Human Resources

Steve Jobs was a master at many things. He built Apple into a multi-billion giant, and he did it in large part because of the people he hired. His goal, he said, was to hire people who were creative, wickedly smart, and slightly rebellious to help him build "the company that would invent the future."
To say that he met his goal would be a gross understatement. In Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson quotes his subject as saying, "I've learned over the years that, when you have really good people, you don't have to baby them. By expecting them to do great things, you can get them to do great things. The original Mac team taught me that A-plus players like to work together, and they don't like it if you tolerate B work."
Bradford D. Smart, Ph...

Along with the existence of positive and constructive team roles, negative and destructive agendas can emerge that undermine the ability of individual teams to function and perform adequately.
Negative and destructive roles emerge for a variety of reasons, including personal agendas, resistance to change, immaturity, and lack of motivation and/or team leadership and management.
One of a leader's major roles is to observe individual team members and watch for destructive and negative behaviors. When problems surface, they need to encourage the team to collectively recognize and handle them within the team environment. If this fails, it is up to leaders to take specific action with the offending individuals.
Leaders need to be watchful for the following negative roles and behaviors within their individual teams:

Aggressor
The aggressor criticizes everything said within the team environment, and is in effect an active naysayer...

When we talk about customer service, we usually think about how we deal with the people who walk through our doors--both physical and virtual--to purchase our products and services. What we often fail to realize, however, is that we also have customers within our organizations; those customers are our coworkers. 
Customer service means being responsive to a customer's needs and being resourceful in meeting those needs. Customer service is many things: knowledge, communication, skill, attitude, efficiency, integrity, reliability, knowledge, and helpfulness.
How you interact with coworkers and supervisors has a huge impact on the effectiveness of the team. When Dan asks for your help, do you tell him that it's not your responsibility, or do you eagerly offer to do whatever you can to help him meet his deadline? When Bethany points out an error, do you get defensive, or do you view her comment as constructive and vow to improve your performance?
When you treat coworkers with respect, when you help them solve their problems and meet or exceed the demands of the job, your value increases dramatically...

Procrastination is not for everyone!
"Don't put off for tomorrow what you can do today." (My Mother - ever since I can remember).
Procrastination is like a virus. It creeps up on you slowly, drains you of energy, and is difficult to get rid of if your resistance is low. Procrastination is a close relative of incompetence and a first cousin to inefficiency, which is why their marriage is taboo. These suggestions will help you conquer the virus:

1. Give yourself deadlines. In moderation, pressure motivates. Extreme pressure debilitates. Set appointments, make commitments, write out your goals, and otherwise develop the determination to succeed.

2. Don't duck the difficult problems. Every day we are faced with both difficult and easy tasks...

Managers are inundated with a high volume of information and required to make multiple decisions daily. It is often difficult to be fair and consistent in decisions when the manager is operating on a reactive rather than proactive basis.
Performance management gives managers a specific set of parameters to make decisions and act in an active rather than passive mode. This allows them to take the initiative by making quick and effective decisions that positively impact their unit's efficiency, profitability, and overall performance.
Managers who utilize an effective performance management process and program will find that rather than complicate their lives, their jobs are made much easier. Decision-making is greatly simplified by performance management, as it provides a specific set of established parameters with which to make consistent and focused decisions that move the unit forward to the achievement of its goals...

In the current economic climate, where businesses are merging, downsizing, and outsourcing at mind-boggling rates, it's hard to maintain your leadership equilibrium. To keep from getting knocked off your feet, you need to have something stable to hold onto - something that will keep you on steady ground when all around you is shaking and crumbling.
Unfortunately, most people don't deal with change in a positive way. They become overwhelmed; and instead of taking care of themselves so they can withstand the daily onslaught of change, they try to prove their worth by working longer and harder so they're not the next one escorted out the door. As a result, they're not only stressed from the current situation, but they're also tired, disengaged, and dissatisfied with both their professional and personal lives...

