The 3 Things All Humans Crave--and How to Motivate Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere. Abraham Maslow was right: Once we have food and shelter -- but before we can seek self-actualization -- we must feel safety, belonging, and mattering. Without these three essential keys a person cannot perform, innovate, be emotionally engaged, agree, or move forward.
What you CRAVE Safety, belonging, and mattering are essential to your brain and your ability to perform at work, at home, and in life overall. The more we have of them the greater the success of the company, the relationship, the family, the team, the individual. In every communication, in every conflict, we are subconsciously either reinforcing or begging for safety, belonging, mattering or a combination. Safety means we can take risks emotionally, intellectually, and physically in order to stretch and grow. Where you CRAVE it Let’s do a quick quiz. 1. 2. 3. 4. What do you think? Safety + belonging + mattering = TRUST. How to get it Engaging Mission, Vision, Values. “What if.” Three Surprising Secrets to Creating Simplicity.
Fog rolled in last week in Central Pennsylvania. Warm temperatures collided with cold snow and gray mist blanked our valley. Everything slows in fog. Everything’s more dangerous. Complexity creates fog; simplicity clears it. Simplicity produces clarity; clarity enables confidence. Confidence fuels progress. Causes of complexity: Fuzzy purpose. Creating simplicity: Courageously admit you don’t know.
The big “P” purpose: “How was your day?” “It was great.” “Why?” “I got a lot done.” Big deal! The real reason your organizations exists.What you want when you stop listening to everyone else.What you want others to say about you when you’re gone.What’s the big deal? What causes complexity? How can you create simplicity, today? Like this: Like Loading... Your Lateness Could Blow Up Your Business. Sometimes Negative Feedback is Best - Heidi Grant Halvorson. By Heidi Grant Halvorson | 8:00 AM January 28, 2013 If I see one more article or blog post about how you should never be “critical” or “negative” when giving feedback to an employee or colleague (or, for that matter, your children), I think my head will explode.
It’s incredibly frustrating. This kind of advice is surely well meant, and it certainly sounds good. After all, you probably don’t relish the thought of having to tell someone else what they are doing wrong — at minimum, it’s a little embarrassing for everyone involved. But avoiding negative feedback is both wrong-headed and dangerous. Hang on, you say. And don’t people need encouragement to feel confident? In many cases, yes. Confusing, isn’t it? It’s important to begin by understanding the function that positive and negative feedback serve. Given these two different functions, positive and negative feedback should be more effective (and more motivating) for different people at different times.
But what about motivation? Behaviors speak louder than words—3 service reminders for leaders. I remember advice someone gave me when my kids were little, “Pay attention to your behaviors—because your kids are always watching you.” That has turned out to be very good advice over the years, and I find the same is true for leaders in organizations. Managers can only get away with so much before their team members are going to start believing their leader’s actions more than their words. When it comes to serving customers, I have found the best managers are the ones that not only praise and acknowledge their employees when they serve their customers well, but are also role models of the behaviors they would like others to emulate. A case in point A perfect example of this happened recently when I went with my college age son to open an account at a bank.
At first he said “no,” explaining that he didn’t want to be tempted to spend money he didn’t have. 3 takeaways for leaders So what can we learn from what the Branch Manager did that day? About the author: Via @leaderchat Share this: 5 Big Discoveries About Leadership in 2012. Bad management appears to be an epidemic, costing the economy a total of $360 billion every year in lost productivity . 65% of employees say they would take a new boss over a pay raise, and 3 out of every 4 employees say their boss is the most stressful part of their job. It’s not like we’re not trying: according to the American Society for Training and Development , in 2011, U.S. firms spent about $156 billion on corporate training .
Against this backdrop, what have we learned in 2012 that might help us improve the quality of leadership? Here are five of the bigger findings. 1. There’s a reason we hire poor leaders. Unfortunately, narcissism doesn’t equate with leadership success. If overconfidence is a natural tendency for some, employers must recognize this as a potential flaw rather than an asset. 2. “Collective Intelligence” is the study of how small groups make decisions and solve problems, literally how smart teams are and why. A key researcher in this space is Dr. 3. 4. Leadership Storyboarding. People become leaders – by title – because they’re good at . . . well, leading. Well, in addition to this… you also need to be good at organizing, counseling, and many other things. But for now, I just want to focus on organizing.
Organizing projects and processes, that is. Organizing Formats As a leader, when you are able to organize and plan well, this technical capability helps many other things in your world fall into place more much more easily. When you are good at “organizing things,” you will have less “managing” to do. Every leader has their own particular twist on organization.
