Would Your Employees Recommend You?

20130912-151537.jpgThe latest issue of the MIT Sloan Management Review had an interesting article “Would Your Employees Recommend You?” by Julian Birkinshaw. Mr. Birkinshaw is a professor at London Business School and the author of Becoming a Better Boss: Why Good Management Is So Difficult.

In his research, he and his team, developed a Net Management Promoter Score (NMPS). The NMPS (think of it as an internal Net Promoter Score) was based on the question:

“How likely is it that you would recommend your line manager to a colleague, as someone they should work for in the future?” (1 = not at all, 10 = extremely likely.)

The article states “…the NMPS is a good indicator of the level of employee engagement in a company… the correlation between employee responses about their level of engagement at work and the likelihood that they’d recommend their manager to a colleague is approximately 0.75.” A correlation of .75 is very high. In short, if you’re likely to recommend your boss, you’re very likely to be engaged at work.

High engagement indicates how likely someone will put discretionary effort into a job. While there are other factors in engagement–quality of work, physical working environment, etc.–the NMPS suggests no matter how great a workplace, it may mean nothing if the employee dislikes his or her immediate manager.

standardSeptember 12Tom SalonekHappy Employees

Diana Nyad, 6 Leadership Lessons

Above:  Diana Nyad at Tedx Berlin in 2012

By now, you’ve heard Diana Nyad, a 64 year-old endurance swimmer, swam from Cuba to Florida.  There are great leadership lessons in her accomplishment:

  1. Never give up.  This was her fifth try.  What a lesson about commitment.  This is spot on with what Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
  2. Trust your team.  This same trek–from Cuba to Florida–was done twice before, most recently by Susie Maroney.  Nyad’s the first to do it without a shark cage.  Part of her team included scuba divers who swam with her on the lookout for sharks.  Talk about trust!
  3. Believe in yourself.  Her first try was when she was 29 (Maroney did it at 22 with a shark cage that in addition to providing protection, lessens the waves).  It would have been understandable if she rationalized, “If I couldn’t do it at 29, how could I do it at 64?”
  4. Set small goals that align with the overall goal.  When she jumped into the water, she said her goal wasn’t to swim from Cuba to Florida.  Her goal was to swim until dusk.  At dusk, her goal was to swim until dawn.  She kept repeating these interim goals until she reached the shores of Florida.
  5. Overcome adversity.  If you’ve read about her life, you know she’s was dealt a horrible blow as a child.  Similar to never giving up, she’s proven we’re empowered when we focus on what we can do vs. what could hold us back.
  6. Be thankful of the team.  A few miles before Florida–exhausted, hungry (she couldn’t hold food down and kept throwing up in the ocean) with lips so blistered she was barely understandable–she stopped and treaded water.  She thanked her support team who were in surrounding boats.  She knew that while the light may shine on us as individuals, we are not possible without the support of others.
standardSeptember 5Tom SalonekLeadership2 Comment

In Praise of Laziness

Take-it-EasyThe August 17th issue of The Economist has an article titled “In Praise of Laziness, businesspeople would be better off if they did less and thought more.”

The article starts by sharing some of the top recent business books which tell us to Lean In, Book Yourself Solid, and Never Eat Alone.  I agree with the article… we need less doing and more thinking.  In thinking about my own time management, here are 10 things I do to increase productivity and not waste effort:

  1. Say no.  Whether it’s someone who wants to “talk about partnering” or an invitation for an event I’d rather not attend, I pass.
  2. Focus on results (not activities or perceptions).  In the first decade of the firm, I cared about being early into and late out of the office.  At a board meeting a decade ago, when going through details of what I did the last month, a board member stopped me and said, “I don’t care.  You’re paid for results.  Let’s focus on that.” Fast forward to now, I’m not concerned about perceptions–my mornings are filled with coffee, reading, writing, thinking, and planning before a morning run then heading into work.
  3. Delegate.  Around the same time as the above mentioned board meeting, I attended Dale Carnegie’s Leadership Training for Managers.  It broke leadership down into seven major things… one of which was delegation.  Today, when new stuff pops up that could fall in my lap, I look to delegate or… question whether it needs to be done at all.
  4. Trust.  As a leader, it’s imperative to trust my leaders and everyone in the firm.  Per #2 above, I focus on results and don’t care about when or where work gets done.
  5. Communicate.  To be clear on expectations, I meet on Mondays with my leaders for 1-on-1’s.  To stay on the same page as a team, we finish our days with an end of day management huddle.
  6. Think.  In my book, Building a Winning Business, I share there aren’t college courses on thinking.  Yet, it’s done constantly.  Before jumping into any activity, I take time to identify the best way to tackle.
  7. Plan.  There’s wisdom to the adage, “Failure to plan is planning to fail.” Simple things like setting advanced reminders for important things that can be booked or done ahead of time, save time, stop fire drills, and reduce stress.
  8. Focus on the future.  In The Economist article, it shares how Jack Welch of GE would spend an hour a day “looking out the window of time” and Bill Gates would set aside two “think weeks” per year.  If these crazily successful people can commit time to think about the future, “Why can’t I?”
  9. Goal set.  In Alice in Wonderland, she’s told “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there.” For the different areas of my life–health, family, friends, finances, career, spirituality, philanthropy, etc.–I’ve made a clear list of objective, measureable goals.  I use these to guide decisions about how to spend my time.
  10. Manage time vs. being managed by it.  An early mentor, told me about the tyranny of the urgent.  He said if I wasn’t proactive and preventative, my days would be managed by urgent, most likely non-important things, vs. important non-urgent things.  This is spot on with the advice of Ivy Lee to Bethlehem Steel.

The Economist article finishes by saying, “… Doing nothing may be going too far… But there is certainly a case for doing a lot less—for rationing e-mail, cutting back on meetings and getting rid of a few overzealous bosses.” The of the article in The Economist and title of this post were meant to be eye-catching.  When it comes to work, I think about a quote from one of my favorite, “old school” business thought leaders, Earl Nightingale.  He said “We are at our very best, and we are happiest, when we are fully engaged in work we enjoy on the journey toward the goal we’ve established for ourselves. It gives meaning to our time off and comfort to our sleep. It makes everything else in life so wonderful, so worthwhile.”

standardAugust 29Tom SalonekLeadership

8 Secrets of Success

This Ted Talk is by Richard St. John. It’s based on seven years of research and 500 interviews.  Through these interviews, he summarizes the eight “secrets” successful people have in common:

  1. Passion… If you do it because you love it, the money will follow
  2. Work… Work hard because it’s fun
  3. Good… Get good at what you do thru practice, practice, practice
  4. Focus… Focus on one thing
  5. Push… Push yourself thru limits like shyness and self-doubt
  6. Serve… Serve others
  7. Ideas… Listen, observe, be curious, problem solve, and make connections
  8. Persistence… Be persistent and get over CRAP (Criticism, Rejection, Assholes, and Pressure)

standardAugust 22Tom SalonekLeadership