Life is cyclical and as I get older I realize it more and more. There are highs (and in my life some really highs) and some lows (and I’ve dipped into extreme valleys) and somehow we weather the storm. I’ve had wealth and I’ve declared bankruptcy. I’ve been married and divorced and remarried. Marriages also have their ups and downs.

Last night I had a glimpse of something and it went right along with this “cyclical nature of life” theme. Very young in life, I had a tricycle. I graduated to a bicycle and experimented with a unicycle. As I aged eventually I got a motorcycle and traded up on those a few times. All those different cycles forgotten, rusted, sold, wrecked…and still in my memory. And the next generation starts anew. It seems like yesterday my youngest son was riding with training wheels and now he is ready for his drivers license test. Time flies. And if you are on a cycle of any sort, you are one with nature. It’s not like in a car where you are basically looking out a window at the world. On a cycle you are part of the world. If it has a motor it flies by more quickly, but still you smell the land. Pine trees, flowers, apple orchards, cow manure…not all good smells but all real. One with the world.

I am on another cycle in the midst of an up-swing in the sine wave. The important thing, I have found, is to never give up, never back down. I will continue to pedal my try-cycle, because I know as long as I try, I will have another upswing. I will persevere, to quote a certain chaplain, and I will prosper. How about you? Are you staying on the trycycle or do you need a push? Drop us a line if we can help.

The bottom line is that a manager manages people to perform tasks and achieve objectives. Beyond that you have to have ‘people skills’ so everyone working for you feels they are personally appreciated and important and their work is also appreciated. So how do you go about doing that?

1. Know your objectives - Unless you know your objectives clearly and precisely you cannot communicate them to the people under you.

2. Make sure team members know their objectives - Everyone should have well defined objectives and timelines so they know exactly what is expected of thm and when it needs to be completed. They should also have an idea of how their conribution fits into the ‘big picture’ so if priorities and deadlines shift, they have some idea of why things have changed.

3. Know each member of your team personally - As things ebb and flow in people’s personal lives it inevitably spills over into their work life. This is to be expected, and it should be minimalized as much as possible, but as a manager (and a human) you should be aware that sometimes their is that spillover. If you know each person personally (and it doesn’t have to be intrusive) it can help you to understand why your star performer has an off day or is distracted. People know when someone has a sincere interest and will appreciate your understanding.

4. Show interest in their output and be appreciative - It is easy to set objectives and collect results, but you still need to realize that peope want you viewing their work and showing genuine interest and being appreciative. The tasks are expected, after all that’s what they were hired for, but it only takes a half a minute to acknowledge it.

5. Meet one-on-one on a regular basis - This goes right along with the previous two points, but still bears saying. It is easy to make the daily or weekly comments and communications, but there needs to be ongoing regular meetings to make sure that everyone is on the same page and to ensure continued understanding. These don’t have to be long meetings - ten to fifteen minutes is generally enough time to touch base, but you also shouldn’t have meetings just for the sake of meeting. Have one or two specific items to talk about, and know the real purpose is to listen to what they have to say.

Years ago when I worked in the steel industry we would get a flyer annually on the in-house education process. This included workshops and training sessions designed to enhance our performance at work, but this also included health, fitness and specialized classes for general information and skill building. I remember taking MS Office, aerobics, general fitness, animal tracking and web surfing, but there were pages of offerings designed for personal and professional growth. The company used to have a path designed for you, but now, you need to plot your own way and try to stay on track.

These days it is almost unheard of for a company to offer any classes that don’t directly improve job performance, so this is in our own hands. I really got a lot of of one of the bulletins on the PEOPLE Academy, Inc website that talked about self-development. It gave eight areas to concentrate on to improve your standing in the eyes of those around you, and also general how-to self-improvement exercises. I wanted to talk a bit about a couple of those.

First, think success. You know that you are an asset to the company, but have you really dug down and listed all of the ways you contribute to it? This exercise really made me sit up and think, wow, I have been through a lot of training and have contributed on many projects. My list included going through Six Sigma Black Belt training, Lean Manufacturing enhancement workshops, Job Hazard Analysis training, ISO Auditor training and a few other items. Sometimes as you move along, you tend to downplay or even forget the trainings that you have attended and when you reflect and write them down, you realize the worth you bring to the table.

