Tuesday evening, I hosted an executive coaching client for dinner and a Memphis Grizzlies game at FedEx Forum. Our dinner server was a fellow by the name of Ben, who has waited on me at most, twice before. As we were being seated, Ben approached and said to my guest, “My guess is that Mr. Catlette is going to have a glass of Merlot, what can I get you to drink?” I whirled and looked at him in amazement, wondering what other information might be stamped on my forehead. Ben smiled and volunteered that he tries to pay attention to his guests, and make them feel special. Mission accomplished.

Not unlike my son, Will, who tends bar at the Savannah airport and has a following of regular customers (at an airport bar!), Ben has learned that it’s the little things, like remembering a guest’s name and their preferences that lead to  good outcomes. The very same thing holds true for those of us whose job is to lead others. Before we can expect people to follow us with any degree of fervor, we must first take an interest in them… their likes, dislikes, ambitions, apprehensions, etc.

In the age of the disposable worker, this type of care and attention seems counter-intuitive. Speaking of his new sales reps, one office products sales manager admitted to me that, “we don’t really even get to know their names, as most of them won’t be here very long.” I’m willing to bet that a lot of the good performers leave for precisely that reason. Not bothering to know someone’s name, or things that are important to them doesn’t make them feel very special.

Thankfully, this is something that is not constrained by economic forces. We don’t need a positive GDP growth rate to make people feel special. Nor does it require any particular talent. Every one of us can do it. We’ve just got to care enough to take an interest, listen, observe, and then act on what we’ve learned.

I think you’ll find that if you take that extra step, you’ll soon notice that you’ve got more people around you who are willing to go the extra mile.

Godspeed!

*****

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Chapter 22 of our latest book, Contented Cows MOOve Faster deals with the subject of motivation and rewards. A central tenet of the chapter is that organizations (and individuals) need to be very careful what they incentivize people to do, because, more often than not, that is exactly what they are going to do. While there is nothing new or remarkable about this precept (Psychologist, B.F. Skinner wrote and taught extensively about it in the mid-20th century), it seems that some of us have serious learning disabilities when it comes to our need to continually re-learn the lesson, often the hard way.

Witness the revelations over the weekend that insurance giant AIG planned to proceed with bonus payments ranging from $1,000 to $6.5-million ($US) to about 400 employees in its financial products division, the arm of the company that brought AIG, and the entire U.S. financial industry to the brink of collapse.

While word of these payments has led to a hue and cry about how a firm that recently posted one of the largest quarterly losses in the history of commerce, and has dined at the public trough to the tune of $170 billion can be paying bonuses to its employees, it should be of greater concern that company management, backed up by the board’s compensation committee, has evidently deemed the bonuses “earned”, consistent with established compensation plans, ‘er schemes. Yikes!

Before we get too sanctimonious, though, it would behoove all of us to revisit how pay and incentives work in our own organizations. How many of us, for example, are still paying people purely as a function of how long it takes them to do something? How many of us are incentivizing people who should be cooperating to compete against each other, and, how many of us, under the auspices of a poor economy have slashed or eliminated recognition and incentive programs altogether?

A thought leader in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website at www.contentedcows.com