good news is that while work, like life, isn’t always fair, you don’t have to stew in your sense of being wronged. In fact, you can even use the experience to become a little more resilient for the next time you’re slighted. Here’s how.

WHY UNFAIR TREATMENT STINGS

You may feel hurt that you’ve been mistreated while at the same time wondering whether it’s petty of you to take offense. But psychologically, unfairness communicates a lot more than the act itself. Being treated unfairly violates basic human needs for autonomy, belonging, and morality. It thwarts our agency, makes us feel like we aren’t valued, and tramples on the basic social principles that bind people together.

So it’s no surprise that violating these mores reliably leads to feelings of anger, outage, and contempt—emotions that lead us to act in ways that both harm our careers and are typically inconsistent with our own values: When we’re wronged at work, many of us isolate ourselves or retaliate. And while that may lead to short-term reprieve or catharsis, the longer-term consequences are rarely good.

Instead, we need better ways to respond to mistreatment at work—strategies that can actually improve how others see us and how we see ourselves—so we can minimize the likelihood of it happening again.

1. WALK BACK FROM THE CONCLUSIONS YOU’VE JUMPED TO

Leadership gurus Chris Argyris and Peter Senge are known for introducing the“ladder of inference,” the process by which people make a sequence of assumptions about others’ intentions. It’s important to remember that injustice is in the eye of the beholder, so it’s critical to make sure you’re seeing the situation accurately.

And to do that, there’s no substitute for perspective. Talk to a trusted friend or colleague to get their point of view before taking any action. Whatever they say, the simple act of confiding in others can strengthen your relationships around the office and mitigate the negative feelings you’re experiencing.

 

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2. TAKE THE MORAL HIGH GROUND

Sometimes it’s actually okay to get up on your high horse and stay there. In fact, refusing to match slight for slight can help you sidestep the indignity you’re feeling and avoid boiling in anger. From that vantage point, you may even be able to look at the situation more critically and learn something about your coworker, your organization, or even yourself—to understand what’s happened in a more detached way.

3. LOOK FOR WHAT’S STILL GOOD, FAIR, AND RIGHT

Sure, you’ve just been treated unfairly in one context, but there are certainly others where you’re still clearly valued and respected at work. And one principlelong familiar to psychologists is our tendency to focus on the negative at the expense of the positive. So make sure you’re considering this recent mistreatment in light of other good things at work, which will help you put it into perspective.

It may be the last thing you’re inclined to do while you’re feeling upset, but consider making a list of the positive aspects of your job—the upsides that haven’tbeen affected by this incident—so you don’t act rashly.

4. FORGIVE WHOEVER’S RESPONSIBLE

This may be the hardest one yet, but it might pay off. Research suggests that forgiveness is critical for mental and physical health in the aftermath of being mistreated. You don’t need to excuse the incident or convince yourself you’re being dramatic, you just need to acknowledge that the bad thing they did to you is something you can live with—that, as Whitney Houston memorably put it, “It’s not right, but it’s okay.” Forgiveness, at any rate, can be a surprisingly powerful way of moving on without carrying a chip on your shoulder.

Let’s be real—being treated unfairly at work can be painful, upsetting, and frustrating. But it can also be an opportunity to build resilience—not just to others, but to your own, less-than-productive knee-jerk responses. So take the high road. The view is much better from there anyway.

 

FastCompany.com | August 4, 2016 | David Mayer

#Leadership : 6 Keys to Employee Engagement During Times of Distraction…Gallup concluded that 71% of all Employees are either “Not engaged” or “Actively Disengaged.” In Simple Terms, Most Workers are Producing Far Less than They were Capable of Producing.

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The problem of disengagement can become even more pronounced during the summer months or any time there is an economic slowdown. Employee attention tends to wander off to those “those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer” rather than their work responsibilities

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So what can you do to keep your employees engaged, their morale high and performance at its peak during times of distraction?

1. Recognize disengagement.
You can’t fix it if you don’t even know it exists. Fortunately, it’s visible. You see it in their eyes.

As Eric Allenbaugh writes in HR Magazine, there are two eye patterns that indicate disengagement.

There are the glazed eyes. As one 42-year-old manager said, “It stopped being fun here 16 years ago.” His glazed eyes and numb spirit said it all.

There are the beady eyes. A bright, yet disenchanted three-year employee said, “This place sucks, and I can hardly wait to get out of here.” Her beady eyes communicated a strong message of discontent.

I would add a third: distracted eyes. By simply looking at someone, you can tell if they’re mentally present or somewhere else. This is especially common during the summer or when business is slow.

 

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2. Consider the high cost of disengagement.
When a company pays an employee $30 an hour (or any amount of money) to perform a task, that company is entitled to $30 of productivity each hour in return. If the employees give anything less, they are — in effect — stealing from the company.

You can’t allow that to happen. It’s too expensive. It destroys the employees’ self-esteem, because no one can feel good about him or herself doing just enough to get by.

