When you consider words like power, selling, advocating and negotiating, they all really speak about one’s ability to influence.  The Webster Dictionary defines influence as “the capacity of persons or things to produce affects on others by intangible or indirect means”.  The interesting and somewhat surprising aspect of this definition is the mention of “intangible or indirect means” for achieving a result.  It almost implies that there is something subtle or covert going on.

In truth, what this essentially is pointing to is the fact that most of us are not moved to do things Read more »

As the old saying goes, “if you want to know me, come live with me”. And so it is that many organizations, despite rigorous screening processes, very often find out when it’s too late; they have hired the wrong person. When you consider the recruitment fee, signing on bonus, learning curve, etc the costs are huge. According to Eric Koester of MyHighTechStart-Up.com, estimates range from 1.5x to 3x of salary for the ‘fully-baked’ cost of an employee.

This is not to say that the Read more »

Shawn Anchor of the Happiness Factor claims that 10% of one’s happiness comes from externally driven factors such as money, relationships, possessions and status, while 90% is driven solely from how you choose to see things. The key word here is choice; and he claims that because we have this option we can exert more control over our happiness than we might think.

Could we possibly look at motivation in a similar fashion? How much is externally driven and how much is from Read more »

In the book, “The Go – Giver” which is an obvious twist on “the Go – Getter”, writers Bob Burg and John David Mann offer some very novel principles on the merits of giving. Essentially the message from this book is that by giving unconditionally it comes back tenfold. On some intuitive level we perhaps knew this but now we have pretty credible writers as well as numerous academic researchers (Feeling Good about Giving – Harvard Business School: Anik, Aknin et al) supporting the fact that giving enhances happiness, which ultimately leads to personal and professional Read more »

Throughout the Olympic experience it is interesting to watch the dynamic unfold between individual athletes and those belonging to teams as they rise or fall at these lofty heights. For an individual it seems more work and less play, whereas for a team the other way around. Mark Twain once wrote that “work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do”. So how does this play (no pun intended) out Read more »

According to Dan Pink in his book, Drive, there are three components to driving motivation within employees, namely Purpose, Mastery and Autonomy. He argues that essentially people want to understand how their role fits into the overall goal of the business, they need the skills to do it and finally they flourish when given the freedom to execute.

Purpose and Autonomy are pretty self explanatory so let’s explore Mastery in some further detail. Mastery does not imply that you must be the best or that you have Read more »

What is the role of leadership when it comes to motivating staff? Some would argue that if you hire the right people they will be self motivated and that will be enough. Others think that effective leadership is about empowering people and giving them the autonomy to do the job. And finally others believe that it is up to leaders to drive motivation. The true answer, most likely is that it requires a bit of all three.

When somebody is hired the price of entry Read more »

How do you get the most from your people? Billions of dollars are spent annually on an infinite variety of training programs in pursuit of answering this question. It is still one of the elusive components to running a business that owners and leaders struggle with.

Clearly when a new person is hired some fundamentals need to be put in place to attain an acceptable standard quickly. Let’s call this standard “functional” and once this is achieved the following basics are typically in place:

Skills, experience and Read more »

When an individual is first hired there is typically some form of orientation to familiarize them with the company, its values and mission, polices and what is generally expected. They might also get to meet other staff and members of management and from this they slowly get a sense for what is the culture of the organization.

However the bulk of their training is more skills based. What are the tasks associated with the work they have been assigned to? What are the expectations associated with that? Whether this is classroom based or on the job they become Read more »

Coaching skills provide a tremendous framework for improved communication and also inspire and implement the action necessary to achieve a desired result. In an effective manager / report relationship what would it take to make this interaction even better? How about a manger who demonstrates emotionally intelligent behavior working with a report who is highly motivated? This surely feels like “Coaching Utopia” with all the ingredients present for a successful outcome.

Of course you might be thinking that this is not realistic and rarely would you Read more »