Maximizing the Human Potential

Maximizing Loyalty

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andrew shaffer consulting maximizing loyaltyLast week I attended a discussion on attracting and retaining employees. One interesting fact is with unemployment at historically low numbers it is harder and harder for companies to attract and retain valuable employees. This has undoubtedly caused a paradigm shift in employee’s attitudes and behaviors. As opposed to the recession of almost 10 years ago, where people were happy to have a job, employees now think that the company is lucky to have employees. In order for you to compete for employees, keep them loyal and maximize productivity you have to offer something that others cannot replicate. Today I am going to share with you how you can create a competitive edge by attracting and retaining your ideal employees by maximizing loyalty.

Maximizing Loyalty

I once heard an Air Force Colonel saying he wanted to give his warfighters an unfair advantage in combat. He wasn’t looking for a competitive fight, he wanted to have all the advantages. That makes sense when people’s lives are at stake. How does that relate to how you run your company? Well, lives are at stake. Maybe not life or death, but your employees depend on you to provide for their livelihood.

Attracting and retaining the highest quality employees will certainly help you get a competitive edge, right? Think of all you can get done if everyone was on board and as dedicated as you. If they just “got it”. Competitive benefits and competitive pay are necessary, and are the price to admission. The challenge is they can be copied by your competitors. Today I am going to share how you can create a competitive edge by attracting and retaining your ideal employees.

Why

Simon Sinek has made a name for him self by encouraging people to “Start With Why?”  Why? Because a good “Why” resonates. Think about it, how many foundations have been started by someone after a loved one was impacted by a devastating disease? How many companies were started to solve a common problem?

Your employees have a reason for working for you. When I talk to employees, I hear a wide range of reasons why employee work at a company.

  • It’s a paycheck
  • I believe in the mission
  • the hours a great
  • they treat me well
  • I’m just waiting for retirement.

Why do your employees work for you? Is it because they believe in the company (good) or because they haven’t found another job yet (bad)? Either way getting to understand why your company exists, and why your employees choose to work for you can go a long way in attracting and retaining valuable employees.

Values

As I look back over my career, I think the biggest influence that impacted my decision to change jobs (and eventually get into consulting) was because my values didn’t align with my company. Now, that isn’t to say that the companies I worked for were immoral or had poor values – not at all. They just didn’t align with my values.

Most companies have a list of core values. I bet you can tell me your companies core values, and they are most likely displayed proudly on your website or careers page. The challenge is, do you always live your core values? Your core values are there to guide your decisions, and how you conduct your business. If you have a core value of people first, and you make decisions that seem to put profit or shareholder above your people are you living your core values?

Motivators

I know you don’t have time to be a cheer leader and give your teams pep talks every day to get them motivated to do their job? Actually, it isn’t necessarily your job to motivate them. Well, not directly. You can, however, create an environment or condition that helps motivate your employees. It’s all about getting the right people in the right seats.

Let’s say you have an employee that is naturally creative and thinks big picture. Is this person likely to be motivated by looking at spreadsheets? Probably not. On the other hand, if you an employee that really liked to get into the details of your business accounting, do you think this person would be good a developing marketing material? Again, probably not. Finding motivators of your employees will help you see dramatic improvements on productivity, retention, and profits. (check out this video)

This Week’s Challenge

Give yourself a competitive edge by evaluating your companies why, values and motivating loyalty. These things make your company unique and give you a competitive advantage. If you need help, please contact us to learn how we can help!

Complacency in the Workplace

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andrew shaffer consulting complacency

While meeting new people over the last few weeks, the common question I’ve been asked is “Why did you start your business?” Great question. While the answer can’t be boiled down to just one reason, there was basically one motivating reason. To help companies reduce complacency in the workplace.  This week I am going to share with you some of the common symptoms of complacency I saw in the workplace, offer some insight into how to combat them.

Complacency in the Workplace

Businesses either grow or die. And remember, that if your business is growing slower than your competition, you are in the process of dying.  Some business owners might think this is acceptable, as long as they can ride it out until retirement. But think about it, if your business is dying, how well are you really servicing your clients? Are they getting the high level of service they expect or deserve? You’ll have to answer that question. Today I am going to explore a few examples of complacency that I saw and offer some solutions to help reinvigorate you and your team!

That’s just how it is

I’ve also worked with teams that struggle with the same problem from project to project for decades.  DECADES!  I have watched people work themselves to burn out because they just keep fighting the same problem repeatedly. Eventually these people just accept the problems as the normal course of life and continuously live on the edge of burnout.  This is not healthy for your company, and not healthy for your employees! As the famous infomercial line goes, “there has to be a better way!” There is!

Comfort

The second symptom of complacency I have seen is the talented employee who had early success in their career only to flatline early only to stop growing. I get it. Early in our careers, we don’t have a lot to learn and a whole lot to gain by taking risks. As careers progress, our reputation is on the line, maybe we have a family and can’t risk losing a paycheck. Whatever the cause, I have seen talented people basically do the same job, year after year for twenty years, or more! I don’t know about you but doing the same thing for that long just doesn’t sound exciting to me.  These people peak in their early 30’s and from there are just waiting to retire.  Even though these people are filling a need, are they helping your company grow? Are they realizing their potential? No, and that is sad.

What can you can do?