3. Make sure you are not a part of the problem.
I often ask my audience members how many of them ever came across a job candidate who didn’t want to be there, who disliked the company, its products and its customers and then thought to themselves, “That’s just the kind of employee I want” and went ahead and hired that individual. No one raises their hands.

So I ask them, “If no one ever hired a person like that, then why do companies have so many of them?” It’s because something happened to those employees during the course of their employment that turned them off.

According to Terri Kabachnick, in her book I Quit, But Forgot to Tell You, some of the most common causes of disengagement are a lack of information, lack of job purpose and lack of respect. To re-engage your people or prevent disengagement during your slowdown periods in the business, you must …

Related: The 12 Steps to Happiness That You Create (Infographic)

4. Keep them fully informed.
In one Chamber of Commerce study, 50,000 employees from all types of industries were asked to rank the 10 factors that had the biggest impact on their morale and motivation. Not surprisingly, the employees listed “being in on things” or “being fully informed” as the second strongest morale-building, motivating factor in the workplace.

After studying the communication patterns in dozens of organizations, Tamotsu Shibutani concluded, “You had better keep your people informed, or they’ll make it up, and it won’t be flattering.”

If you want an engaged workforce, you’ve got to communicate, communicate and then communicate some more.

5. Instill a sense of job purpose.
It’s almost impossible for employees to spend five, 10 or 20 years on a job and feel good about themselves if they think their jobs are a colossal waste of time. Employees need to know more than what a job entails, and employees need to know more than how to do a job. They also need to know why they’re doing a job.

A part of leadership is making sure that your people come in every day feeling like they are working on the most important thing. This is especially important when your people may be thinking more about some outdoor summer activities than their jobs.

To build an “engaged” culture where you engage the disengaged, you’ve got to tell people that their work matters. You’ve got to show people that their jobs have a purpose that only they can fulfill.

6. Show respect.
You may think this strategy only applies to the younger generations in the workplace. After all, we keep hearing about how needy the younger generations are — asking for more recognition, more challenges, more autonomy, more communication and more rewards. But a baby boomer in his 60s put it this way in one of my workshops: “We want the same things. We just felt we couldn’t ask.”

When your younger workers badger you for more respect and recognition, just remember all your employees crave the same thing. Their communication methods may differ, but their needs don’t. Employees want to be regarded first and foremost as people who are respected.

That’s why most of an employee’s productivity is directly attributable to his or her manager. If an employee feels like he or she is nothing more than a number filling a time slot for a manager, the employee is not going to be fully engaged.

To show your respect, treat each employee as an individual. Get to know each person’s strengths and weaknesses and likes and dislikes. Call each person by his or her name.

Certainly, good weather, summertime activities and an economic slowdown can distract your employees. It may even contribute to their lack of engagement. But with these six tips, you can keep your people fully engaged, for their own good as well as the company’s.

Entrepreneur.com | August 31, 2015 | Alan Zimmerman

 

#Leadership : How to Create a Cohesive Company Culture…Most Importantly, you Need to Live & Die by these Values if you Expect Them to be More Than just Lip Service & Words on a Wall.

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I’ve spent the past decade building a company that is now the largest patient-physician platform in the U.S., and I believe one of the reasons why it was so successful was because of the company culture we put in place from the day the company was founded. This is the same reason I laid out company culture first when founding my most recent company, iBeat.

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When starting a company, you have the opportunity to set it apart by building a winning and cohesive culture. Culture is crucial, and it can make or break a company. In my many years of growing startups, I’ve learned that building a cohesive culture ultimately rests on two major foundations — a company’s mission and its core values.

First and foremost, a company must have a compelling and inspirational mission. Before you even start your company, you should think long and hard about why you’re doing it. If it’s only to make money, I recommend you go back to the drawing board. Your mission should cover both how you are of service to others, as well as what is so compelling and unique about what the team is doing that would make you want to still be doing it ten years from now.

Stating the mission.
When crafting your mission statement, aim to be energizing, aspirational, and memorable. Don’t get bogged down with fluff and buzz words that are vague and meaningless. Get to the point. If your employees can’t relate to it, then your mission statement won’t mean much to your customers either. Also, make it concise. If you can’t say it in a sentence or two, you haven’t nailed it.

At iBeat, our mission statement is, “Empowering people with the freedom to be fearless, explore, and live longer lives.” Notice it’s not about us. It’s about how we aim to do something greater — empower people.

An exceptional mission statement captures your brand and persona. It helps you stand apart from competitors and simplifies your strategic direction, but some mission statements — the truly great ones — surprise, inspire and transform. They provide purpose. They guide and help unify organizations, and they go hand-in-hand with company culture. Take the time and do this right, and it will pay dividends over the duration.

Be sure to ingrain this mission into your team from day one. At Practice Fusion, learning the mission was not only part of new hire training, but one Friday a month, we gather all new team members and test them on our mission in front of the entire company — they’re usually prepared!

