|
|
|
|||||
|
specialists in enhancement and management of human performance |
||||||
|
|
||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
"We are so bored with "Employee of the Month'" said one Telecom Valley mid-manager and MBA student in a class report. "Upper management thinks this will motivate people to stay, but it has become a perfunctory monthly duty that we all dread &emdash; even the employee chosen." From another student: "Our company thinks raft trips and ropes courses are the key to keeping good people. But many of our employees are from other countries, with closely knit families, and they prefer to do outdoor activities with family members." Hearing the frustrations, insights and recommendations of over 300 mid-managers in the evening MBA courses I've been teaching for five years at three different Northern California universities, I've come to see why employee turnover is such a problem. The frantic startup and high-tech environment we are currently experiencing has left a huge void in what psychology writer Daniel Goleman calls "emotional intelligence." The mid-managers in my classrooms &emdash; along with their employees &emdash; are offered all manner of stock options, technological toys, free food, free college education and free trips. They participate in countless off-site bonding exercises. But even though they come from 75 different businesses representing 30 different countries, they are remarkably consistent in seeking one overarching goal: a career in a financially and emotionally healthy work environment. A recent Agilent Technologies survey of its managers, engineers and technicians showed stock options as the No. 2 reason they would stay. No. 1 was "environment." Worker preferences for positive work environments are at the core of Cooper and Sawaf's bestseller, Executive EQ: Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organizations. One of the book's premises is that most executives are not good at emotions and thus do not manage them well. Human resource directors used to be responsible for the "environment," but with the labor shortage and so much employment law in the workplace, HR managers now divide their time between being policemen/lawyers and frantically recruiting all over the world. Meanwhile, no one is tending to the emotional environment, which is the No. 1 concern of employees. Several mid-manager students and I published an article in the Journal of Compensation and Benefits, Sept./Oct. 1999. The article cited results of our research of 120 companies in Sonoma County and Portland, Oregon, asking HR managers how successful they felt performance evaluations were in motivating employees. Seventy percent of the HR managers said their company's performance review was successful. But when we surveyed mid-managers, the number was 21%. Our conclusion was that HR is losing touch with employees, and the "environment" for workers is not being tended to. Raft trips and even stock options do not fill this void. Mid-managers are faced with that task. Cynics may call the emotionally intelligent workplace a mere "touchy feely" charade that has nothing to do with productivity. But that outdated world view is not supported by research that cites the high cost of employee turnover and the fact that most employees are not motivated solely by money. Emotional intelligence is the logical and necessary complement to increasingly technological workplace environments. Indeed, in this rapid-fire global marketplace, cultivating human qualities of fairness, trust, communication and team spirit is perhaps more important than ever before. The challenge for mid-managers today is to navigate successfully between supporting their bosses and respecting their employees. They must constantly clarify and understand the goals of their bosses, then figure out creative ways to get employees to: 1) understand those goals, 2) be motivated to reach them, and 3) stay on track. All while walking a legal tightrope. For this, managers need simple, agreed-upon rules. They also need the right practical tools that go beyond employee pictures on bulletin boards and outdoorsy bonding exercises. Our management consulting work always employs "3 Rules" that are tied in with all cultures, religions, and work levels: "Everyone Contributes," "No Put-downs," and "Keep Agreements." These basic rules of civility set a tone for behavior in the corporate environment, serving as a foundation from which we provide a dozen specific tools mid-managers can use to evaluate and enhance workplace performance. All 12 tools are based on sound emotional intelligence that is tied into enhanced productivity. In today's environment, following the spirit of these 3 Rules is just as critical as acquiring the technical tools of a trade. Without doubt, technology changes much faster than people. But we have arrived at a point where emotional intelligence must begin to play a little catch-up. It will not do so unless we begin to attend to it much more systematically in the corporate setting. Equipping our mid-managers with the best tools to foster that intelligence is an essential first step. (NOTE: Allies Consulting offers a performance management and enhancement process developed and refined by Dr. Riley and other Allies Consultants, called the High Performance Management System. This program is the process defined in the article above. It delivers profound improvements in individual and organizational performance, like all the programs Allies Consulting offers: increased productivity, profits, retention, morale, quality, communication, teamwork, and more. Our menu of programs will meet or exceed your expectations: they are designed to deliver real results. They can help you become masterful at your performance skills, or your staff to do so. They also leverage our other programs, magnifying your ROI!)
|
POBox 9635