Category Archives: Blog

Employee Motivation: It Really Does Matter

If you’ve ever been stuck in a job with no direction or motivation and have felt extremely discouraged, you’re not alone. Unfortunately, there are many employees who find themselves caught in the same situation. Managers and supervisors are often not taught how to motivate their employees. Regrettably, several management personnel are only advised on the performance-improvement-plan form of management. But often, the carrot produces better results than the stick.

Consider the bosses you’ve had in your career. Who were the good ones, and who were the bad ones, and — most importantly—what was the difference? After some contemplation, you’ll begin to see why the good ones were able to motivate you and make you passionate about coming into work.

Although it’s difficult in the corporate world to find employee satisfaction that is meaningful and lasting, as management, it’s your job to see to it your employees feel appreciated, which in turn will result in better teamwork, better attitudes and an eagerness to contribute.

Gregg Lederman, in his book CRAVE: You Can Enhance Employee Motivation in 10 Minutes by Friday, explains, “Strategic employee recognition is a management discipline that goes way beyond ‘being the right thing to do.’ Recognition should not be viewed only as a feel-good, altruistic endeavor. No, it’s a management discipline that should garner significant ROI.”

What makes Susan feel rewarded and valued won’t be the same as what motivates Kari or Chad. People are individuals, and being recognized in a way that is meaningful to them shows you care enough about them as individuals to acknowledge them as such. In my years of working with people in leadership positions, I always emphasize the importance of knowing enough about your employees to understand what they value individually as a reward. My advice is: If you don’t know, just ask. Most people are more than happy to relate what makes them feel appreciated.

If you are a supervisor or manager of a group of employees, it’s very important to understand that they aren’t robots. They require a human touch and frequent motivation. As a leader, it is your job to provide that. If you don’t, you’re going to find yourself constantly trying to fill the same positions over and over as unmotivated people get discouraged and quit.

In their book The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People, Gary Chapman and Paul White offer, “When leaders actively pursue teaching their team members how to communicate authentic appreciation in the ways desired by the recipients, the whole work culture improves. Interestingly, even managers and supervisors report they enjoy their work more! All of us thrive in an atmosphere of appreciation.”

My clients are often surprised how far a little bit of encouragement propels their employees and organization. In my experience, ignoring or discounting the importance of employee motivation often leads to disengagement.

In the HBR article “4 Reasons Good Employees Lose Their Motivation” (registration required), authors Richard E. Clark and Bror Saxberg offer this advice: “Carefully assessing the nature of the motivational failure — before taking action — is crucial. Applying the wrong strategy (say, urging an employee to work harder, when the reason is that they’re convinced they can’t do it) can actually backfire, causing motivation to falter further.”

They explain that these reasons fit into four categories: values mismatch, lack of self-efficacy, disruptive emotions and attribution errors.

Basically, the first one, values mismatch, means the employee isn’t connected with the value of the task and therefore is disinclined to perform the task. With the second “trap” (as they refer to it), the lack of self-efficacy points to the feeling that the employee is afraid they aren’t capable of performing the task, and so they are fearful of appearing incompetent.

I’ve seen that when employees are overwhelmed with negative emotions, such as frustration or anger, they feel overcome by disruptive emotions, and it interrupts their ability to be motivated enough to perform a task. When the managers I’ve worked with take the responsibility to recognize these signs and remove hindrances that are holding their employees back from their true potential, things change for the better.

It’s important to understand that the work your employees are doing needs to make a difference in some way and for you to help them see it, too. Otherwise, your employees will grow restless and feel automated. It’s up to you to inject some passion and help them to see how valuable they are to the organization. Let your employees know on a frequent basis that they are welcome any time to come to you for feedback and sincere communication, and you will reap the benefits of a motivated workforce.

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This article has previously been featured on Forbes

How To Prepare For Your Performance Review

Giving a thorough and fair performance appraisal requires a lot of skill and a fair amount of work by your manager. If you are an active participant in the process by providing your manager with accurate details of your accomplishments spanning the timeframe — a highlight reel as it were — you’ll be doing yourself a big favor.

As a leadership coach, I’ve developed a few tips for how you can prepare yourself for your next performance review:

Share accomplishments with your boss.