 

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Identifying core values.
Next, an exceptional company culture rests on a strong set of core values. A company’s core values are the attributes you want instilled in your team, as well as rules and guidelines covering everything from how the team treats and interacts with one another to how customers are treated. If implemented correctly, you should be able to hire and fire based on these values.

Core values form a solid bedrock for any organization and really matter to the individuals. Think about your company personality and how it will play into your core values. Are you innovative and witty or quirky and creative? Do you foster a work hard, play hard mentality? If so, create that balance of work and play. Are you a true collaborator? Then advance that behavior in your company and promote the people who get it.

iBeat has six simple and straightforward core values. They are:

We execute without excuses.
We are radically honest.
We put community first.
We are pros.
We are operationally ruthless.
We work to live, not live to work.
These values help us immensely when hiring but also help keep us grounded. We aim to hire intellectual athletes who want more than just a job and a salary. We hire individuals who were excited to be part of new technology that is helping empower people to live longer, fuller lives.

Delivering the message.
Once values are defined, they have to be explained and socialized. I suggest starting with a company-wide, all-hands meeting devoted to rolling out and discussing the values.

Also, bear in mind, values also need to be constantly reinforced. We do this in multiple ways.

For example, one of the first things you see when you arrive in our office is a large wall with the company mission and values emblazoned on it. We also start every new employee training with the values, and we make sure they are aware and aligned with our vision, mission, strategy and values. Additionally, we recognize employees every month for their exemplification of the values. As you scale, you can implement tools like Bonusly and gamify recognition based on these core values.

Taking the time to define a strong company mission and core values breathes life into your employees. It’s the first step in assuring your company culture thrives and survives for the duration. If done correctly, it will be the reason people join your company, and if done incorrectly, it will definitely be the reason most people leave.

Lastly, and most importantly, you need to live and die by these values if you expect them to be more than just lip service and words on a wall. If ‘integrity with no compromise’ is one of your core values, but you knowingly allow people to stay on your team that lie, cheat, or steal, then no one will take your values seriously, and the organization will be compromised.

In contrast, if you see behavior that violates your core values, and you immediately act to remove that person from your team, the rest of the team will respect that decision, as you are acting to ensure the company value system is held high.

We’re searching for top company cultures to be featured on our annual list. Think your company has what it takes? Apply Now »

 

Entrepreneur.com | July 18, 2016 | Ryan Howard

#Leadership : Follow the 70-20-10 Model to Train Your Employees … Only 32% of Employees in the U.S. are Engaged, Involved in, Enthusiastic about & Committed to their Work & Workplace, according to Recent Surveys by Gallup. That means More than Two-Thirds of Employees are Not Engaged.

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Today’s rapidly evolving workplace requires employees to constantly upgrade their skills. They must be equipped to find knowledge quickly, be proficient with technology and be able to interact and collaborate using a variety of communication tools.

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The new reality of training is the 70-20-10 model, in which learners get 70 percent of their knowledge from job-related experiences, 20 percent from interactions with others and 10 percent from formal educational events.

Forward-thinking training initiatives can help employees be successful in a rapidly evolving environment. Yet many companies continue to use old-school training methods that have failed to keep pace with major trends affecting the workplace.

A survey by Boston Consulting Group found that companies spend tens of billions of dollars globally each year to train employees, but the money often is wasted because “the training is not geared to drive business results.” It also discovered that business leadership training and talent development often overlook frontline leaders, who create value for customers and that the training employees do receive often doesn’t have a meaningful impact on business results.

According to “The Impact of Employee Engagement on Performance,” a 2013 report by Harvard Business Review Analytical Services, having a highly engaged workforce “not only maximizes a company’s investment in human capital and improves productivity, but it can also significantly reduce costs, such as turnover, that directly impact the bottom line.”

 

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Yet only about 32 percent of employees in the U.S. are engaged, involved in, enthusiastic about and committed to their work and workplace, according to recent surveys by Gallup. That means more than two-thirds of employees are not engaged.

Meanwhile, Millennials and Gen Xers are a growing majority of the workforce. Millennials last year surpassed Gen X as the largest cohort of the U.S. labor force.

These trends are driving many companies to take a hard look at costly, ineffective and time-consuming traditional training – the kind involving daylong workshops and “death by Powerpoint” presentations. Today’s employees want opportunities for on-demand, on-the-job training and feedback.

Progressive companies are opting for a more immersive, interactive and ongoing training approach that typically involves technology. Toward this purpose, many are utilizing microlearning – delivering training content in a bite-sized, on-demand format.

Microlearning can include anything from simple methods, such as directing employees to research topics online and reporting what they discover, to customized digital libraries that offer leaders and employees on-demand access to a constantly evolving set of topics.

Companies that utilize microlearning effectively focus on providing rich content in a variety of formats so learners can focus on the right knowledge and skills in multiple ways. Here are some tips for building more agile, effective and efficient training.

