Copyright © 2008 Steven S. Little (used by permission)

What I’ve come to learn is that growth leaders are distinctive not only in their actions, but also in their attributes. These specific attributes are more like personality traits than true management skills, and they ultimately build trust:

Timely — Every day I deal with people who say they want to grow their company, community, or association. And I know they truly mean it. Often one of the key factors that impede their progress, however, is how they choose to allocate their time and that of others. When I look at how they actually spend their time, I find that they revert back to their default setting — what they know best. They fill their days working on the tasks they are most comfortable completing.

In contrast, successful leaders devote the majority of their time to those areas that truly need it. They make timely decisions as often as decisions are needed — no more and no less.

Time is not something to be filled with activity for activity’s sake. Leaders understand the nature of time and are skilled at prioritizing it to make an impact. They understand that being timely does not come from Day-Timers, longer hours, or an increasing workload. For some, this prowess is innate. For others it is a skill that must be honed through experience. Yet make no mistake about it; it is impossible to lead a growth charge without mastering the importance of time.

(Most managers simply get up and do what they want to do. Growth leaders get up and do what needs to be done.)

Realistic — Many joke that reality is overrated. It certainly is easier to don our rose-colored glasses and see only what we want to see. What distinguishes growth leaders is their unrelenting focus on what really is and what truly can be. While positive thinking has its place, delusions are dangerous.

“Our product is the best.” “Our team is superior.” “Our customers love us.” “Our cause is more important than any other.” Really? Let’s can the empty slogans, take down the banners, and throwaway the T-shirts. Today, it takes a pragmatic realist to separate the true picture from the conventional groupthink.

Facing reality isn’t merely a good idea; it’s an imperative. Your organization is depending on someone to challenge the organization’s most closely held beliefs today. Why couldn’t that be a leader like you? Too often, closely held beliefs are kept on our shelves long past their expiration dates. Growth leaders seek only the truth and welcome any and all reality checks.

Unscripted — Today our world is filled with skeptics. People are simply jaded, and why shouldn’t they be? Over the past 50 years we’ve lived through disgraced presidents, dubious armed conflicts, pilfered pensions, and “new and improved” products that are clearly neither new nor improved. We live in a world where much of what comes at us from organizations is spin, propaganda, and distorted half-truths. It should be obvious to any twenty-first-century leader that many people are reluctant to believe anything. Everyone’s bullshit detector has become finely calibrated.

What we long for is authenticity. We want leaders who speak plainly and from the heart, not from talking points. We want bosses who reject corporate mumbo jumbo. We want professionals who don’t cloak themselves in a blanket of CYA-speak.

In order to lead, it is critical to master the authenticity. Reject the tired clichés, lose the latest buzzwords, and say what you mean and mean what you say.

Sensitive — This is a loaded term. While it has many definitions, here I mean perceptive. Sensitive leaders are acutely aware of their surroundings and are keenly observant. They have an intuitive knack for understanding the motivations of others. They are able to feel the barely perceptible winds of change long before the actual storm. They have the uncanny ability to gain insight from seemingly disparate data.

How well do you read others in complex social situations? How much do you trust your gut feelings? How well do you handle displays of emotion in yourself and others? How easily do you move from perception to action?

Most growth leaders are naturals at these types of skills. Others need to regularly extricate themselves from day-to-day activities to work on them. Either way, being sensitive is an attribute that gives leaders another arrow in their organizational growth quiver.

Transparent — It’s human nature not to trust those who attempt to hide things from us. For instance, when an organization gets into trouble and spirals downward because of a public relations crisis, it nearly always has something to do with not being transparent. Most of the great corporate and political scandals of the modern age have had more to do with cover-ups than with the original act of wrongdoing itself.

In contrast, people and organizations that are transparent in their actions are the ones that consistently grow and come out ahead in the long run. Those who are forthcoming with information — good and bad — can more effectively lead a team to accomplish great things.

An organization itself can and should be transparent, but to be so it needs leaders who are transparent in their actions. An active beehive hanging in a tree looks to me as ominous as the Death Star in a Star Wars movie. I definitely don’t trust it. But have you ever seen a cross section of a beehive? By placing it behind glass we can see the fascinating inner workings of an efficient organization. Somehow, knowing what each of those busy bees is up to puts my mind at ease.

Employees, customers, vendors, and shareholders know what to expect from transparent leaders. Fostering transparency takes commitment and confidence. It can be tempting to hide problems, but the transparent leader knows that the truth eventually slips out anyway — and often looks worse than it did originally. As an ancient Eastern adage says, “Three things cannot be hidden forever: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”

Copyright © 2008 Steven S. Little

1. Find out what parts of their jobs people find the most rewarding. Provide them with opportunities to perform these tasks.
2. Acknowledge work that is done well. We all want to be recognized. Employees—and supervisors—need to know what they are doing is important and appreciated.
3. Be enthusiastic. Demonstrate purpose, commitment and inspiration to your employees.
4. Create an upbeat work environment. Use patience and understanding when working with members of your group.
5. Create an environment of growth. Encourage employees to take on new responsibilities within their capabilities. Give employees opportunity to expand their capabilities through education and training.
6. Lead by example. It’s not what you say or believe. It is about what you do.
7. Be available. Encourage your employees to approach you with their work-related concerns and suggestions.
8. Share your authority. Give employees latitude in solving problems and in performing their tasks.
9. Share the planning. Include the those responsible for meeting objectives and goals in the process of developing them.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with a day for appreciating employees, as long as it is part of a bigger—and ongoing—strategy to reward employees.

