21 Mar
PeopleTek Coaching Success, Team

Are You Engaged?

Do you consider yourself to be “engaged” when at work? What about your peers, direct reports, or even your boss? For our purpose, we’ll define being engaged at work as “a commitment to support your brand”, and “a measurable degree of positive or negative emotional attachment to your job, colleagues, and the organization as a whole”.

“Thrilled employees create more customers worldwide. The problem is that only about 30 million, or 30%, in America, Inc.’s workforce are engaged”.

—Jim Clifton – CEO at Gallup  

U.S. Workforce Engagement . . .   Per CEO Clifton:

30% of workers are engaged

50% are just showing up

20% are actively disengaged

We find these numbers staggering! Consider how your results and levels of productivity would grow if you could influence just 20% more of your workforce. (Or if you could move the needle for the 20% that are actively disengaged).

Clifton says it’s the role of managers of all levels to understand what’s happening with the 30% of employees that ARE engaged.

What differentiates them from the remaining 70%?

Salary is one factor, but researchers have found that happiness does not increase once a $75,000 annual salary is reached. BOTTOM LINE:  It’s not about the money!

There are 2 things that DO make a difference:

  1. Having someone at work who encourages development
  2. Having the opportunity to do what the individual does best every day (you’ve heard us speak about “magic dust“; your uniqueness, special skills and strengths)

Engagement levels grow when:

-Individuals lead integrated lives in which their careers and their personal lives fit seamlessly and harmoniously together

-Ambition, talent and capacity serve individuals well, rather than enslave them

-Passion, energy, and focus are leveraged

-Individuals/leaders learn to fulfill their own vision, and assist others to fulfill theirs

-Individuals/leaders are persistent and don’t give up easily

As an individual, what actions are you taking to increase your level of engagement?

As a leader, do you have a goal to increase engagement levels for your team?

14 Mar
PeopleTek Coaching Success

Challenge Your Assumptions

Do you have the tendency to make assumptions about people and things based on prior history? If you have the courage to say “yes”, you have a lot of company!

We’ve all heard that the word “assume” equates to making both “u” and “me” foolish (well, not exactly that word…)

Achieving success requires the courage to “scrub off” our assumptions and be open and receptive in areas where we may have baggage.

“Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won’t come in.
~Alan Alda

Don’t Let Baggage Impede Success . . .  

Admittedly it’s difficult to step out of our comfort zone, to accept and adapt to change, and to have the commitment to expand our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviors.

We’ve had the opportunity to observe many leaders, styles, skills, traits and actions and have come to the conclusion: Courage is the single most important attribute any leader must have in order to be effective and successful.

Success requires living courageously. Courage is required for choosing our behaviors and strategies, and for taking ownership for making the important decisions that impact our career, our lives, our happiness, and our future.

Owning our career builds our leadership skills and enables us to become stronger leaders for any team or any organization that we lead or are a part of.  It also positions us to transform and strengthen leadership around the world, one person at a time.

It requires having the dream and desire to be a strong leader; it’s wanting to motivate and inspire individuals, teams and entire organizations. It’s a continuum; it never stops, it’s ongoing, and it takes courage.

This also includes relinquishing control.  Empower others and let them “take the wheel and drive”.  As leaders we need to understand the strengths within our teams, take a step back, and let them do what they do best.

Challenge your assumptions, face your fears, increase your level of openness, and position yourself and others for success!

11 Mar
PeopleTek Coaching Success, Team

You MUST Work Onsite

To that we say poppycock!  Whether team members work from home, or in the office, a team can be productive and successful.  We understand this is controversial and open for debate, but we feel strongly “one size does NOT fit all”.

Trust is critical for creating high performing teams,  whether working side by side, or virtually. 

Should Your Team Work Remote or Be Onsite? 

Last month, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made a brave decision and instructed remote employees to return to company offices by July.  Some reasons included: working side by side fostered collaboration, improved communication, and inspired innovation, with the intent to grow the business.  Best Buy appears to be following suit.

Do you really need to work side by side to have a high performing team, or even be considered a team at all?

Merely bringing team members to the same location does not address what it takes to improve results and build camaraderie.

What you do need is the ability to identify what it is that’s preventing your team from providing the results you desire. Is not being in the same locale really having a negative impact? Maybe, maybe not.

We suggest reviewing the processes you have in place for your team. Teams commonly derail when there are unclear goals and purpose, when individual accountability and holding each other accountable are not priorities, when open lines of communication do not exist, when conflict is not managed in a healthy honoring and respectful manner, and the number one issue:  when there’s the inability to build TRUST.

Increasing integrity and creating trust may be developed from remote locations as well as in person. It’s what we say to each other and how we say it, it’s validating our interpretation,  it’s looking for positive intent.  It’s also speaking up and providing feedback to help individuals and teams grow.

Roughly 5 years ago we started running coaching programs for teams via telephone. Initially not everyone on the PeopleTek staff agreed with the concept, but we’re happy to share that it does work when team members and their leaders are committed to it.

Most innovation, creativity and growth can occur by any means if the elements of teams and leadership are aligned.

Even Agile (in person teams) have issues with creativity and implementation when they lack the basics of being a team and moving aggressively towards the same targets.

We’ve also discovered that some individuals are better team members and are stronger performers when they don’t see one another! (Body language and stimulation actually detract from the person’s productivity, their ability to “open up”, and gain trust).

Whether you work in person, over the telephone, or via teleconference, what really impacts performance are the elements of effective teamwork. These include:

  • Sharing and supporting vision, mission and goals
  • Aligned and agreed upon behaviors
  • Building and maintaining trust
  • Diversity and appreciation of participants (work styles, skills, talents, abilities)
  • Not fearing healthy conflict
  • Ability to handle constant change
  • Processes for innovation and reinvention
  • Rewards and recognition which are consistent across the team

Eliminating workplace flexibility may not be your solution for improving results; we do however guarantee that embracing the elements of effective teamwork will improve results!