Way back in 2006 Tom Rath wrote a book called Vital Friends, in which he discusses the vital role friends play in our overall health, happiness and well-being.
“A vital friend could halve your chances of dying of heart disease; speed healing; and reduce your chances of getting cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s, and certain cancers.”
Now fast forward to 2012 where for many loneliness is rampant in spite of having dozens, hundreds or even thousands of Facebook friends and a similar number of followers on Twitter.
The isolation that is a hallmark of loneliness impacts people at work; after all, human emotions can’t be turned on and off like water faucets and some researchers are finally focusing on that.
Executives and managers might be surprised to learn that employees who have best friends at work are seven times more likely to be engaged in their jobs — and, if they have at least three vital friends at work, 96% more likely to be satisfied with their lives.
Loneliness is easily fixed, unlike depression (they are not synonymous)—all that is required is a friend.
This is important to you as a manager, since loneliness affects productivity and creativity.
What can you do?
Encourage better communications.
Provide an avenue for your people to connect in a relaxed atmosphere, whether at work or a more social get together.
Create a buddy system as part of your on boarding efforts.
But the most important action you can take is to pay attention to your people and not assume the problem will fix itself.
Last Friday I cited HBS research that indicates that the best results are achieved when those in charge are both good managers and competent leaders and that the key factor is excellent communications.
Whether you think of yourself as a leader or a manager, communications is about more than talking clearly, it’s about providing all the background necessary for your people to understand why they are doing their jobs, as well as what jobs they are to do.
Think of it this way,
operational communications provide people information on how to do their jobs, while
management communications tell them what their jobs are and why they do them, giving form and purpose.
People need both.
Many of the problems that managers face daily stem from their own poor or inaccurate communications, often as a result of using jargon in an effort to sound sophisticated, knowledgeable and with it.
Jargon doesn’t work for several reasons.
You may not totally understand or be comfortable with the jargon;
your people may have their own individual understanding or be guided by their previous boss’ definitions that have nothing to do with your intended meaning. This happens often enough with words of one or two syllables, let alone multi-syllabic management-babble; or worse,
your people may shut down when they hear jargon.
You can create a relatively jargon-less environment by
keeping it firmly in mind that your goal is to provide your people with all the information needed to understand how to perform their work as correctly, completely, simply, and efficiently as possible; and
providing clear, concise, and complete communications at all times.
Follow these two steps religiously and the results will amaze you,
Productivity will skyrocket; which will
make your company more successful;
your employees happier; and
you a more effective manager with better reviews and an enviable reputation.
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Be sure to check out this months Leadership Development Carnival; it’s been broken up to run over several days, so I can’t repost it here.
Lynn Blodgett, president and C.E.O. of ACS, a Xerox company, believes that all 85,000 ACS employees should think entrepreneurs. He sees a direct correlation between accountability and great the performance—increase the former and the latter goes up. This includes pushing P&L deeply into the organization, which encourages people to spend as if it was their own money.
“So you give people control, hold them accountable, give them control of their resources, and then monitor what they do.”
He also believes the right kind of incentives fuel motivation and engagement.
“I believe that a really important management principle is that if you get the incentives aligned, people will motivate themselves far better than you’ll ever motivate them. But, again, you have to get the incentives right.
It’s not only financial. It’s being able to feel like they have a level of control over their destiny, that they are valued in what they do, that they’re being successful, that they’re contributing. Those things are actually probably more important than the money. But you’ve got to get the money right, too.”
An additional benefit of this approach is that people will “self-select,” i.e., if they can’t/don’t achieve the incentives they will realize much faster that they’re in the wrong type of work.
I especially like this because it is a better career development tool. Being terminated for non-performance allows people to rationalize, whereas missing incentives tied to viable goals offers the insight that they may need to find more fulfilling work and not keep making the same mistake over and over and that’s not a bad thing
Notice I said “viable goals,” which mean feasible, possible, doable; not goals that only one in a hundred can achieve them.
Goals that set people up for failure have a boomerang effect; they’ll return to their place of origin and smash a large hole in that manager’s reputation.
This is also not a bad thing, since “holey” managers seem to align with “holey” companies making it easier to avoid them.