Eric Mosely, CEO of Globoforce—a provider of employee recognition solutions—offers advice on how to make employee appreciation a year-round effort designed to reward, motivate and engage employees. He offers these five keys to employee engagement:

1. Build a “Culture of Appreciation” Year Round: Use Employee Appreciation Day to kickoff a new, year-round employee recognition effort or energize your existing one. By recognizing and rewarding employees throughout the year, it creates a culture of appreciation and a highly motivated and satisfied workforce within your organization.
2. Create a “Recognition Moment” through Meaningful Rewards: Giving employees the generic company watch or one-size-fits-all “gift” is an uninspiring way to say thank you. Rather, award your employees by giving them a choice of meaningful, self-selected rewards such as gift cards, quality merchandise or travel vouchers. When employees redeem their award, it will create an important “recognition moment”—with impact.
3. Empower Everyone in the Process—From the Board Room to the Mail Room: Employee recognition should not reside solely on the shoulders of management. Every person in the organization should be empowered to acknowledge their peers and co-workers for a job well done. This enables frequent recognition and engages the entire staff—not just the top 10 percent—in the process.
4. Tie Rewards to the Bigger Picture for Bigger Results: Employee recognition should be directly linked to the company’s vision/mission. This aligns the entire workforce toward achieving critical company milestones.
5. Communicate, Again and Again: Frequent program communication raises awareness, increases participation, boosts performance, and most importantly, helps develop that important culture of appreciation.

What do you think? Is he offering useful advice, or is it just a sales pitch to sell his product? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

While the stats cited in the video are from American sources, I suspect the numbers for Canadian workplaces are similar.

In a non-profit organization, we’re not worried about customer engagement. The measure of our success is, once a client has used our services or gone through a program, we never see them again.

However, effective deliverly of services and programs also requires employees who are engaged. The motivation for working at a non-profit may, at some level, be different than working at a for-profit, but our employees still want to be engaged.

A recent report from the Shepell·fgi Research Group finds most Canadian employees value being engaged in their job more than a pay raise.

The report found that how employees are treated and how they view their managers had almost twice the impact on their satisfaction than pay and benefits—meaning more money doesn’t move the productivity meter upwards.

“Total employee engagement won’t happen one hundred per cent of the time,” says Rod Phillips, President & CEO of Shepell·fgi. “We all like some parts our job more than others. But when overall engagement is low and when your staff prefer to not come into work or aren’t performing at their full capacity, it costs the organization money – up to an average cost of $1.8 million for a company of a thousand employees.”

Shepell·fgi’s report, Employee Engagement & Health: An EAP’s Role & Perspective, identifies seven key indicators of employee satisfaction that can be empirically linked to a company’s bottom line:

1. Trust in senior management
2. Being asked for input on workplace decisions that affect their work
3. Clear understanding of vision and strategy
4. Trust in supervisors
5. Recognition and praise for good work
6. Clear say in decisions affecting their work
7. Caring and considerate supervisors

“Given their importance, these indicators should be on every employers’ radar screens – but fewer than half of executives report their workplaces achieved healthy levels within these indicators,” says Paula Allen, Vice-President, Health Solutions and the Shepell·fgi Research Group. “This suggests a significant engagement deficit in Canadian workplaces.”

Support programs for employees can effectively help mitigate part of the problem and improve the engagement factor. The report finds that companies with Employee Assistance Programs achieve:

• lower levels of employee anxiety, dissatisfaction and turnover
• higher perceptions of fair compensation
• higher levels of growth and development opportunities
• higher levels of meaningful work.

Employee Assistance Programs can play a role in a healthy workplace strategy. However, employers need to recognize that the way employees are treated at work is important.

Recognizing, thanking and motivating volunteers is a vital part of a good volunteer program. Here is a list of ideas—both big and small—to thank and recognize their contributions.

1. Smile at them. Acknowledge their presence on site.
2. Treat them to a coffee or meal.
3. Reimburse any of the out-of-pocket expenses.
4. Send a birthday, holiday and thank-you cards to volunteers and their families.
5. Give service pins or certificates.
6. Plan an annual recognition program.
7. Provide good pre-service orientation and training.
8. Hold volunteer meetings and ask for input.
9. Enable them to grow on the job.
10. Create a pleasant work environment.
11. Enlist experienced volunteers to train new volunteers.
12. Take time to talk and listen.
13. Have a plan: job descriptions and task lists for volunteers.
14. Carefully match volunteer with job
15. Provide scholarships to volunteer conferences or workshops
16. Utilize volunteers on advisory committees.
17. Celebrate National Volunteer Week.
18. Nominate them for volunteer awards.
19. Praise them to their friends and peers
20. Provide in-service training
21. Plan staff and volunteer social events
22. Promote a “Volunteer-of-the-month” program
23. Send letter of appreciation to their employer
24. Plan a “Recognition Edition” the organisation’s newsletter.
25. Send commendatory letters to prominent public figures
26. Say, “we missed you.” when they are away.
27. Award special citations for extraordinary achievements
28. Plan a theatre party
29. Have a picnic
30. Have employees adopt a volunteer as a “secret friend”.
31. Have a volunteer planning retreat.
32. Create a volunteer bulletin board with announcements, pictures, and recognition.

