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Enrich: Energize the Job—When the Thrill is Gone, So are They
By Bev Kaye
Your most valued employees are also the most likely to suffer job discontent. By definition, they are savvy, creative, self-propelled, and energetic. They need stimulating work, opportunities for personal challenge and growth, and a contributing stake in the organizational action. (read more...)
Encourage an Abundance Mentally
By Bob Nelson
Whenever someone in your organization is upset about someone else being recognized (and not him- or herself), this could be a red flag that there is not enough recognition being given. When recognition is scarce, people have a tendency to be envious when others receive it. (read more...)
Don't Just Check the Box
Why your say-so won't make it so—and how to follow up
By Marshall Goldsmith
A few years ago, I was in a doctor's office dealing with back problems (aggravated by my constant air travel). After running a few tests, the doctor sat me down and rattled off 10 different exercises that I was supposed to do regularly. He spoke very quickly. (read more...)
Enrich: Energize the job—When the Thrill is Gone, So are They (^ top)
By Bev Kaye
Your most valued employees are also the most likely to suffer job discontent. By definition, they are savvy, creative, self-propelled, and energetic. They need stimulating work, opportunities for personal challenge and growth, and a contributing stake in the organizational action. In short, they need job enrichment and if you can’t give it, they’ll find someone who can.
The Enriched Get Richer
So what is job enrichment? It’s providing challenge, growth and renewal in a current position. Change is the key, and it may occur in what is done (content) or how it is done (process), allowing employees to take on different tasks and responsibilities or to accomplish them in new ways that promote autonomy and creativity.
An enriched job:
• requires and values quality work
• gives an employee room to initiate, create and implement new ideas
• promotes setting and achieving personal and group goals
• allows employees to see their contribution to an end product or goal
• challenges employees to expand their knowledge and capabilities and to grow in new directions
• has a future beyond itself
How to Get Enriched—Quick
If enrichment is so beneficial, why isn't it a standard part of every job? One reason is that every job and every employee is different. What will enrich one person is different from what will enrich another. How do you tailor job enrichment to individuals and their needs? Ask employees what would make their jobs more challenging, more interesting, more rewarding. Their answers will help you co-design the best-possible enrichment activity.
To Do
To get started, try one or more of these enrichment possibilities:
• Combine tasks. Let employees take on related sets of tasks that contribute to a tangible product or outcome. They will be more challenged and motivated than by doing a single, small repetitive task.
• Form teams. Let self-directed work groups make decisions, such as redistributing their work to increase variety and learning opportunities.
• Put employees in touch with clients. Let them interface personally with clients—external or internal and/or hold them accountable for client satisfaction.
• Rotate assignments. Change responsibilities and tasks in order to challenge your employees, teach them new skills, and introduce them to new people.
• Build in feedback. Go beyond annual reviews with regular peer and client reviews to track performance and progress.
• Establish widespread participation. Allow employees to take part in decisions that impact their work, such as budgeting and hiring decisions, organizing work, and establishing schedules.
• Nurture creativity. Ask for and reward creative ideas and actions. Notice and encourage employees’ growth and interest in new skills or projects.
• Set enrichment goals. Discuss them, modify them, and measure progress regularly.
Enrichment is not tricky or difficult. But it does require that you ask what your employees want and then stay alert to opportunities. Encourage employees’ thoughts and ideas and co-create their enrichment projects and assignments. The payoff will be enthused, motivated, and high-performing employees who are likely to stay on your team!
Encourage an Abundance Mentally (^ top)
By Bob Nelson
You might wonder, if you recognize one person in your organization, aren’t you not recognizing someone else?
Whenever someone in your organization is upset about someone else being recognized (and not him- or herself), this could be a red flag that there is not enough recognition being given. When recognition is scarce, people have a tendency to be envious when others receive it.
Leaving employees out does not tend to be a problem in organizations that have developed a strong recognition culture, that have a variety of formal and informal programs and tools, and where managers place an emphasis on daily recognition practices and behaviors.