It’s important to remember that your supervisor or manager is likely as overwhelmed as you are. Time is a limited resource for all of us. Your bosses already have their deadlines and statistics to meet, so writing accurate and fair performance evaluations for your team is no easy feat. Because of this, don’t expect your manager to have noticed every single one of your many accomplishments.

In his book I Am Not Average: How to Succeed in Your Performance Review, Brian Poggi explained that in every organization, there are people who are the “glue.” They continue to raise the bar on their contributions and the value they bring. So use your annual review to brag on yourself. If you don’t, who will?

One of the kindest favors you can do for your supervisor (and ultimately for yourself) is to prepare an accurate and well-worded list of accomplishments for the past year and submit it on time or — better yet — early. Believe me, your conscientiousness and forethought will be recognized and very much appreciated. As a boss, there is almost nothing worse than trying to chase an employee down for their list of accomplishments. If they can’t be bothered, why should the boss care? The employees who will end up getting the most love (read: attention and care on their evaluation) are the ones who understand the priority of getting that annual accomplishment list turned in on time.

When you make this list, remember several important things:

• Bosses love numbers. Give accurate, quantitative information whenever possible.

• Review your job description. Give facts and figures to illustrate how you’ve met those requirements.

• Review last year’s review. How have you improved? How have you addressed any past issues?

In Inc., Jayson DeMers wrote, “Take inventory of all the accomplishments you’ve had over the past year (or the evaluation period) and list them out. Use objective data whenever possible — that means verifiable numbers.”

Although your boss might be constantly busy with the office door shut, take the time to check in regularly. Don’t make it long and tedious. Hit the highlights, ask the questions you need to ask (such as, “Am I headed in the right direction on the Crocker account?”), then get out of their way.

Address areas of concern.

The most uncomfortable part of any performance evaluation is usually regarding how you plan to rectify any deficiencies or concerns. It’s usually coupled with how you’ve improved from your last evaluation and how you’ve addressed any issues that were previously presented.

If you have any issues that you feel need to be addressed, bring them up, but be prepared to offer solutions. No one wants to hear about a bunch of problems in your working environment or your job when you don’t even have an idea of how to solve them. Don’t simply dump your problems on your manager.

Do your research before asking for a raise.

If you feel and can prove your service has been exceptional and you want to state your case for a raise, be sure you’ve researched current salaries for equivalent positions in your area. Without that information, you won’t have much traction.

Use your review as a guide for the rest of the year.

Ideally, you should start preparing for your next performance review only a few days after your previous one. Take some time to divorce yourself from any emotional connections to the evaluation. Re-read any documents you received in a quiet environment and consider the points that were made. Did your boss want you to step up more? Did they suggest you take the lead on an important project? Did they want you to stop turning in your reports late?

This is a perfect opportunity for your professional growth. Make notes, and put them in a coherent system — whether that system consists of notes on your calendar for the next year or is a cheat sheet you can glance at once a week. This system is your “study guide” for the next year. If you find yourself slipping back to your old ways, use your notes to snap your attention back to the matters you should be concentrating on. It’s your manager’s job to help your career growth. But if you ignore that advice, you’ll only have yourself to blame when the next mediocre review comes around.

When setting your goals for the next year, I’ve found it can be helpful to heed the advice of HBR’s Guide to Performance Management, which explained that people can sometimes become overwhelmed by complex goals. So, it can be helpful to break a large goal down into smaller, short-term pieces. According to the guide, “Setting monthly or quarterly goals, rather than annual ones, can narrow the focus enough to make the target achievable while still having a big impact.”

If your boss offers goals that are constructed in too big of a chunk, suggest a breakdown that is bite-sized.

In conclusion, if you want to advance in any organization, you’ll have to work for it. Take the time to put the effort into your performance review, and your dedication, attention to detail and desire to ascend in the organization will be readably apparent to your manager — perhaps distinguishing you as an up-and-comer.

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This article has previously been featured on Forbes

How To Mitigate Bias In Your Organization

There are multiple types of bias we humans can exhibit. None of them require any particular malice aforethought. Rather, they are natural offshoots of human development. We unconsciously group things together for fast and easy access in our brains. We automatically reach for what is familiar and broadly applicable.