Offer flexible options.
Learners are no longer tied to their laptop or PC. They use Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and other social media networks to get information. Give them specific skill-building content they can use in a moment of need via social media or other online tools.

Provide both short and long learning opportunities.
These can range from a 30-second video available on their phones, focusing on a specific job challenge, to in-depth e-learning courses and one-on-one coaching.

Make it practical and interactive.
Effective training shows employees the connection between what they are being asked to do and why. It should connect them with the specific skills and information they need to do their jobs, and give them opportunities to learn, practice and get feedback.

Make it social, and fun.
Including a social element that involves community sharing and learning, and perhaps gaming elements, will intrigue learners to return frequently.

The new reality of training is the 70-20-10 model, in which learners get 70 percent of their knowledge from job-related experiences, 20 percent from interactions with others and 10 percent from formal educational events.

I expect interactive, on-demand, on-the-job learning solutions will remain critical to helping companies remain agile and adapt to rapidly changing business environments, though the form of these solutions will undoubtedly continue to evolve. Be open to experimenting with new modalities to ensure learners get what they need.

 

Entrepreneur.com | July 5, 2016 | Amy Fox

#Leadership : Are You Hurting Your Career With Corporate Jargon?…When we have to Dedicate Time & Energy towards Figuring out What someone is actually Talking About, we(your Team) is Inherently taking Away Time & Energy we Could be Putting Towards our Work.

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Mindshare? Sticky wicket? Straw man? Power alley? Can you improve your credibility and achieve better results simply by eliminating corporate jargon from your vocabulary?

Elegant business partners holding blank papers on green background

James Sudakow had declared war on the use of stupid corporate lingo. In his new book, Picking the Low Hanging Fruit…and Other Stupid Stuff We Say in the Corporate World, Sudakow not only advocates for speaking in plain English for his own sanity but articulates compelling reasons why doing so can have positive impacts on the work you do, the relationships you form, and even counterintuitively can help you be perceived as more credible.

Having held leadership roles in multi-billion dollar global technology companies and now serving as the Principal of CH Consulting–a boutique organizational transformation and talent management consulting practice–James is no stranger to the perils of swimming through murky jargon and the unintended consequences of its overuse.

If you are a leader of people, ask your teams for help monitoring your corporate jargon violations. It will likely be met with enthusiasm and move you one step further on the path of relatability. Corporate jargon bingo, anyone?

Picking the Low Hanging Fruit is a humorous glossary where we find strange but surprisingly common business expressions from burning platforms and paradigm shifts, to tissue rejection and open kimonos. Sudakow defines these terms and takes a witty jab at the corporate culture by calling out exactly what these terms do not mean, and also sites real examples from his own experiences that show the consequences of overusing these expressions.

People might not understand as much of what you are saying as you think

Most of us move so quickly in the corporate world that we might not recognize that the number of employees who are scratching their heads and simply don’t understand these expressions is larger than we think. As a young consultant working for a Big 4 global consulting firm, Sudakow would find himself sitting quietly in a state of confusion but hesitant to mention that he was lost.

“We all figure it out sooner or later. But why put ourselves through that?” Sudakow states. “Figuring out how to do the work amidst corporate politics and culture is hard enough without throwing a language barrier into the gauntlet.”

When we have to dedicate time and energy towards figuring out what someone is actually talking about, we are inherently taking away time and energy we could be putting towards our work.

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Relatability and Credibility–Corporate jargon doesn’t help

It doesn’t stop with simply not being understood. Credibility is at stake. In some ways, the credibility of the person using the terms can be damaged because his or her language feels inauthentic and doesn’t connect or resonate with people—even if the speaker actually has something very valuable to say.

Why is this so important? More and more have been written recently about the importance for leaders, in particular, to be relatable to their people–this relatability serving as a way to build common ground with the very teams they are asking a lot of. Many factors contribute to how successfully anyone can be in their goal of becoming a relatable leader or colleague, but overusing corporate jargon doesn’t establish anyone as “the common person.” It’s much more powerful to speak in plain English.

So what can we do about it?

Think about what you might say if you were talking to friends outside of work where corporate jargon simply wouldn’t fit. When preparing for formal presentations to groups, think about where you might slip into a corporate jargon violation and think about how you might replace it with a normal word.

 If you are a leader of people, ask your teams for help monitoring your corporate jargon violations. It will likely be met with enthusiasm and move you one step further on the path of relatability. Corporate jargon bingo, anyone? At the very least, be a good corporate citizen and help someone who might be a corporate jargon abuser by simply pulling him or her aside and constructively mentioning that the message might have resonated better in plain English.

For many of us, using corporate jargon has simply become a habit resulting from being immersed in the corporate world. In Picking the Low Hanging Fruit…and Other Stupid Stuff We Say in the Corporate World, Sudakow helps us understand in a fun and lighthearted way that the words we choose are important and that we can all make ourselves better understood by staying away from jargon.

