Contrary to media stories that suggest CEO’s are the key to organizational success, the impact of CEOs, CFOs and other top-level executives on large firms is extremely limited. In fact, these top positions explain less than 5% of the variation in firm performance amongst Fortune 800 companies. Of course, senior leaders set the strategic direction [...]
Discretionary effort is voluntary effort. It is the level of effort over and above that required for an employee to simply get by and keep their job.
When it comes to maximising employee motivation and performance, first and mid-level managers matter much more than senior leaders. And the reason is as old as the history of human kind.
The great military and political leader of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, was quoted as saying, “A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of coloured ribbon.”
In more recent times, the Corporate Leadership Council identified that fair and accurate informal positive feedback from a knowledgeable source (such as a person’s immediate manager) is the single most effective performance management lever available.
Every organisation has a purpose. A story about who they are and what they seek to achieve. How this story is framed and communicated is a critical part of creating an engaged, motivated and productive workplace.
Last week we took a look at the things that managers can do to make behaviour inefficient, and thereby ensure poor performance from their team. This week we’ll take a look Gilbert’s model for engineering high performance. And we’ll compare the factors in that model with the key drivers of employee engagement identified through global research.
Employee engagement, or employee motivation if you prefer that term, is important to you and your organisation. There is now considerable evidence from many sources that low employee engagement generates lower employee productivity, business unit performance and profit; along with generating higher employee theft, accident rates and employee turnover.
Why would you ask questions to kick butt? Your job as a manager is to manage the behaviour of your team members to ensure they are doing the right things to achieve the results you need. When they’ve done the wrong thing or nothing at all, our inclination can be to tell them. Tell them what they’ve done wrong. Tell them what they haven’t done. And tell them what they need to do differently. However, often there is a better way.
Creating a vibrant team that is motivated with high morale can be a daunting a task. Sometimes it’s a task that can seem nearly impossible, especially if your people are disengaged with their work and the organisational culture.
Building trust affects your bottom line performance. Blair Stevenson shows us why we should care and how people managers are the key to building trust and employee engagement.