As a start toward encouraging such an “abundance” mentality, avoid recognition activities and programs that have a single winner or quota of recipients. Instead, create opportunities for everyone to be a potential winner, such has having an honor roll for those employees who have all practiced a key value or set of behaviors of the organization within a given time period. This is certainly more inclusive than an employee-of-the-month award, which honors a single person at the expense of everyone else.
Also, because the best forms of recognition tend to have little, if any, cost associated with them (e.g., verbal and written praise, public praise, symbolic gestures by managers, pass-around awards, and so on), there is absolutely no reason not to do more of these activities in a timely, sincere, and personal way.
Don't Just Check the Box (^ top)
Why your say-so won't make it so—and how to follow up
By Marshall Goldsmith
From FastCompany: Issue 91, Page 89
A few years ago, I was in a doctor's office dealing with back problems (aggravated by my constant air travel). After running a few tests, the doctor sat me down and rattled off 10 different exercises that I was supposed to do regularly. He spoke very quickly.
Knowing what I know about communication, I realized that there was no way I was going to remember what he said, much less understand it or do it! He assumed that once he had made the correct diagnosis and told me what to do, his job was done. He had checked the box on his to-do list. Time for the next patient!
One of the great causes of corporate dysfunction is the glaring gap between "I say" and "they do." It's a huge false assumption to believe that just because people understand, then they will do. Like this doctor, leaders all too often believe that their organizations operate with strict down-the-chain-of-command efficiency. In a perfect world, every command is not only obeyed but obeyed precisely and promptly, almost as if it were a fait accompli. The manager never has to follow up—because he said it—it was done.
I dealt with this head-on with a client, a CEO of a major high-tech firm. He was 54 years old with a degree from MIT. He was also -- like most of my clients -- extremely action-oriented and impatient. Surveys indicated that his employees felt they didn't understand the company's mission and overall direction. "I don't get it," he groaned. "I clearly articulated the mission and direction in our team meeting. I've summarized it in a memo, which was immediately distributed. See, here's the memo! What more do they want?"
I thought he was kidding, that he had a very refined sense of irony. Making people understand the company's mission doesn't happen by fiat. It also doesn't happen overnight. Surely this smart CEO understood how difficult it was to communicate even a simple message. But by the pained expression on his face, I could see he was serious and (if only in this one area of management) clueless.
"Let's review," I said. "How was this memo distributed?"
"By email," he replied. "It went to everyone."
"Okay. How many people actually read the memo?"
"I'm not sure," he said.
"Of those who read the email, how many do you think understood the message?"
He thought for a second and said, "I don't know."
"Of those who understood it, how many actually believed it was serious-not just PR hype?"
He shook his head.
"Of this dwindling group of believers, how many remembered it?"
Another sorry head shake.
"That's a lot of unknowns for something you regard as vital to your company's existence," I said. "But that's not the worst part. Once you eliminate all those people—and it's quite possible there aren't many people left—how many people do you think will change their behavior based upon the memo? How many will begin living and breathing the company's mission because of your memo?"
The CEO just grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.
I tried to revive his spirits by pointing out that the deeper issue was his mistaken belief about communication, not this memo.
"The only thing you're guilty of," I said, "was that you checked the box. You thought your job was done when you articulated the mission and wrote the memo, just one more item on your to-do list. You moved on. Mentally, you smiled and said, 'Next!'"
Like most extremely busy leaders, this CEO wanted to believe that after he communicated direction, people heard him, understood him, believed him, and then executed. I can understand why executives persist in thinking this way. We all want to believe that our comments have great meaning. We usually assume that the people around us are smart, and they can understand what we're saying and see the value of our remarks. We're often busy and overcommitted. We all wish we could just move on to the next item on our list.
The good news for every manager, including my CEO friend, is that this false belief has a simple cure. It's called "follow-up." After communicating, follow up to make sure that people really understand, talk with them to get a read of their buy-in, and involve them to make sure that they're committed to execution. Follow-up may take a little time, but it's less than the time wasted on miscommunication.
If you're just checking the box, add one more item to your to-do list: Start changing your ways.
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