The good news is that both these conditions are curable, and your company can still thrive.  The bad news is there isn’t a singular solution. You are dealing with human beings, and now two humans are exactly alike. When I work with companies dealing with these conditions, I teach leaders to connect with their employees. Not in a superficial team building way, like happy hours or lunch outings, but in a meaningful way. Take time to talk to every individual on your team. Understand their journey, where they have been, where they are, and where they want to go. Learn what motivated them. It isn’t your job to motivate employees, but you can help create a culture, job, assignment, career path etc., that aligns with their motivations. Meet with your team and co-create a development and career plan for each employee and help them achieve it.

When you do this, your team will be more motivated, creative, and innovative.

This Week’s Challenge

Find time to meet with your employees and talk about their journey and aspirations.  Help them create a development path that is inspiring to them and aligns with your company’s mission. When you do this, you’ll begin to challenge the status quo and your business will begin to thrive.

As a loyal reader I am offering a 25% discount on our motivational assessments. Do you want to know what motivates your employees? Contact us now and let’s have a conversation.

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.

Pockets of Inspiration

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pockets of inspiration andrew shaffer consultingEvery week I try to share with you lessons that I’ve learned the previous week. I try to answer common questions or share an important message that will help you in your career and business. This week, I was inspired by a few separate quotes. I am going to share these pockets of inspiration with you, and why they inspired me. I hope they inspire you as well!

Pockets of Inspiration

Inspiration can come from anywhere, and this week it seemed to come from everywhere. Inspiration is important because it is the root of motivation. Motivation is what gets you through the day, and inspiration is what achieves goals. I have four quotes that I came across this week, that provided immediate inspiration for me. My hope is when you read them, they’ll trigger some inspiration for you as well.

You Can Do It!

“If you can imagine it, you can design it. If you can design ,it you can build it.”

My son will be entering middle school next year, so my wife and I were exploring middle school options. We visited a local charter school where they displayed a banner with the above quote. Unfortunately, credit for the quote wasn’t given. I thought this was an important message though, not just for our youth but for everyone. Many adults can imagine the life they want. They can imagine a dream lifestyle, career or business. The MegaMillions Lotto just reached $1.6 Billion last week and I heard many people imagining what they’d do with that kind of money.

Many people do not believe they can design and build the career or business they want. They think they have to be lucky, or success is reserved for the few. But just as there is a scientific process for designing and building something, there is a process for creating a successful business, or a successful career. To design and build your business and career will take hard work, education, sacrifice and at times failures. I can tell you though that it is all worth it when you finally create the business and career you imagine!

Hustle

“Things may come to those who wait, but only those things that are left by those who hustle.” – Abraham Lincoln

In other words, go get it! I don’t think President Lincoln was discounting the need for patience as much as he was warning against the dangers of procrastination. Napoleon Hill wrote about the dangers of procrastination in his bestselling book Think and Grow Rich. In fact, most of the books I’ve studied on success will tell you that you need to have a relentless pursuit of your goal so you can finally achieve it. Hustle requires dedication, perseverance, and motivation. It is much easier to settle for the status quo and put things off until tomorrow.

I coach my kids in sports and one of the rules I tell them for winning is to hustle, give 100% all day every day! I have met with many people that either want to advance their career or start a business. One major thing holding them back is the time it’ll take to learn a new skill or achieve a certification. Let’s take for example a woman that wants to achieve an executive position at her company. She may decide that getting an MBA would help her achieve that goal. But getting an MBA takes time and effort. She may decide it’s too much work. With the new job, and the kids, how is she going to find time? So, she procrastinates. Eventually three, four, five years go by, and still no MBA. With a little hustle she could have had her MBA. I mean the time is going to go by anyway, why not take advantage of it?

Feel It

“If people don’t feel it, they won’t do it.”  – Jack Stack

This comes from an awesome book, The Great Game of Business by Jack Stack. In this book, the author talks about the importance of getting employees excited about their work, and goal achieving. He talks about all kinds of incentives they put in place to help foster this excitement, but he also knows that when people aren’t excited, they typically don’t work as hard.

In my consulting work, I often ask clients what they want to accomplish. Surprisingly, that is often that people just don’t know. I guess as be become adults we stop imagining what it is we want and start accepting what we have. Or we think we’re supposed to want something so we pretend we do. One of my clients recently came to this realization. I had her doing an exercise where she was coming up with a list of things she wanted to accomplish. Then, she was to concentrate on each thing and imagine what it’d be like when you accomplished it. She wrote down things on the list she thought she wanted. A lot of these things were the stuff successful people are supposed to have. She soon realized there were some items she couldn’t get excited about. We immediately took that off the list. We needed her to focus on what she did want, and what made her excited. After that her business started to skyrocket!

Go Big

“I won’t be a rock star. I’ll be a legend.” – Freddie Mercury

In what universe is being a rock star not good enough? That was my first reaction when I saw this quote. Apparently in Freddie Mercury’s universe, it wasn’t enough! I’d say that the lead singer of Queen became a legend.

It doesn’t matter what line of work you are in, there is no inspiration in settling for second place. Nobody goes to the Olympics dreaming of brining home a silver medal. There isn’t football player out there that dreams of getting drafted to a mediocre team. And, the very best in any profession don’t dream of winning their equivalent of a Superbowl, they dream of dynasties and legacies. Michael Phelps didn’t dream of winning a gold medal, he dreamed of winning the most gold medals. Lesson learned here, dream as far as your imagination will take you, then take one more step!

This Week’s Challenge

This week’s challenge to find something that inspires you. Use your imagination, set that goal and hustle until you accomplish it. When you do you’ll find more meaning in your work and your life!

If you would like to discuss more ways to help your business grow or if you feel you have a specific problem that needs to be addressed, please reach out to me.