Forbes.com | June 17, 2016 |  Kevin Kruse

#Leadership : Employee Retention- When Achieving True Success Means Letting Go… It Seems Counterintuitive to Give your Employees Every Opportunity to Leave. But by Helping your Team stay Engaged in their Role, Aligned in their Personal & Professional Goals, & allowing Them to Leave if it Isn’t a Good Fit, you’ll Ensure that Those who Choose to Stay Will be Committed to Doing their Best Work for You, for a Long Time to Come.

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The war for talent. The age-old battle waged by HR teams across the country, each vying to secure and retain the best people to help them achieve organizational success. The eternal effort to create systems, process, and benefits to help keep them once you’ve recruited them.

Free- Blowing a DandiLion

At the epicenter of the war for talent resides the tech industry, where many talented engineers and other highly-skilled workers have no problem jumping to another employer for a minor bump in pay or benefits. The result? Companies are forever trying to outshine each other with baubles, beer kegs and nap pods to try to entice this demographic to join them.

What this approach fails to do is inspire loyalty. Despite all the money that these companies pour into perks, at the end of the day, it’s just job hopping.

A Better Way to Retain Talent

What if, rather than doing everything possible to keep people no matter what, you took an alternative approach? That’s exactly what Rami Essaid, co-founder and CEO of Distil Networks, has done.

“It’s almost a fool’s errand to try to hold onto people,” Essaid suggests. “Why work to retain people when the only solution becomes offering more outrageous benefits? It’s an unsustainable cycle where people end up leaving anyway. Why not rethink the way work is designed where we acknowledge people are going to move around over the course of their careers?”

And Essaid has some first-hand experience with this phenomenon. His Silicon Valley-based cybersecurity firm helps customers identify and block malicious website traffic while letting legitimate users do what they need to do. Distil is able to find the “bots” that attack websites and police them before they can do damage to your brand.

The success of the company over the last five years has resulted in the rapid expansion of his team, now 150 strong. Here are some of Rami’s secrets to success:

 Be intentional about the culture you are creating from the start.Rami started Distil Networks with a small group of longtime friends and many of their initial hires included additional friends from their social circles. “This had the potential to create a dynamic of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ based on whether or not you were a personal friend or not, so we made a very intentional choice that we were going to build a company where everyone was treated with a kinship and in a transparent and honest way,” Essaid explained.

The founders of Distil took care to create a fundamental way of working together that was deeply rooted in the values that they shared as a result of this friendship. And by extending those values out to the team as they grew, they were able to keep the same feeling and way of operating over the years.

Really commit to providing developmental opportunities. “We are constantly investing in our employees.” Essaid described how Distil Networks takes great care in providing robust and comprehensive development to its employees. Be it executive coaching support, job rotations to different functional areas, or training and development, this approach aligns with Essaid’s belief that the company can play a role in helping people achieve their own personal definition of success.

Helping people to grow professionally and personally plays a significant role in ensuring that Distil is the right place for them at that time in their journey. And, if it turns out that a great opportunity presents itself outside of Distil, trying to hold people back is not in anyone’s best interest.

 

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Structure career progression to include lateral mobility.Organizations that only afford career progression through promotion to levels of management dramatically limits opportunities. By finding ways to move people across the organization, Distil Networks has found another way to help provide people with the maximum opportunity for development.

Help people spread their wings and prosper, even if that means leaving your company. This is based on a few of the fundamental beliefs and assumptions that the leaders at Distil Networks hold to be true about the world of business. If people leave to pursue opportunities that present massive growth and development potential, keeping them would only hinder them. By letting them go forth and prosper, the company helps them succeed while also ensuring that the remaining workforce is in their place of most potential, doing their best work. If this is the case, Distil will become a much more attractive place to work—for the right people at the right time.

Essaid believes that helping people figure out their path and providing plenty of opportunities to achieve their vision of success is a much more productive, positive and effective cycle than trying to keep people who are not in their “zone” employed for as long as possible until they wind up leaving anyway.

Distil’s method doesn’t come without its challenges. Essaid is the first to admit that it can sometimes be difficult to get people to really think about, or articulate, where they want to go in life and in their careers. But this is not unique to Distil by any stretch.

It is incumbent upon leaders to both develop their own coaching skills and understand and acknowledge that some employees may have given little to no critical thought to their more long-term career goals. In these situations, engaging in frequent developmental coaching discussions can help guide employees in their progress so that they can be more intentional about setting and achieving their goals.

You can’t keep everyone around forever. As Richard Bach famously said, “If you love someone, set them free. If they come back they’re yours; if they don’t they never were.” It seems counterintuitive to give your employees every opportunity to leave. But by helping your team stay engaged in their role, aligned in their personal and professional goals, and allowing them to leave if it isn’t a good fit, you’ll ensure that those who choose to stay will be committed to doing their best work for you, for a long time to come.

