To build a successful and sustainable business, you need a team of employees who bring their unique abilities, strengths and perspectives to the challenges you will face. But to draw and keep talented individuals who have a variety of skills and personality types, you need a key skill: You have to learn how to lead people who are different than you. Many books on leadership provide valuable insights into key skills and abilities needed to effectively lead others. But one concept that is not stressed enough is: to lead a successful team, you have to understand those who are not like... Continue reading...
One key way to understand employees – what their daily life is like and what is important to them – is to ask them directly. We recently conducted a poll of 400+ remote employees to find out what they like and dislike about working remotely. It is important to note that a key factor leading to misunderstanding employees is to assume that all members of a group are similar. This seems to be the current case with regards to remote employees. Most discussions are about “remote employees,” as if they are all the same. But this is clearly not the... Continue reading...
We are in a weird stage in our culture. On the one hand, the levels of disconnectedness and loneliness are at record high levels for recent history. Although they may be surrounded by other people, individuals feel lonely. On the other hand, the advances in technology over the past one hundred years have allowed us to communicate with one another at a level unprecedented throughout all of human history. An event can occur on the other side of the globe, and we can learn about it (and actually become engaged in the interaction) within minutes. But we can easily feel overwhelmed with the... Continue reading...
A vibrant workplace draws people to it — quality, talented employees want to work in a healthy context. A vibrant workplace is the result of an organization that has a clear purpose and mission, is rooted in the resources necessary to grow, and whose individual members work together to grow the organization and produce quality goods and services. In healthy workplaces, employees bring their own gifts and unique personalities to add to the synergy of a dynamic work setting. This is particularly relevant right now. Recent research by the Sloan School of Business at MIT found that during the recent... Continue reading...
Our lives can be demanding and full of stressful situations. And while humor can’t eliminate the strain of daily life, it can lighten our mental load. Humor, laughter and smiling are easy, inexpensive antidotes to negativity and difficult circumstances. Humor relieves stress and improves our mental health, and it’s not just good for our personal lives – it can be important part of our work experience too. Even though we don’t really need research to confirm what we all know, here a few facts from the Mayo Clinic. Laughter: Why Humor at Work Matters The workplace has been a source... Continue reading...
February 27, 2023 9:09 am
By nature, we all tend to speak our own language of appreciation. If Acts of Service make me feel appreciated, then I will tend to pitch in and help my colleagues. If Quality Time makes me feel appreciated, then I may often go out of my way to stop by a teammate’s office and check in to see how they are doing. If Words of Affirmation make me feel appreciated, then you can expect that I will give use verbal praise to those with whom I work. If a high five energizes me and makes me feel appreciated, I will... Continue reading...
February 20, 2023 9:07 am
Since a larger proportion of the workforce has moved to remote and hybrid work, it seems reasonable to ask whether employees who work remotely have different preferences for being shown appreciation than those who work onsite. To find out, we conducted a research study with almost 90,000 individuals who had taken our online assessment, the Motivating By Appreciation Inventory. We found that Words of Affirmation continues to be the most desired appreciation language, but remote employees chose Quality Time as their primary language of appreciation more frequently (35% of employees) than workers on-site (25%). This finding seems logical – those off-site desire more... Continue reading...
February 13, 2023 9:00 am
A challenge in successfully managing relationships with remote team members is that there is not just one type of remote employee – although we tend to talk about them that way. We clump them all together, discussing how to deal with “remote employees” when, in reality, a wide variety of different relationships exist among remote workers, just as is the case with onsite team members. One obvious variable to consider is the type of employee and their job function. Who works remotely? Executives and administrators. Managers. Supervisors. Front-line workers. Accountants. Customer Service associates. Salespeople. Administrative Assistants. HR Directors. Just as... Continue reading...
A question I am asked fairly frequently is whether a person’s preferred language of appreciation changes over time. We don’t currently have a definitive answer for that but we are in the midst of researching it. However, there are some helpful data points which provide some direction. As we work with companies and organizations across the world, we have the privilege to discuss a variety of specific issues with our clients, hear their questions, and receive feedback from them. Let’s explore some factors we have observed that affect the primary ways individuals like to be appreciated. Life Circumstances First, one’s... Continue reading...
Trust is critical for any functional relationship—with our family, our friends, and even our work-based relationships. For life to work, we have to trust. The issue of trust—and mistrust—is powerfully relevant in our culture today. We hear comments about trust all over the news and frequently in personal conversations: “I trust that guy about as far as I can throw him.” Trust is essential to work-based relationships for many reasons: effective teamwork, collaboration with suppliers, smooth functioning of the organization to produce goods and services, better customer relationships and, ultimately, to obtain optimal outcomes. MISTRUST IN WORK RELATIONSHIPS There are... Continue reading...