A second point was be aware of the contribution you make on a regular basis and keep that in mind as you carry on in your assignments. Again, it is easy to get sidetracked by tangents, but by keeping focused on your main objectives, you will be seen as an integral part of the projects you are involved in. Understand how you contribute to the success of the team and even though you may not get feedback from your peers and supervisors, they are aware of your efforts. Recognising your own contributions is an important part of attitude. If you are not getting much feedback, ask! It can be easy to think that your efforts are not being noticed, but if you ask for specific areas where you could make improvements or specific examples of successes, you may be amazed at what has been noticed.

I don’t want to make this blog entry too long, so perhaps I’ll visit the self development bulletin again sometime in the future to touch on the other five bullet points.

What are your expectations in life? Or marriage? or your career? What are they for this year, this month, this week, today? Are you hoping to have a successful outcome on a business venture? Are you looking forward to getting home and the smell of lasagna greets you as you walk in the door?

What makes you think that you deserve any of that? Is it the hard work you’ve done to prepare for that contract or doing the shopping knowing the ingredients were there for the meal? Is it knowing that you have done all you can and that your best just has to be good enough?

Expectations come from somewhere and realistic expectations are more or less the anticipation of reward for excellent actions done in good faith. In good faith. Great reward comes from fulfilling someone elses expectations. Does this sound circular? It is.

We really are talking about the incentive for action which all ties into attitude. Attitude? This is what your teachers in high school used to scold you about. “You’ll never get anywhere with that attitude, young man!” And perhaps that teacher was right.

What each of us needs to realize is that expectations and attitudes are tied together in business and in life.

This morning I was filming some workout tips for another blog that I maintain. Interestingly enough (or perhaps ironically enough, as I don’t know how totally interested you will be) I managed to twist my back just a tiny bit and now I am bent over double in pain. Why was it ironic, you may ask. I was doing a piece on working out and talking about avoiding injury during a work out. Nice, huh?

The injury occurred before I began filming. I was moving the bench that I was going to be lying on for the lifting portion of the demonstration. Unbeknownst to me my son had a few dumb bells on the floor by the bench and when I went to move the bench there was an extra 25 pounds. An unknown obstacle and an unsuspecting force…and down I went. *groan*

Why do I share my pain? Not to gain sympathy, although that would be appreciated, but to say, we never know from one moment to the next what is going to hit us. So if you are putting things off until tomorrow, remember that tomorrow may not come, or it may find you in an entirely different state of being.

One of my favorite quotes from Janis Joplin is “Tomorrow never comes man. It’s all the same f*ing day” There was something in there about cats, too, but I’ll leave that to Janis. She was a person who embraced life and didn’t give a crap about what people thought. She did what she thought she ought to do, and if you didn’t like it, well, too bad.

She also had a lot of issues, but I’ll also leave that alone. The point is my back spasms, a temporary thing, could have just as easily been something different. Situations arise and some of them we have no control over, so you know, don’t put things off until tomorrow. It’s all the same day, and we need to take care of things now.

This is rambling a bit, and that I’ll admit, but if there is something you need to say or do, take care of it. Appreciate what you have and what you could have if you would just reach out and bridge that gap, hold out a hand to someone that you know and let them know you are there, and you care.

Appreciation and gratitude are two of the biggest pieces to the mindset of success.

Even in lean economic times there are always places that are looking for quality employees and if there is anyone feeling unappreciated or abused at your workplace, there is a chance that they are looking for greener pastures.

But why would they be looking and how can you prevent that from happening? Here are three things that you need to consider.

1. Hiring Practices. Yes, this is where it all starts. Most people that are submitting applications aren’t looking for a great fit as much as a paycheck, but what, as an employer, are YOU looking for? Are your hiring practices limited to a short interview and possibly checking a reference, or are you doing an in-depth interview with more than one interviewer? Are you asking the right questions and are you really listening to the responses? I was hired once to do a particular job and stated in no uncertain terms what role(s) I was willing to fill. A year later they decided to give me a job that I emphatically stated that I was totally unwilling to perform at my interview. Immediately after that assignment, I was cruising the want ads and shooting e-mails to my networks.

2. Workplace Respect. This is a two way street. Are the employees recognized and respected for the skills they bring to the table, and do they recognize management as people who listen and are capable of getting the job done? If the boss brings his son in as a supervisor and the son is incapable, what signal does that send? On the other hand, if a competent professional is brought in, the employees will recognize the expertise.