Chris Cancialosi, Ph.D., is a Partner and Founder at gothamCulture.

Forbes.com | May 31, 2016 | Chris Cancialosi

 

Your #Career : How Do You Survive Office Competition?…Hypercompetitors Spark Strong Reactions in Colleagues, from Fighting Back to Shutting Down; Warriors vs. Worriers

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Every office has at least one—the hypercompetitive employee who’s out to win at all costs. These adversarial types go beyond striving for success. They turn every endeavor into a competition, whether it is intended to be or not, psychologists say. And they spark strong reactions in colleagues, from fighting back to just shutting down.

Free- Man at Desktop

 

Competition is often healthy and encouraged at work, of course. People who compete in a healthy way see it as a route to developing their skills, reaching shared goals, staying motivated and thriving on the job.

Research on hypercompetitors sets them apart. Intense rivalry is linked with a win-at-any-cost mind-set and a tendency to ignore the perspectives and decisions of others, according to a 2010 study at Harvard University. Other research shows highly competitive people focus on attaining status over getting work done, and readily put their own interests above others’.

HEALTHY OR HYPER?

How competitive are you? To find out, answer ‘true’ or ‘false’ to the following questions.

  • 1. Winning in competition makes me feel more powerful as a person.
  • 2. I do not see my opponents in competition as my enemies.
  • 3. I like competition because it teaches me a lot about myself.
  • 4. I can’t stand to lose an argument.
  • 5. Competition can lead to forming new friendships with others.
  • 6. Failure or loss in competition makes me feel less worthy as a person.
  • 7. It doesn’t bother me to be passed by someone while I am driving on the roads.
  • 8. Competition does not help me develop my abilities.
  • 9. Success in athletic competition does not make me feel superior to others.
  • 10. If I can disturb my opponent in some way to get the edge, I will do so.

Scoring: Answering ‘true’ to questions 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9 and 10 reveals a tendency toward hypercompetitiveness. Those who answer ‘true’ only to 3, 5 and 8 tend to have a healthy attitude toward competition.

Source: Richard Ryckman et al., Journal of Personality Assessment.

 

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Hypercompetitive people tend to ignore their impact on others, so getting them to change often requires pointing out that they’re hurting themselves.

How we react to competition varies widely. People may be conditioned by childhood experiences to see a hypercompetitive colleague as a challenge—and to respond by trying harder—or as a threat, triggering a retreat into fear and anxiety.

It is rooted partly in genetics: Scientists have identified a “warrior” variant of a gene linked to performance under pressure, which confers an advantage in threatening situations, and a “worrier” variant linked to poor performance, according to a 2015 study by researchers at Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest.

These tendencies shape early decision-making. College students who are competitive by nature tend to aim toward competitive jobs, such as coaching, according to a 2015 study led by John M. Houston, a psychology professor at Rollins College, Winter Park, Fla. Those who are less competitive train for more collaborative jobs, such as school counseling.

People who become anxious and shy away from hypercompetitors in the workplace often hurt their own performance, says Shelley Reciniello, a New York psychologist and author of “The Conscious Leader.” After a rival confronted one executive with a harsh critique of her speaking skills, “she lost her footing. It started to get to her,” and the executive began stumbling during presentations, Dr. Reciniello says.

Such confrontations can stir a visceral response so powerful that it blindsides people, she says. “They know they feel angry, they feel sick, they feel sad. They find themselves having revenge fantasies,” Dr. Reciniello says.

Equally at risk on the job are those who prefer to sit out any competition. “Some people don’t even want to compete,” says Steve Sims, chief product officer for Badgeville, a Redwood City, Calif., maker of gamelike motivational tools for the workplace. If you show such a person a leaderboard of the top 10 performers in the office, “that person will drop out.”

Patti Johnson first noticed a colleague’s hypercompetitive behavior when she was vying with the woman for a promotion years ago. She withheld information Ms. Johnson needed to do her job, and took credit with the boss for work they had done together, says Ms. Johnson, chief executive officer of PeopleResults, a Dallas human-resources and change-management consulting firm.

“I realized it was part of my job, to manage her,” Ms. Johnson says. She insisted the boss include her in meetings on joint projects and kept her boss well-informed about her contributions, she says. “I made it more and more difficult for her to throw tacks on the road.”

At times, the presence of super-competitive people can spur others to achieve more. Jay Bower says feeling overmatched early in his career by warrior types with Ivy League M.B.A.s drove him to study nights for 4½ years to get his M.B.A. too. Knowing he lacked skills his co-workers had “was kind of a searing experience for me,” says Mr. Bower, president of Crossbow Group, a Westport, Conn., marketing-services firm.

Deciding whether to confront an ultracompetitive colleague can be tricky. “It depends on the situation. You have to look at what you stand to lose,” says Susan Packard, author of “New Rules of the Game,” a book about how women can compete in the workplace. A little political maneuvering by a rival might not hurt much. But if a hypercompetitor starts interfering with your career goals, or with the funding or resources you need to do your job, you have to act, she says.

