In Richard’s interview with Pat Lynch regarding the EFCA, she said that employers have a choice, either take care of their people or the unions will. Lynch identified four primary issues on which employees rate their job satisfaction:

• Employee satisfaction with immediate supervisor
• Employee voice – do employees feel safe in challenging the status quo, do employees believe their ideas will be considered
• Employee perceptions of procedural fairness
• Rewards and recognition – these go far beyond compensation, which is not a significant element of satisfaction. Recognition is extremely important.

Richard suggested to start with an online satisfaction survey to learn how employees perceive management and the company and then to act on the results.

He also said, “come back Thursday to hear Miki’s take on keeping employees happy,” which isn’t really fair since everything I write is about keeping them happy and I even have a post called that.

But I’m committed, so let’s do this again.

In today’s language, ‘happy’ means ‘engaged’, which isn’t a new topic—think buy-in, ownership, commitment, involvement, etc.

Although the terms keep changing the behavior has been consistently on management’s radar for decades. The funny part is that the way to achieve it is as old as humanity and ties directly to the Lynch’s four issues.

The big four of engagement are

1. respect;
2. encouragement;
3. support; and
4. rewards.

Although descriptions and phrasing may vary, when all is said and done it always comes down to these four basics.

It’s not as if this is secret management knowledge. There are thousands of books, hundreds of classes, dozens of blogs and forums all teaching variations on this theme. I read a good article on it last year, but it was the comments that had the real value.

The real question then is if it’s that simple, why isn’t it put into practice more often?

MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is the reason. MAP shapes a person’s actions

• If you don’t really believe in the value or numbers 1 or 2, you can talk all day and your people will hear what you say as hollow, i.e., no authenticity.

• Number 3, support, includes skills training and career development. Ingenuity. Not just yours, but your group’s. Your people aren’t dumb, they know when the company can’t/won’t fund training, but there are tons of ways work around that, such as sharing their own expertise with each other during organized brown bag lunch sessions.

• Number 4 usually involves money, but public recognition often ranks higher on the scale. And when there’s an authentic, provable lack of funds to provide significant rewards, every company can find other ways to prove that they value their people’s contributions.

There’s a final component that needs to permeate all ranks of management, it’s what I call the believability factor, BF for short.

Believability is a two-edged sword. A strong BF draws people to you; it helps them hear what you have to say; see the vision that you present; and underscores their willingness to follow your lead. Without it, even the straightest shooters may be casually dismissed.

The flip side is definitely worse, because con people, crooks and even murderers often have BF in abundance.

If you’d like to learn more about how to evaluate your own BF and change it if you so desire, read MAP your BF—at work, at home, even in the bedroom!

In short, keeping people happy means embedding this stuff deep within your culture, because it can’t be faked or implemented in a couple of weeks.

That’s it; it’s not rocket science, but must be done from the top and every level down consistently, sincerely and with great enthusiasm.

Image credit: soul2love on flickr

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Finding and identifying WOW in anything is exciting, fun and always a two-edged sword—which is the most useful kind as well as the most dangerous. When the talk turns to leadership WOW, the adjectives that you hear most frequently these days are “authentic,” meaning real or genuine, and “servant” meaning it’s all about them—as opposed to you.

And while those should be the WOW, they’re upstaged every time by what I call the believability factor, BF for short.

WOW—for better or worse—is found in believability.

The better is obvious. A strong BF draws people to you; it helps them hear what you have to say; see the vision that you present; and underscores their willingness to follow your lead. Without it, even the straightest shooters may be casually dismissed.

The flip side is definitely worse, because con people, crooks and even murderers often have BF in abundance.

For that reason, followers as well as other leaders need to look first for BF, because without it nothing will happen, and then beyond it to be sure that it’s grounded in values that are at least synergistic to their own.

Values are subjective and are part of your MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™). To assume that another person’s values are parallel to your own because you like them, work with/for them, even go to church with them, is naïve—but people do it all the time.

Choosing whom to follow is a responsibility not to be taken lightly or handed off to others. Sure, your choices won’t always be correct, but you will be able to say that you made the best decision possible based on who you were and what you knew at that time—which is the most we can expect of ourselves.

If you’d like to learn more about how to evaluate your own BF and change it if you so desire, read MAP your BF—at work, at home, even in the bedroom!

 Want more WOW factors? Visit Common Sense PR for links to all the WOW today on the Business Channel.

How do you assess BF in those around you?

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MAP (mindset, attitude, philosophy™) is what I coach; BF is short for believability factor and is part of your MAP.

What does it take to be ranked as a good manager today? Not much more than usual, just incite innovation, raise productivity, improve quality and reduce turnover—preferably without spending more money.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was something specific that you could do that would positively affect all of the above, make things better in your personal world and improve your sex life? (Ha, bet that got your attention!) Something that didn’t cost money, was completely within your control and that nobody had to know you were doing—ever?

Yes, there actually is something, not a fix-all silver bullet, but something that offers improvement—the amount depending on where you are now.

It’s not new, not rocket science and you’ve heard part of it time and again: Say what you mean and mean what you say. Actually the full text reads: Say what you mean, mean what you say, then DO what you say. Or, in modern language: Walk your talk.

Your follow-through is the most important. I can’t count the times I’ve heard people at all levels say about their boss some variation of, “S/he really means well, but nothing ever happens.”. If you don’t follow through, then meaning what you say won’t carry much weight with your employees, peers, bosses, and personal-worlders.

The follow-through needs to be 100%, too. A 60% follow-through rate yields a BF of about 40% since perceived results are usually lower than actual results. That disconnect makes it tough to get things done!

Are you disconnected? Easy to know; just count the times (be honest, remember this is between you and you) that you said you were going to do something and didn’t (at least not when you said you would); the times you promised X, but provided Y; the projects started, but not finished; the request for input that was given, but never used.

To find your believability factor assign a number value between one and ten to the said, meant, did, and result, then figure the percentage correlation between said and meant, meant and did, did and result. The results are your internal BF for each part, then add the them together and divide by three for your overall internal BF.

Next, poll the involved people (work or personal-worlders) and ask them to rate you on a scale of one to ten on

• whether you mean what you say;
• how often you do what you say you will do; and
• the frequency of results being what they expected based on what you originally said.

Use these numbers to figure your external BF in each area and for each person.

If you find substantial discrepancies between you and the majority of those polled, it tells you that you need to rethink your self-view. If you find just one or two significantly different from you and the rest, then you could be dealing with a communications problem (but that’s another column).

What’s the BF worth to you? At work you’ll find a direct correlation between your BF and the productivity of those who interface with you, no matter their level—even customers! In your personal world you’ll find the same correlation in your “relationship productivity” whether with your kids, your friends or your softball team. (I’ll let you figure out the application in the bedroom!)

So what do you do about it? First, what you don’t do is make any announcements as to what’s going to change. Change is difficult and serious personal style change is the most difficult because it means censoring yourself, living up to your commitments, learning to say no, not “anal-yzing,” and delegating when possible; in other words, learning that it is more effective to under-promise so that you can (almost) always over-deliver.

Where to start? Take a hint from Nike’s tag line and “just do it.”

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