Getting team members to understand customer service facts

Serving customers is not a punishment; it is a privilege. That's how I want my team members to think. Customers form the foundation of how my employees make money to support their families. The more delighted customers we have, the more opportunities my team members have to take care of the people most important to them. That's why we never stop talking about customer service. Here are some tools we use to continually remind our team about how important the customer is to all of us.

Customer Service: The Facts

Organizations can expect obvious results when they implement an empowered environment. However, many people fail to realize the impact of the hidden effects of the empowerment process. These hidden benefits can have a more dramatic impact on profitability than a leader might imagine. When one considers the issue of the effective use of resources, the hidden impact of empowerment clearly demonstrates how leaders can effectively marshal the resources they are responsible for.
Many traditional managers fail to understand and comprehend how empowerment can impact their bottom line, as there are a number of hidden costs associated with restricting employee abilities and capabilities. Most are focused on their power and authority and concentrate on ways to maintain their personal power base...

Small business owners frequently juggle a variety of roles within their companies. Creating a balance and effectively managing available time is extremely important to most small businesses. In order to economize and make the most of the available time, you should implement a time management plan.
Get Real. Set realistic goals that are not unreasonable or unattainable. It can be very demotivating to consistently feel as if you have not accomplished anything, simply because you regularly fail to meet unreasonable goals that you've set for yourself. By setting more realistic and attainable goals, you will feel a sense of accomplishment, and often be motivated to work harder.
Know Yourself. When are you most productive? Use the hours of the day when you are most productive to tackle the more difficult tasks...

At the risk of placing substance over style, all leaders must understand this simple truth: style does matter. It is not about matching your belt to your shoes, or accessorizing appropriately for the occasion, but rather understanding the way you go about leading.
Allen rose through the ranks of the military with great ease and retired young with a high rank. Properly prepared for his transition into civilian life, Allen was able to land a great opportunity with an upstart tech firm in the Midwest. Everyone was confident his previous leadership performance would translate to the battlefield of competitive software development. Within months it became obvious that the members of Allen's team were not responsive to the command and control leadership style that Allen was comfortable exercising...

What gets rewarded gets done, so recognize and reward a lot! This is especially so if you want to learn how to change company culture.
First, reward all the traditional categories: sales achieved, goals accomplished, customer compliments received. Then add some spice to really promote efforts on how to change company culture.
Celebrate new accounts, repeat orders, projects completed under budget, money-saving ideas, increased efficiency, and of course, improvements in customer service. To learn how to change company culture, you need to reward the actions you want to become ingrained.
Acknowledge achievements of individuals: most productive person, most consistent performance, most outrageous extra effort. This can also help in efforts to learn how to change company culture...

"I'm sorry, but this just isn't working, I think it's best if we part company."
Have you been on the giving or receiving side of that statement? Do you recall the unpleasant sense of regret, the foreshadowing and worry that led to those words?
A performance-based dismissal is typically preceded by a period of discomfort when everyone realizes there's a bad fit to the job. Remedial steps may be taken in the interest of fairness, but there's a sense that the situation will not improve. During this interim period, productivity dives, momentum is lost, and morale deteriorates as fellow employees watch and wait for the inevitable.
Since dismissals commonly play out like this, it is paramount to simply put the right person in the right place from the start...

You search and screen and interview for the best employees. Days pass, sometimes weeks, as you narrow down your choices (and continue to operate understaffed). You pull the trigger, make the hire, and within days you realize you've made a mistake--sooner if your new hire never even shows.
Let's face it, hiring the right employees is the bane of existence for franchise operators. Yet without top-performing front-line employees and unit-level managers--the face of your franchise--you will not be as successful as you could be. Hiring right often seems a mysterious, unachievable goal lacking any chance of long-term success.
"The challenge is that we really want the cream of the crop and sometimes we end up with the cream of the crap," says Bill Wagner, CEO and co-founder of Accord Management Systems, a company that specializes in behavioral and hiring consulting...