The first step is to be aware of your own reactions. Then, practice confronting co-workers, if necessary, to insist that they stop undercutting teammates or shared goals.

Gather specific examples of the hypercompetitor’s bad behavior and the reactions it caused. A hypercompetitor won’t understand what you’re asking unless you explain the behaviors that need to end, saysJessica Bigazzi Foster, a senior partner with RHR International, a Chicago leadership and business-psychology consulting firm. Prepare to explain how the behavior is hurting the business or the team.

​Consider practicing what you plan to say with a friend, to help control your emotions, and write a script if necessary to keep the conversation on track, Dr. Reciniello says. Super-competitive people “will do everything to get you off point.”

Start on a positive note, says Elaine Varelas, managing partner of Keystone Partners, such as, “You’re very successful and I appreciate that. What I find very difficult in working with you is that you don’t share information.” Then give examples and describe the behavior you’d like in the future, she says.

Employees who are stuck with a hypercompetitive colleague may not get much help from the boss, at least at first. The dark side of a hypercompetitor often goes unnoticed because the boss “is seeing this aggressive, results-oriented person,” says Ralph Roberto, president of Keystone Partners, a Boston career-management consultant.

It can be tough for a boss to crack down on a hypercompetitive employee. Bill Fish sees competition as a motivator. When an aggressive sales agent at his company, ReputationManagement.com, accumulated an oversized roster of clients, he initially hesitated to take clients away from him, thinking the competition was fueling sales, says Mr. Fish, president of the Cincinnati provider of reputation-management services. “He wasn’t thinking about anybody else. At first, I really didn’t see it as a bad thing,” he says. After customers began to complain that the agent wasn’t responding quickly to their requests, however, he realized that the agent’s uber-competitiveness was hurting the business and made him share the load.

Hypercompetitive people tend to ignore their impact on others, so getting them to change often requires pointing out that they’re hurting themselves. David Hoffeld once managed a top-performing salesman who needled co-workers, saying, “Maybe you should work harder, because I’ve noticed I’m always higher than you on the leaderboard,” says Mr. Hoffeld, chief executive officer of a Minneapolis sales-training firm. “It didn’t spur his co-workers to work harder. It just made them angry.”

Mr. Hoffeld took the salesman aside and pointed out that he was alienating his co-workers, making them less willing to help him out on big projects in the future. The salesman changed his behavior.

Write to Sue Shellenbarger at sue.shellenbarger@wsj.com

 

WSJ.com | April 20, 2016 |  Sue Shellenbarger

#Strategy : The 5 Best Ways to Say ‘No’ to Your Co-workers…If you’re Constantly Shifting your Schedule to Accommodate a New Project, or you’re Picking up the Slack for another Co-Worker on a Frequent Basis, your Own Work will Suffer.

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You have to say ‘yes’ to a lot of things throughout your day. You answer emails and questions, get roped into mandatory meetings, and need to pick up projects at the last minute in order to meet company deadlines. In some cases, you won’t have a choice about those new tasks that get added to your already-full plate. And in almost every situation, it feels easier to say yes and pick up another assignment rather than risk upsetting a colleague, boss, or people who depend on you. But saying yes too often — or every time — has negative effects, too.

front and back woman hands showing thumbs up and down (isolated on white background)

If you’re constantly shifting your schedule to accommodate a new project, or you’re picking up the slack for another co-worker on a frequent basis, your own work will suffer. You might think that it’s showing you can be a team player, or that it’s just a one-time occurrence that won’t happen again. But habits are rooted in repeated events, and you can be sure that if you’re in the habit of saying yes too much, that eventually you’ll wonder where all your time went.

When you say no once, you’re more likely to say yes to the next request — especially if it’s from that same person. Be careful not to fall into that trap if the second question also doesn’t line up with your goals. “They feel so guilty about saying ‘no,’ they feel they need to salvage the relationship,” Vanessa Bohns, assistant professor of management sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada told the Wall Street Journal.

If you want to prevent this, or if you’re already at that point and need to get out of the cycle, there are effective ways to say ‘no’ without damaging your workplace relationships, while also establishing clear boundaries for yourself. In some cases, those boundaries are good to let others know where you stand, but more often than not they’re the most beneficial to helping you see where your priorities lie. It makes you more productive and ensures that when you do say yes to a new project, you won’t be burnt out and will be able to give it your full attention. Here’s a list of five tips you can use as a starting point, and adapt for the situations where you need to turn down a request.

1. Frame every task through your overall goals

Before you can even assess individual requests, you need to know what your overall goals are. In the case of the workplace, figure out what your long-term vision is while you have your position. Is your goal to get promoted quickly? Do you want to complete a certain project that’s going to take most of your concentration for the next month? If your goal is to get promoted, you might take on a few extra projects, even if they are more taxing, in order to make a good impression with those above you. But if you’ve set your sights on that one particular project, you might be less inclined to break your concentration, and leave the ‘yes’ work to when it’s complete.