It’s always surprising how often different sources address the same problems offering similar solutions, but in such different ways that at first glance you wouldn’t notice.
Within days of each other, both Fortune/CNN and BNET offered up good information on employee motivation. Fortune/CNN article was science-based, while BNET was experience-based, with a leavening of humor.
They both said essentially the same thing with one exception, which I’ll get to in a minute.
Motivating employees means providing real purpose in their work; it requires challenging them and encouraging them to learn and grow; and it requires clear communications, including well-defined plans, roles and responsibilities.
Pretty standard stuff.
Now for the exception; the science offered up a new twist that just might help your implementation.
Removing obstacles is not the flip side of providing purpose, challenge and clear communications.
In other words, this is not one of those times that removing the negative means the positive will automatically rush in to fill the void or vice versa, that having the positives will overcome the negatives.
In this case you need to address the two as totally separate subjects.
First, remove any obvious negatives.
Next, start implementing the positives.
Third, be on the lookout for new obstacles.
Fourth, and most important, be sure that you on the side of the angels and not one of the obstacles.
Are you one of the thousands of managers who spend your days trying to increase productivity and improve your company’s bottom line and you nights worrying that you aren’t doing it fast enough—if at all?
Does your company hire experts to teach motivation and employee engagement techniques?
Do you twist in the wind trying to implement complex, sometimes costly, approaches?
Why?
Why complex when some of the smartest CEOs, advisors and academics are all saying the same thing?
Simply put, in the words of Tony Hsieh, if your employees are happy they will make your customers happy; if your customers are happy they’ll spend more; if they spend more your bottom line will grow.
Saturday I gave you multiple links showing just how simple and inexpensive engaging your people can be—but not everybody reads Saturday.
So, instead of writing yet another post on engagement, I thought provide a video from Guy Kawasaki, who talks about how to “enchant” your employees.
His advice is simple and doable, although it does require the right MAP.
The only cost may be to your ego, since in order to implement it you need to change.
Tony Hsieh Has been beating the drum that happy employees provide the best customer experience and help assure success and sharing his wisdom on how to do it.
The other question I keep getting asked is how do you do it when you
aren’t the CEO or even a senior manager;
don’t have the budget for great perks; or
aren’t the touchy-feely rah-rah type (direct quote).
The short answer is in five words, you take time to care.
Gallup estimates the cost of America’s disengagement crisis at a staggering $300 billion in lost productivity annually.
$300 billion is a number that should get anyone’s attention.
The engagement issue is relatively simple and definitely cheap to solve.
The problem is that, as usual, employees and managers aren’t on the same page.
The research shows that for employees “the single most important [event] — by far — is simply making progress in meaningful work.”
Managers are another story.
“When we asked 669 managers from companies around the world to rank five employee motivators in terms of importance, they ranked “supporting progress” dead last. Fully 95 percent of these managers failed to recognize that progress in meaningful work is the primary motivator, well ahead of traditional incentives like raises and bonuses.”
What constitutes supporting progress isn’t rocket science, either.
Autonomy, meaning no micromanagement;
sufficient resources, meaning valid scheduling and enough of whatever to get the job done without having to beg or being left to fail without them; and
learning from problems, meaning understanding the why and how, not just the what.
If you find any of the three difficult to provide you need to look in the mirror.
The problem isn’t about having time to support progress; the problem is that your MAP doesn’t support the concept.
I find it amusing to read about research that proves what most of us already know—things such as healthy food costs more or that managers play favorites.
While 84% of those surveyed say favoritism takes place at their own organizations, just 23% acknowledged practicing it themselves, and 9% say it was a factor in determining their last promotion.
“I think the really interesting point is that almost a quarter admit to practicing it themselves, but only 9% believe that favoritism played a role in their own achievements. I guess it is therefore safe to assume that the other 91% believe they made it strictly on their own merits and hard work. Now I would call that either delusional, or defying the odds, though more likely the former.”
Many managers who believe they are fair are influenced in ways in which they are totally unaware.
When I was a recruiter I knew a manager who would not hire a blonde; he wasn’t aware of it until I proved it to him. Another manager refused to promote a talented woman until he realized it was because she looked like his ex mother-in-law.
