In my last post, I shared the Hartman Performance Diamond as a model to think about the four key enablers to effective employee performance. Those were 1-Expectation Clarity, 2-System for Success, 3-Competence, and 4-Motivation.
When I conduct assessments to uncover why team members are not performing well, the most frequent breakdown I find is Expectation Clarity, which I recently covered. The next most frequent breakdown I see is in the area of Motivation.
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Sometimes employees believe that they are taking initiative and being helpful by doing a little ‘something extra’. Their initiative and intentions are great! However, if the extra thing is something that doesn’t make any difference to you or your business, the employee can feel unappreciated when no one causes a fuss.
If an employee isn’t performing in the way they should - you may ask yourself if they know what is expected. Employers think this should be obvious or common sense. Unfortunately, common sense isn’t common. That is unless your employees grew up in the same neighborhood as you, were born in the same year, in the same birth order, with the same parents as role models, etc., etc..
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You might be asking yourself, “What in the world does strategic planning have to do with a Red Gucci Purse?” My answer to that would be EVERYTHING!
It’s the beginning of the year. You’ve updated your strategic plan, including your 2017 goals, and are getting back to business at hand. This is great, but how do you keep focused on achieving those goals while keeping everything else going? And for multi-step goals, at what point do you claim success?
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We’ve all had them. The ones who’ve made things feel so exciting and effortless. The ones you think about and can’t wait to see again and again. No, I’m not talking about the Valentines of years gone by, I’m referring to the favorite customers of your present. There are the customers you LOVE to love and the customers you love ‘not so much’.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could just love them all? Or at least figure out how to make the ones who you don’t love, more lovable? Or just wrap things up and move on?
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Many people have heard the term but are unsure what strategic planning is. Strategic planning is a process that helps leaders design their organization’s destiny with intention, instead of simply reacting to what the world throws at them. If you own a small business, you might think strategic planning sounds like corporate hogwash. Even if you see value in it, perhaps it seems daunting and boring. Frankly, if done poorly, it can be all of those things.
By helping over 20 businesses a year in many different industries do strategic planning, I’ve had the benefit of LOTS of cycles of learning. So I am confident to say that my version of strategic planning, which I call Own Your Future, provides the structure to get business and life-altering results, is fairly straightforward to follow AND is fun. Boom!
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It is strategic planning season and I’m reflecting on some of my favorite client memories. A few years ago, I worked with Everybody’s Brewing on some long term planning. They set a target on their milestone timeline to: “Get Everybody’s beer in a can.” This strategy would not only allow for much greater distribution beyond their immediate community, but would help them grow and move closer to their vision of putting little old White Salmon, Washington on the world map.
Fast forward to the next year: I was visiting another client in Portland and we went to lunch. In the fridge at the deli, right before me, I saw
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We all have ‘that person’. You know, the one who can instantly make us anxious and wish we were anywhere else, doing anything else, but having to interact with him (or her). Interestingly, you may like or even love this person. Or, maybe not. Regardless, he has the uncanny ability to set off an unpleasant emotional response (aka, push the hell out of your buttons).
This mere fact alone might be reason enough to distance yourself from this person at all times. What happens though, when you can’t; when ‘that person’ is a colleague, employee, customer or God-forbid, a family member?
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In my strategic planning work, I’ve found that a grand long-term vision like: ‘putting your tiny town on the world map’ is wonderful for inspiring your team to persevere through challenging times. I like to think of this long-term vision as your “When It’s All Said and Done” (WIASD). However, though inspiring, your WIASD may lack the specificity to guide your team members’ immediate efforts. It may also fail to provide a much needed near-term fix to fuel everyone’s momentum. This is where a near-term vision or an “Amazing Not Too Distant Future” (ANTDF) can help.
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A significant part of my Organizational Development (OD) tenure was spent at a company in the Aerospace and Defense industry and specifically in a Missiles division. So many of my co-workers lovingly, and jokingly referred to our workplace as the Bomb Factory!
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I had gone from making six figures working in a large corporate environment as an Organizational Development professional to living in a small town where I was told I could never make the same salary. I had always wanted to have my own consulting practice but wouldn’t have launched it by design in a town with few big businesses and little to no network. Due to my husband’s insane travel schedule, having a child with special needs and no family in the area, I had to make it work, serving small businesses in my community.
I was off to a decent start but it didn’t last. While the initial highs were exhilarating, the lows were downright excruciating. I’ll share the story of a particular low and three valuable lessons in hopes to spare you some of the pain.
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