We evolved to make rapid life or death decisions based on various sensory inputs occurring in a very short timeline. For example, imagine there’s an animal moving stealthily toward you with sharp teeth, stripes and a tail. You might have a series of thoughts that remind you that animals like that could potentially eat you, so it’s probably a bad idea to wait around and see what happens. Time for the fight or flight instinct to kick in.

While one’s biases can evolve, it’s important to realize when a bias is helpful and when it is harmful. For example, in my experience, if you find yourself using it to take a shortcut in making decisions in the corporate world, it’s almost always a detriment.

What are a few different types of bias you might see in the workplace?

• Unconscious bias: With unconscious bias (also referred to as implicit bias), we don’t even realize the bias we are thinking or exhibiting. For example, when hiring for a tech position, do you automatically assume that a younger person will perform better than a baby boomer? Obviously, if it’s unconscious, you’re not aware of it. It’s likely you’ll need a friend, colleague or mentor to point out this type of thinking and behavior.

• Confirmation bias: This form of bias is when we pay more attention to things we already believe. For example, you might think that just because an employee is talented in one area, they’re talented in other areas. But, that isn’t always the case.

• Attribution bias: This is when we believe someone’s behavior in a way we think should be true or accurate. We might attribute someone’s behavior to be altruistic because we believe them to be “good.” For example, if you get a good performance review, you attribute it to being hardworking and dedicated. But if get a poor performance review, you might attribute it to the boss not liking you.

Now that we understand what bias can look like in the workplace, how can we proactively seek to avoid it?

1. Recognize your bias.

First of all, it’s important to acknowledge that bias exists. For example, if you’re trying to decide who really deserves a raise and you find your mind drifting toward which employee needs it more than the others (rather than looking at merit), it’s important you can stop, realize you’re being influenced by a bias instead of logic, and redirect.

If you’re trying to decide who’s most qualified for a big promotion, stick to facts, figures and past proven performance. Don’t let yourself be swayed by who would fit in best with the management group or who would most likely fit with the status quo. Ask a colleague to block out names and identifying information on applications for promotion. If you’re looking strictly at facts, it’s difficult for bias to creep into the equation. Another option is to have someone in a lateral position check your thought process.

2. Be committed to mitigating bias in your organization.

In her book Diversity Beyond Lip Service: A Coaching Guide for Challenging Bias, author La’Wana Harris said, “Having people who think, act, and perform differently from you helps you grow and expand your ability to contribute more broadly across your organization. Your ideas can become more refined and relevant when the views of others — especially opposing views — are there to challenge your thinking.”

This is why I’ve also found it’s important to not just give lip service to bias mitigation. In my career, I’ve heard many CEOs and human resources professionals discuss diversity and inclusion in the workplace with no apparent conviction. It’s as if they were all issued the same script and instructed to read it with no passion at all.

However, if you take the time to understand the thought processes of people who are different from you, it can bring you to an understanding of what and how they think. Once you can see an issue from multiple viewpoints, it drives you to feel differently about the value of bias mitigation. When you can actually feel and understand an issue from alternate perspectives, it will help generate the passion that can compel change.

3. Speak up when you see others display biased behaviors.

Then there’s the issue of bad behavior in the workplace threatening to tear down what diversity and inclusion your company does possess. It’s often difficult to take a stand on inappropriate behaviors, but it’s necessary. Employees who experience these admittedly uncomfortable situations must accept their responsibility to respectfully quash the divisive actions, especially if they are in a management position. If the unacceptable behavior is not addressed, it implies that somehow it is acceptable.

It does take courage to be the one who doesn’t agree with a questionable comment or joke, especially when you’re the only one in the group who seemingly objects. But remember that others in the crowd might see the faults in it, too; they just don’t want to be seen as the one who rocks the boat.

In her article for the Harvard Business Review, “How to Speak Up if You See Bias at Work,” Amber Lee Williams pointed out, “The bottom line is that patterns of unchecked biased and offensive behavior in the workplace have the potential to erode full employee participation and take a toll on organizational effectiveness.”

Although everyone in the organization should feel empowered and encouraged to uphold the dignified vision of workplace equality, if the frontline people don’t see it reflected in the behavior of those in the C-suite, the initiative will never realize its full potential.

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This article has previously been featured on Forbes