In order to excel in your work, in your life, or as a leader, you need to commit to continuous learning. Many leaders know this, but many more are missing the opportunities for powerful learning that could really help them get ahead on their goals.
Leaders are encouraged to learn "on the job." The problem is that many of us don't. Either because we're too busy, we forget, we don't know what we need to learn, or we don't have the resources we think we need, we end up learning by chance or command. Neither one is very powerful.
Learning by chance means you take opportunities to learn whenever they show up, but you don't necessarily go looking for more. A conference brochure arrives; it seems interesting; you go. A friend recommends a book; it looks good; you read it...

Generally speaking, people like to compete. They like to test themselves and be challenged. Most important, people like to win. Being rewarded for it? That's icing on the cake. It doesn't matter where they're from, what language they speak, or what job they do - people like to succeed and be acknowledged for it. Because I consider myself a coach, and I believe in positive energy and positive reinforcement, I believe that incentives are the single greatest tool I have for motivating my workforce...;and they can be for you, too.
Incentives work - whether the person receiving them is the manager of a retail business, an executive at a large corporation, or an entry-level employee making minimum wage. And incentives don't have to be pure cash, although I have yet to find a team member who would ever turn it down...

When great front-line hourly employees quit, most managers take it personally--and with good reason. For more than 20 years, employee exit interview research has been telling us that the #1 reason the best people leave is because they feel they are being poorly managed. In other words, these folks joined the company and then quit the manager.
Just imagine how frustrated you would have to be with your job to decide to go elsewhere. That's how dissatisfied all the outstanding people who have left your organization have felt. If your people truly are your greatest assets, then the way your managers and supervisors manage those assets is the crucial key to your organization's success.
Whether you're recruiting field and area managers or hourly employees, there are five specific things everyone wants from their job, no matter what their position...

Irate customers. No matter how good you are at what you do, what business you are in, or where it is located, you will at some point find yourself facing an irate customer. Maybe a product was flawed, a delivery was late, or a charge was inaccurate. How you deal with that customer not only will determine how he or she feels about your organization, but how you feel about yourself.
When you are able to turn an irate customer into a satisfied customer, you will gain confidence in your ability to diffuse a volatile situation and to evoke a positive outcome.
When most people come in contact with an irate customer, their first instinct is to turn and run. Dealing with a customer who has a problem and is upset about it, can be more than a little daunting...

Zane Tankel is not waiting on any government job programs to help his business. The Applebee's franchisee is taking matters into his own hands at his 34 restaurants in the New York City area.
His plan is to continue to move ahead creating jobs and incentives for those he would potentially hire as part of his growth for 2012.  That's not surprising, Tankel thinks big. He has expanded his Apple-Metro company by 10 restaurants since the recession began in 2008. 
What is the secret to Tankel's success in uncertain times and what tips can he offer other business owners as they head into the New Year in uncertain economic times? He has boiled down his best thinking into the following areas:
1. Maximize Guest Experience To Ensure Brand Loyalty
Now more than ever, when consumers are counting pennies and gravitating towards value spending - it is essential for every business to deliver on the promise of brand potential...

Nearly every company in the world gives lip service to the idea that "our people are our greatest asset." Yet when the Conference Board Survey was released last year, employees were the unhappiest they have been in their 22 years of tracking job satisfaction rates. Around the same time, CNNMoney reported a survey that indicated 84 percent of Americans are unhappy with their current job. And last June, Mercer's "What's Working" survey found that one in three U.S. employees are serious about leaving their current jobs.
Why is this lack of happiness at work important? Job satisfaction is not only the key predictor of turnover rates, in The Happiness Advantage, I make the research case for the fact that the single greatest advantage in the modern economy is a happy and engaged workforce...

Some people wait for the future to happen. Others create their futures. The former depend on the luck of the draw while the latter cut their own deal.
How do you create your own future? By forming a vision and expressing it through a mission statement. Your dream now glitters on the horizon of the future. But you are standing in the reality of the here and now. How do you close the distance? You can't dream your way into the future. You must have a plan. You have to know where you want to go and decide how you're going to get there. The important word is "how." The word "if" won't take you there. You must approach your future with a sense of certainty that your dream is achievable.
Hannibal, the great general from ancient Carthage, once asserted: "We will either find a way, or make one...