3. Workplace Culture. Does everyone recognize the role that they fulfill in the company? Do they approach their jobs in earnest, realizing that what they do impacts the future of the company or do they go through the motions and pine for the weekend? A sense of company pride is not unusual, but it is not automatic. Often upper management and owners think that their ethics are reflected, but that only comes with effort.

If you read these and don’t have documented methodology to address these, you need to rethink your plan. The People Academy, Inc has tools that specifically address these and other communications and human relations issues. If you have specific questions about a particular situation or would like to learn more about the services and products we offer, please write and we’d be happy to address them either live or through supportive blog posts.

Thanks

If you cast a wide net, you’ll cast all kinds of fish, but if you bait a hook correctly, you can target your catch.

CNN better be careful with it’s headlines. I heard that PETA is planning a campaign to protest the disparaging language of the above headline. They are representing the much-maligned slug population. Hey, they ditched their shells and left snails in their dust. Can’t say they don’t have ambition.

Seriously though, the above mentioned article is aimed at the general population, but what does it also tell people in business? We may not be hiring a lot of people, but the hiring decisions have to be made in a calculated informed fashion. I talked about this briefly in an article the other day, but this was just a small part of it.

What do you need to think about when you are ready to hire? Do you have a planned interview and evaluation procedure for that practice? If the answer is no, you should take a step backward and consider the following points.

1. The interview is a meeting with a purpose. Always bear in mind that the person has to have the right skills and the right temperament to fit into a particular position.

a) Do they have the right attitude toward their potential duties?

b) Both parties need to keep the interview concise and professional

2. Prepare questions in advance

a) Questions should be open ended and delve into previous experiences, qualifications, how they will fit into your team, and how they handle change

b) Questions should be designed so that the interviewee does most of the talking and the interviewer practices active listening to discover any portion of the answer that invites discussion

3. Active Listening encourages open dialogue

a)active listening means keeping eye contact, nodding affirmation, taking occasional notes

b) Give positive verbal queues such as: yes, that’s interesting, tell me more about that, etc

More detailed information on the hiring process can be found inside The People Academy, Inc. This information includes documents, tutorial videos and, of course the ‘ask the expert’ e-mail support.

What is the employee incentive that gives you the most “bang for your buck?” Studies have shown time and again that bonuses and rewards programs only turn into expectations rather than remaining incentives.

The true best thing you can do is personal recognition. No money, no logo t-shirt..no kidding.

But the recognition has to be a genuine contact: a true connection. You, as a manager or supervisor need to see how someone’s behavior warrants recognition and then make a sincere compliment. People are starved for heartfelt praise. It is worth its weight and gold and will bring huge returns. Here is where some managers can run into trouble. It’s easy to be disingenuous and be seen as someone who will pat employees on the back strictly for potential return.

But genuine appreciation is seen as such and truly appreciated. Taken to a different level, you should also recognize your fortune to have employees that deserve praise and by recognizing that, your candid praise will carry more weight and morale can take off.

A guy that I occasionally work with broke his neck and was paralyzed from the neck down. He was horsing around wrestling around a swimming pool and ended up taking a dive into a shallow area. He wasn’t planning on diving in, it was more the result of tom-foolery and losing his balance and the next thing you know he had a couple of vertebrae fractured.

This is a ‘kid’ in his early twenties, whose life was permanently changed. He went into surgery and they took a chunk out of his hip bone and were able to fix the damage, and luckily the spinal cord wasn’t severed or whatever and he is now able to walk again and has regained full use of all limbs. He said the most painful part on his body now is the hip that the bone came out of.

He’s out of work for six weeks at least and is wearing a collar, and has to give everything time to heal. Medical science is amazing.

How many of us haven’t had those sort of situations? Probably not to that extreme, but still. Have you been goofing around and had a narrow escape? Or just been in an accident that could have been much worse? How does all that impact your psyche? In his case, does he live the rest of his life thinking what if? Does he (or me or you) start to live differently?

I just read a quote “How you spend your days is how you spend your life.” Does having a life threatening incident make people re-assess their lives? I think for some, it does. Other people just wipe their brow, “Whew” and continue with little or no change.

I am at a point where I am concerned about my days becoming my life. But unless I change, my life and my days won’t.

Rob Britt

http://www.RobertBritt.com

http://www.ThePeopleAcademyInc.com