Change is difficult to accomplish – for individuals, groups, and especially organizations. While we can see the need for change, and want to help the organization (or our department) to function better, enacting change can be frustrating. In fact, there is a whole profession devoted to assisting organizations implement needed changes; they are called “Change Management Specialists (CMS).” The critical question is: What can you do when you are frustrated about the lack (or pace) of change in your organization? I’m going to give you some foundational, beginning steps with which to start and then refer you to an article... Continue reading...
Most people who achieve healthy personal goals tend to incorporate the same tools to assist them in moving toward their aspirations. These individuals commonly utilize four key skills to help their lives move forward in a healthy direction. But some of these tools are not valued or widely embraced in our culture, which makes consistently utilizing them more difficult. Four Important (but often Countercultural) Steps to Incorporate into Your Life Lots of lists exist which outline the “ten most important characteristics of leaders.” These are typically helpful. However, just as we can identify critical nutrients needed to be physically healthy,... Continue reading...
Most of us don’t need new goals for the year. Really, we don’t. But we do need to continue to progress toward our current goals (and, hopefully reach some of them). Additionally, we need to make some adjustments from the feedback we are receiving from “real life.” In working with highly successful leaders for over two decades and interviewing them about what they believe contributed to their success, two principles rose to the top: Most often, people don’t reach their goals because they give up pursuing them. And, guess what? When you quit pursuing your goals, you don’t reach them.... Continue reading...
December 19, 2022 9:00 am
Determining if you should give a gift to those with whom you work—colleagues, supervisors, managers, and direct reports – can be one of the more anxiety-inducing activities around the holiday season. If you do decide that you want to give an employee gift, the practical issue becomes: “What should I give them?” While some may think giving employees gifts isn’t valued in the workplace, many find these small tokens of appreciation go a long way. We conducted research with individuals who prefer being shown appreciation through gifts. Responses from 500 employees who were randomly selected out of a group of... Continue reading...
December 12, 2022 9:00 am
To be blunt – end of year holiday celebrations have become a significant source of pain for a lot of people. Planning (and experiencing) these events creates a lot of angst and anxiety – to the point that many have asked, “Why do we keep doing them?” The answer is often, “because we’ve always done them before.” Even though, by itself, this is a rather absurd answer, it actually points to the real reason workplace holiday celebrations continue: expectations. And when expectations aren’t met, bad results follow: disappointment, complaining, negative comments, unhappy people, and lots of questions (“Why didn’t we... Continue reading...
A major misconception many people have is that communicating appreciation is essentially a verbal act – saying thank you, giving a compliment, or sharing with a colleague why you appreciate them. So, when people hear the term ‘appreciation,’ many automatically think of words. The problem is: this is only part of the picture. Consider the following: If You Have to Use Words . . . While Words of Affirmation is the easiest language for most people to understand and use, they aren’t always implemented effectively. We have found that following a few simple tips can make a significant difference. To... Continue reading...
November 28, 2022 9:00 am
Team leaders are often encouraged (bombarded is actually a better word) to communicate appreciation to colleagues during the Thanksgiving holiday season. Expressing thanks for a job well done is sure to be received well, right? Not necessarily. At times, clueless managers are at risk for saying thanks in ways that won’t be received well. They don’t really “get” appreciation and what the big deal is – but they try anyway, and often their actions seriously miss the mark and actually wind up being offensive. Here are some actions to avoid: The “Who is this person impersonating our supervisor?” card. The... Continue reading...
November 14, 2022 9:21 am
A Survival Guide for Talking about the Election at Work Well, here we are, on the verge of the 2022 midterm elections. The tension in the air is notable within the culture at large, on the airwaves and Internet, within families, and at workplaces. It is virtually inescapable. A number of factors combine to create a significant sense of uneasiness for most of us: So, the tension we feel is justified. What to Do? The behavioral options for responding to the angst we feel are almost as numerous as individual personalities. But there are five general responses, on a continuum,... Continue reading...
Change in the workplace is inevitable. Previously, change largely stemmed from response to external circumstances, like marketplace forces, or they were part of a larger institutional plan to create growth and improvement. But since the advent of the COVID pandemic, change seems to be the only constant in the workplace. Changes in the foundations of how we work and where we work are ever evolving and lead to uncertainty, anxiety, resistance, low morale and more, all of which can take their toll on employees. The good news is, managing reactions to change can be made easier if the change occurs... Continue reading...
(it’s what’s underneath that’s cause for concern) The recent cultural focus on ‘Quiet Quitting’ is a fascinating study in social psychology and influence. Like other 21st-century social megatrends (for example, shaming), quiet quitting isn’t a new phenomenon. Rather, it is a set of behaviors and attitudes that have existed for millennia but have recently been renamed and given attention. Wikipedia (the ultimate authority of defining all things modern) states: “Quiet quitting is an application of work-to-rule, in which employees work within defined work hours and engage solely in activities within those hours. Despite the name, the philosophy of ... Continue reading...