Both of them worked through it, but before you can stop something you have to recognize that you’re doing it.
That means being aware of your personal prejudices and making a conscious effort not to let them influence you.
By the same token, you need to be aware when you’re playing to the boss-gallery because you figured out what floats his boat.
I’m not saying you have to admit it, but at least don’t kid yourself.
It’s funny how things work. I received this email the same day I read about a solution.
Hi Miki, I have a small company and would like to add some fun for my people. They tell me they love the culture and there is very little turnover, so I tend to believe that I’m accomplishing. I read about the extra perks companies offer like foosball, ping pong, massages and other stuff, but there are neither dollars nor space. Do you have a suggestion for something I can add that is affordable and fun? –Jim
Here is my reply.
Hi Jim, I do have a suggestion. I think they are fairly new, will cost you less than $100 and batteries are the only ongoing cost. They are called airswimmers and there are many ways to incorporate them in your workplace. For example, controlling the remote can be used as a reward for exceptional customer service or closing a difficult sale. I’m sure your people can think of some great uses once you have them. If you do get them please let me know what they think and how you use them. –Miki
There are actually many inexpensive items that can lower stress and lighten the workday; you just have to look for them.
The following email came in over the weekend (edited and shortened for clarity).
Hi Miki, About seven months ago my company (name deleted) started providing most of the perks you see written about, including teaching how to be an entrepreneur. We thought that our efforts paid off when we were about to hire some amazing people. Fast forward to the beginning of July when two of my top developers quit because the entrepreneur class was canceled due to the launch schedule of a new product. To top that off, Friday my architect gave notice, explaining that he had found an angel investor and it was a guy he had met at one of our classes! What the hell is going on?
I’ve received seven similar emails and four phone calls over the last few months; they’ve come from executives and managers in development, sales and marketing at all levels in new startups, growth companies and larger, public corporations.
They all say they have gone to extraordinary lengths to attract people, but many of those hired left in 15 months or less.
They all complain that talent is scarce and that many of the people they do manage to attract have no loyalty or interest in anything except their own career.
The managers say they hear variations of the same stories over and over at events they attend, over lunch or when grabbing a beer after work.
My response to each is tailored to their personal situation and much gentler than what I’m going to write now.
You know the old saying that you get what you pay for? That is just as true when it comes to hiring as it is when shopping.
People who join for money or stock or perks will leave for more money or stock or perks.
They have no loyalty because they are not invested emotionally—there is no reason to be. Many candidates get the feeling they are doing the company a favor by joining, based on the lengths to which companies are going to recruit and hire them, and if they leave, they leave. No big deal.
The next part of our discussions focused on where to find and how to hire people who would be invested in the company. Obviously, no silver bullets, but the basics of solutions that each could tailor to their own needs.
Please join me tomorrow when I share that information with you.
I’m hearing the same lament from a lot of managers these days; the words and circumstances are different, but it boils down to the same thing—s/he has the knowledge, but doesn’t do anything.
It’s not just younger workers, but all ages.
The current term is “unengaged” and the problem is rampant.
Most managers who call don’t use that term, they complain that people just don’t care. They don’t care about doing more than the minimum; they don’t care about doing great work, instead of just adequate; they don’t care how the company is doing; the list of ‘they don’t care’ goes on and on.
They all see this as a problem with the people they hire.
They ask me where to source good candidates; how to better interview, so they can hire “people who give a damn.”
Some complain that the so-called entitled attitude of Millennials has spread to all ages.
These managers are a disparate group; they come from different industries and range from management newbies to senior executives, but they all have one thing in common.
None of them sees “not giving a damn” as a result of the way they manage, but 98% of the time it is.
So the next time someone you know (or you) complains about people not caring, suggest they ask the only person who really knows the answer—the one they will find in the mirror.
Way back in 2006 Tom Rath wrote a book called Vital Friends, in which he discusses the vital role friends play in our overall health, happiness and well-being.
I find it amusing to read about research that proves what most of us already know—things such as healthy food costs more or that 
The following email came in over the weekend (edited and shortened for clarity).
I’m hearing the same lament from a lot of managers these days; the words and circumstances are different, but it boils down to the same thing—s/he has the knowledge, but doesn’t do anything.
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