Employee want to:

• know their work is appreciated and valued
• be included in the decision making process
• have fair working conditions
• engage in satisfying and challenging work
• grow through development and tactful discipline
• receive appropriate help with personal problems

Supervisors need to:

1. acknowledge a job well done
2. understand and respond to employee concerns
3. communicate openly with everyone
4. recognize personal problems and assist where possible or direct employee to a source of help
5. avoid idle threats about job security
6. carefully consider employee concerns about working conditions
7. live up to their commitments
8. listen, investigate and consider before disciplining
9. be consistent – treating each employee in the same, fair fashion

Largest Ever Study of Global Workforce Finds Senior Management Holds Trigger to Unleash Talent Potential

TORONTO, OCTOBER 22, 2007 – A survey of nearly 90,000 workers worldwide, including 5,000 people in Canada, reveals that employees do not believe their organizations or their senior management are doing enough to motivate them to go the extra mile at work and contribute to their companies’ success.

The Global Workforce study conducted by professional services firm Towers Perrin found that only 6% of Canadians believe senior management treats people as if they’re the most important part of the organization (and 10% globally).

Despite people’s strong desire to become ‘engaged’ in their work, meaning they’re willing to go the extra mile to help their company succeed, only 23% in Canada (vs 21% globally) are currently engaged at work. Of serious concern for management and investors, 32% of Canadian employees are partly to fully ‘disengaged’. This highlights a significant gap – which Towers Perrin has dubbed the “engagement gap” – between the discretionary effort that people actually want to invest and companies’ effectiveness at tapping into this effort to enhance business performance.

The study found that companies with the highest levels of employee engagement achieve better financial results and are more successful in retaining their most valued employees than companies with lower levels of engagement.

“It’s impossible to overstate the importance of an engaged workforce on a company’s bottom-line,” states Kevin Aselstine, Managing Principal at Towers Perrin in Toronto. “We analyzed financial results versus employee engagement levels at 40 global companies. We found that firms with the highest percentage of engaged employees collectively increased operating income 19% and earnings per share 28% year-to-year. By contrast, the companies with the lowest percentage of engaged employees showed year-to-year declines of 33% in operating income and 11% in earnings per share.”

The unveiling of the survey findings coincides with a landmark in Canadian history, with Canada’s unemployment rate dipping below six per cent for the first time in 33 years – giving people many more choices about employment options. Employers will have concerns that only one third (32%) of Canadians have no plans to change their current jobs, since their ability to hold on to key talent may be compromised. Driving engagement up, however, can make a real difference. The study shows that among the 23% of Canadians who are fully engaged at work, fully 52% plan to stay with their current employer.

“These mobility numbers sound an alarm for employers,” said Michel Tougas, Managing Principal for Towers Perrin in Montreal. “At a time when the balance of power in the labour market is shifting from employers to employees – or from buyers of talent to sellers – companies should be focusing on how to engage their workforce, in order to help them both attract and retain talent.”

The study clearly demonstrates that the engagement gap poses an array of business risks. For instance, more than 80% of engaged employees believe they can and do contribute to the quality of products and services and to customer satisfaction. But only half as many of the disengaged share that view.

Interestingly, the study reveals that Canadians embrace a more optimistic approach to their working life, with a slightly higher learning orientation compared to the global norms. For instance, 69% (versus 58% globally) stated they tend to invest time and effort beyond what is required, and 90% (versus 84% globally) said they enjoy challenging work that allows them to learn new skills.

Employees are also concerned about the credentials and conscience of their organization. Canadian employees, like the rest of the global workforce, are more likely to feel engaged if they are affiliated with an organization with a strong reputation for social responsibility.

“Talent is our most valuable natural resource” adds Tougas. “It’s critical that companies understand their employees as well as they know their customers. If companies aren’t looking directly at their workforce and understanding what it takes to unleash that potential, they will quickly find themselves at a serious competitive disadvantage.”

“You can’t hire or buy an engaged workforce – only leadership can build it,” concludes Aselstine. “While employees want to invest more of themselves to help their employers, our study clearly concludes the onus to tap into this productivity reservoir lies with management’s ability to cultivate an engaged and fully productive workforce. However, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution. Developing and implementing the right ‘engagement recipe’ requires a rigorous review of the organization’s unique situation and challenges to develop a customized human capital strategy.”

Additional detail about the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study is available at www.towersperrin.com/gws.