Our business is built around encouraging leaders and colleagues to show appreciation to their coworkers and training teams to do so effectively. But there are times and situations when we recommend not communicating appreciation (or, at least, waiting). Sometimes, encouraging your colleagues is not the best course of action to take. In fact, doing so at the wrong time can actually backfire and create more problems. Here are some circumstances when you should reconsider whether or not to proactively communicate appreciation to those with whom you work: When a relationship is tense. If you are in a work relationship that... Continue reading...
As we prepare to launch our newest industry-specific MBAI for Veterinary Clinics, we thought we would answer a frequently asked question. Why do we create industry-specific versions of our MBAI assessment? Here are a few of the factors that lead to their creation: Our goal is always to provide relevant, practical and easily applied resources to help team members communicate appreciation effectively to one another. We don’t want people who are taking the inventory to feel that it isn’t relevant to their industry or workplace. While our general workplace version of the inventory fits most office settings, some workplaces utilize... Continue reading...
When people are introduced to the concept of communicating appreciation in the workplace, a number of questions are frequently raised. Sometimes the questions seem more like a defensive response, with the individual putting up an obstacle that they hope will relieve them from having to take the topic seriously. But many times, the person seems to be thinking through how the concept would apply to their daily work life. So, let’s identify and address some of the most frequently raised issues. “I barely have time to get my normal, daily tasks done each day. How will I find the time... Continue reading...
Let’s be honest, sometimes we have a hard time appreciating some of our colleagues. The reality is: some people are more difficult to work with than others. There are weird people; angry, irritable colleagues; people with a lousy work ethic, and those that aren’t friendly (gruff would be a better descriptor). And there are others we just don’t understand or click with. What can you do? Here are a few tips: Don’t try to fake it. Whatever you do, don’t try to act like you appreciate someone if you really don’t. Most people have very sensitive radar for when others aren’t being... Continue reading...
September 26, 2022 9:00 am
Toxic achievers pose a serious dilemma for business owners, managers, and supervisors. On the one hand, they get the job done — quickly, and more successfully than their peers. So, their work production or sales numbers look great. On the other hand, they create major headaches due to the way they relate to others, their condescending attitude, and their propensity to frequently want exceptions to company policies and procedures. 7 Signs of a Toxic Achiever How do you know if one of your team members is a toxic achiever, or just a pretty good producer who can be irritating to... Continue reading...
September 19, 2022 9:00 am
How to Have a Terrible, Awful, Very Bad Day (Guaranteed) Sometimes we focus on the positives in life – gratitude, appreciation, healthy relationships—and how to obtain (or maintain) them in our lives. But there are times when it can be helpful to remind ourselves of the habits and thought patterns that lead us down the path to having a bad day (or week, month or year!). Let’s take a brief look at the things that take us down the road to nowhere good, so we can acknowledge and avoid them in our lives. Our experience of life is directly related... Continue reading...
September 12, 2022 9:00 am
Do you know someone who works in one of the professional trades? Carpentry, Construction, Electrical, HVAC, Insulation, Landscaping, Mechanic Painting, Plumbing, Remodeling, Roofing, Stone Mason / Bricklayer Just like every other industry, employees and supervisors in the trades need to know the work they do is valued by others. And, similar to many other work sectors, the ability to find (and keep) qualified team members is a tremendous challenge today. We have just completed the creation of the “Trades” version of our Motivating By Appreciation Inventory to help supervisors and employees learn how to communicate appreciation in ways that fit... Continue reading...
September 6, 2022 8:45 am
Sometimes, when business leaders first hear about the 5 languages of appreciation, their initial response is, “Work is getting things done. I don’t care how people feel about it.” My response is that, while I understand their hesitation, the goal of appreciation isn’t to make others feel good (though that is a nice byproduct). The real goal is to help create a healthy, functioning organization. This distinction is important because good employees are not easy to find, develop or keep. And business owners and managers are at risk for misunderstanding how to keep their team members. Many believe their employees... Continue reading...
Feeling awkward about communicating appreciation among team members is normal. This “weirdness factor” is a common reaction when the 5 languages of appreciation are first introduced and teams begin to implement the concepts. It can feel particularly uncomfortable to speak words of affirmation to a colleague you aren’t used to talking to, or aren’t sure what kinds of words to use. What are common signs of people feeling “weird” about the appreciation process? Fear. Fear that others will think you are communicating appreciation “just because we are supposed to.” Fear that people will think your communication is not authentic or... Continue reading...