“A ‘goal first’ approach is about defining your vision. Because if you do not have a vision, it will be difficult to understand what major requests are aligned with your goals and your direction and need your attention longer term,” writes Brian de Haff, CEO of software company Aha!, in a post on LinkedIn.

It also allows you to make better informed decisions about what times throughout your day you need to reserve for reaching those goals. Jocelyn K. Glei, the editor in chief and director of 99U, calls this “focus blocking.” To reach goals for that day, week, or month, you proactively block out chunks of time (Glei suggests 90 to 180 minutes each, so you have enough time to settle and focus on those tasks). That keeps other people, and yourself, from interrupting that time for less-important causes.

 

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2. Show you’ve listened to the request

You might decide within the first few seconds of a co-worker approaching that you don’t have time to help them with whatever they’re about to ask. That’s perfectly fine, and probably healthy for you to recognize. But if you want to maintain a positive work environment, respecting your colleague is more important than honoring the question itself. In other words, hear them out.

“If someone asks you to do something or for something, you should assume that it is important to them for one reason or another. They likely would not ask you otherwise. It’s your responsibility to get to the heart of the request and why it matters,” de Haaff writes.

If you listen intently, de Haff explains, you’ll be able to fully absorb the question and make sure you’re understanding what the other person is asking. That way, you can stand by any decision you might make to say no. The added benefit to not cutting someone off mid-question is that you’re showing you respect the person enough to at least consider what they’re requesting.

3. Don’t drag your feet to answer

You might decide within the first few seconds of a co-worker approaching that you don’t have time to help them with whatever they’re about to ask. That’s perfectly fine, and probably healthy for you to recognize. But if you want to maintain a positive work environment, respecting your colleague is more important than honoring the question itself. In other words, hear them out.

“If someone asks you to do something or for something, you should assume that it is important to them for one reason or another. They likely would not ask you otherwise. It’s your responsibility to get to the heart of the request and why it matters,” de Haaff writes.

If you listen intently, de Haff explains, you’ll be able to fully absorb the question and make sure you’re understanding what the other person is asking. That way, you can stand by any decision you might make to say no. The added benefit to not cutting someone off mid-question is that you’re showing you respect the person enough to at least consider what they’re requesting.

3. Don’t drag your feet to answer

Actually saying no — answering the “what” — can be the most difficult part. But answering the “why” sets up a transparency that makes it easier for others to understand your motivations for rejecting what they’ve asked you to help with. This is more than just being nice, as it allows the other person to understand your reasoning and perhaps even affect what they ask you for in the future.

“The benefit to you is that if you share your assumptions and motivations and they are wrong — the other person will have a chance to help you see a better way. If you simply provide your answer and when pushed respond with ‘My mind’s made up’, you will avoid ever having to change your course, but you’re limiting your opportunity for growth,” de Haaff writes on LinkedIn.

While you’re explaining why you’ve said no, however, don’t fall into the trap of offering to help with that same issue another time, unless you actually mean it. “Don’t add something like, ‘Well, maybe next year,’ to soften the blow,” Lesley Ronson Brown told The Wall Street Journal. “The person on the other end of the phone has just thought, ‘Gotcha. For next year.’ ”

If you do want to soften the blow a little bit, try the “sandwich” method of putting your rejection in between other more positive statements, Ni writes in the Psychology Today article. In the example of rejecting someone who wants to borrow your car, it could look something like this: “I understand you need a car this weekend. Unfortunately, I’m really not comfortable lending my car. Hope you can find another arrangement.”

5. Set up good habits for long-term success

If you’re able to get through a few rounds of saying no, which might seem incredibly awkward to you at first, it will set you up to have healthy boundaries. That way, you can look back on the things you were able to accomplish instead of a mess of half-hearted commitments. Matt Ehrlichman, founder and CEO of the startup Porch, wrote in an article for Inc. that saying no to spontaneous requests, as well as new projects, are often key. Ehrlichman has startups in mind especially, but the same holds true in any job you have.

“Steve Jobs once stated that, ‘Focusing isn’t about saying yes, focusing is about saying no.’ It means that great accomplishments can often be measured by the large list of things you didn’t do instead of the ones you did,” Ehrlichman explained.

One last thing to be aware of: When you say no once, you’re more likely to say yes to the next request — especially if it’s from that same person. Be careful not to fall into that trap if the second question also doesn’t line up with your goals. “They feel so guilty about saying ‘no,’ they feel they need to salvage the relationship,” Vanessa Bohns, assistant professor of management sciences at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada told the Wall Street Journal.

Follow Nikelle on Twitter @Nikelle_CS

 

CheatSheet.com | April 12, 2016 |