Well-placed sticky notesOutlook tasks on your emailSynthesized spreadsheetsHierarchical to-do listsGoogle Calendar flashing on your screenMS Project nipping at your heels Telling Your Story But to help leaders better prioritize their efforts and convey their vision in a linear fashion for all others to see, I recomend a better set of tools to help them convey their thoughtful ideas to their teams. “Huh? 1. 2. One Question Away From Optimism. Image source You can’t lead if you aren’t dissatisfied. Every new beginning begins with dissatisfaction. If the present is satisfactory, you have nowhere to go. A preferred future stands on an un-preferred present. Dissatisfaction is easy, optimism is necessary. Seeing the light dimly: Things come together at the strangest times. His suit and tie magnified his already military posture.
While we talked problems and challenges, his quiet optimism peaked through. He never minimized problems. Negatives to positives: You’re constantly confronted with negatives. Tip: “We” is necessary. How can leaders use dissatisfaction rather than getting stuck in it? How do you turn negatives into positives? Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. Go to the main page of Leadership Freak by clicking the banner at the top of this page, look in the right-hand navigation bar, enter your email and click subscribe.
Like this: Like Loading... Three Reasons A Leader Must Have a Positive Attitude. The title of this article is pretty declarative, don’t you think? Actually it isn’t completely true. You don’t have to have a positive attitude to have a leadership role, and you don’t even have to have it to lead. But you definitely must have a positive attitude if you want to lead successfully for an extended period of time. A specific description of what I mean when I say “positive attitude” will be saved for another day (and another article). For our purposes today, let’s define positive attitude as an expectancy that good things will generally happen, (and that even when they don’t there is likely good that will be found in the challenges) and a healthy optimism for the future for your company, team, yourself and life in general.
It is important to note what I’m not saying here as well — I’m not saying a positive attitude requires you to be a pom-pom toting cheerleader or an always smiling Pollyanna who ignores challenges and thinks that attitude alone will carry the day. Low-Cost Ways To Show Employees They're Highly Valued. Small businesses can compete for talent without breaking the bank.
Yes, you still need to pay competitive wages to get people in the door, but it’s the perks that will help you retain them. Here are 30 low-cost ideas for small businesses who want to show employees that they are highly valued. 1. Flex time. Some organizations require employees to be at work during core hours, and employee can set their schedule around this. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. Incorporating perks like these into your organization will help you attract top talent, increase employee satisfaction, and reduce costly employee turnover, which in the end is far more profitable than scaling back on your benefit expenses to save a few bucks. Have you incorporated any of these benefits into your business, or found any other unique ideas that work? Related: Want To Keep And Motivate Your Best Employees?
Leadership Storyboarding. Frustration is a good thing? I believe frustration, dissatisfaction, disappointment, and discontent are good things in the face of mediocrity. I’ll concede that contentment is usually better than frustration. It expresses self-confidence, self-knowledge, and acceptance of the way things are. On the other hand, I love seeing frustration. I don’t rush to end it. I love it when a project leader is frustrated that things aren’t just right.
Frankly, if you aren’t frustrated, I’m frustrated you’ve accepted mediocrity. Passion creates frustration. 3 reasons leaders feel frustration Leaders lean toward being control freaks. I know it’s not popular to confess dissatisfaction and frustration. 6 ways to deal with frustration Shift from I don’t like to I want.Shift from the past to the future.Focus on what not who.Speak your frustrations in safe environment. How do you respond when things aren’t going as well as you hoped? Don’t miss a single issue of Leadership Freak, subscribe today. Like this: Like Loading... Leadership and Storytelling. Leadership and storytelling go hand-in-hand. In fact, leaders who lack the ability to leverage the power and influence of storytelling are missing the very essence of what accounts for compelling leadership to begin with – the story. If you’ve ever been captivated by a skilled orator whose articulation and eloquence has influenced your thinking, you understand the power of the art of story.
I refer to story as an art form because it is. Storytelling requires talent and practice, but as with any worthy discipline, the investment yields great benefit. A story is the root level driver behind successfully communicating any message. A subtle side benefit of well crafted stories can be found in their versatility – they can be delivered in person or by proxy, and in visual, textual, or verbal form.
There is no denying everybody loves a good story, and there are numerous reasons why. As a leader, it’s your ability to tell a a compelling story that sets the tone from the top. Thoughts?