A bright and promising software engineer, we’ll call him Jay, had made a real mark on his company, developing and innovating some of the most important products and processes in…
Category: Employee Engagement
Discretionary Effort...When the Show Must Go On
This past Sunday morning at 8:30, a leader named Ashley learned that a key member of her team had called in sick – totally legit – quarantined with the flu,…
Don't Overwork Your Horses
New supervisors quickly learn that it’s to their advantage to know at all times who the most willing and productive people are on their team, who the ‘work horses’ are.…
The Vision Thing...Passengers or Crew
Adapted from Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that in an environment where there is a shared vision of excellence…where people can be…
Sometimes It's the Little Things
When Alejandro Bustamante became president of Plantronics Mexico some years ago, he inherited, among other problems, a dispirited workforce with dysfunctionally high employee turnover. Nobody wanted to work there. Charged…
What Do You Mean, Contented Cows?
If you’ve been following our work over the last 20 years or so, you could skip this post (but please don’t). You know what the reference to Contented Cows is all about, and therefore…
What to do if Politics are Taking a Toll on Your Workplace Productivity
This week, I contributed to a piece Noreen Seebacher @writeNoreen wrote for CMS Wire about steps managers should take to deal with the continuing decline in productivity owing to U.S. election-related politics and governmental…
The ONE Thing that Builds Employee Engagement More than Anything Else
A young(ish) audience member came up to me at a conference I was set to speak at last year, and said, (I’m paraphrasing throughout, but not much) “Richard, I’ve read…
Growing Pains - How do I Fit in Around Here?
“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” – Steve Jobs People involved in the work of any…
It's Not About the Phones
If I hear this question one more time… I won’t be surprised. “How do we get these people to get off their phones and get their work done?” First point: it’s…