Creative Reaction

This excellent Talent Culture post includes a (fictitious) letter to a CEO from the perspective of an employee, who wants to be more engaged in her job. Unfortunately, the CEO hasn’t allowed this to happen. Clearly her company, like many, has gone through some difficult times. The employee truly hopes her company will thrive. The CEO needs to do a better job communicating and connecting, and the writer diplomatically offers many excellent suggestions.

If you are a Manager, CEO, or owner of a company, no matter what size, do everyone a favor and read this post! Then take a few moments to think about the measures you are taking to retain your biggest asset – talent.

This really interesting article by CCL popped up in the newsreader today, explaining the hidden costs of companies which insist on over-managing their employees. These are the companies which feel they need to tell their employees (grown adults, mostly) exactly how their jobs should be performed. While “process” plays an important role in certain industries, not leveraging the experience of employees is shortsighted.

Anybody who does a job eight hours a day is going to see ways in which that job could be improved or simplified…

This is particularly true for Professional Knowledge Workers, where the costs are huge:

At best, it limits growth and innovation. At worse, it solidifies inefficiencies, undermines company goals and creates an environment where employees are unmotivated and disengaged.

So be sure to give some thought to employee engagement and motivation. It is far better for everyone to be working together toward the same vision. It could very well mean the difference between success and failure.

When leaders give people control over their work, stop telling them how to do their jobs and focus on the goals, the hidden costs are replaced with numerous benefits. Employee stress goes down, absenteeism decreases and engagement goes up. Productivity improves and innovation is possible.

Here at Creative Reaction, our number one focus is fostering the conditions in which creativity can occur, so be sure to check out 41 Ways Business Leaders Can Foster a Culture of Innovation from Idea Champions.

In a creative business, the office vibe/environment is arguably a manger’s most important job, and this is largely dependent on people skills and relationships.

This list, while excellent, is essentially 41 behaviors upon which a manger may need to improve. Since even a single behavioral change can be uncomfortable or overwhelming, perhaps one approach would be to concentrate on one tip per day (or week).

Take a look and be encouraged. You’ll be a better manager for it and your team will be more engaged.

Laughing Your Way to the Bank by HBR’s Rosabeth Moss Kanter caught my attention a few days ago, in which she explains the importance of a sense of humor and its role in leadership.

Aside from laughter’s healing properties, which alone can transform a business, humor can be used to unlock creativity, foster trust, and counteract the destructiveness of fear and worry.

So lighten up and be more successful!

There’s a great post over at Management-Issues, entitled Anger Doesn’t Pay, where we learn that:

“individuals who are able to recognise their negative feelings, defuse them, and then choose a more appropriate response tend to be rated as a higher performer by their colleagues and are also more satisfied with their own performance.”

While the connection of performance with leadership may not be readily apparent, keep in mind that companies are becoming more collaborative and less bureaucratic.

If you are a hot head, and you want to change your behavior, there’s hope:

“It involves training people to be aware of their thoughts and feelings and take control of their behaviour by basing their actions on values and goals rather than their internal events”

It’s a quick read. Check it out.

David Rock‘s Your Brain at Work blog explores the importance of dopamine levels in having a positive attitude and staying inspired. Managers and creatives can find a number of simple, practical suggestions, but since you probably do not want to spend your time wading through a bog of psychological wonkdom, I’ll do my best to make a pithy summary here.

Rock explains the tendency for moods to either spiral upward positively or downward negatively, and dopamine levels play a key role. Managers should pay attention to this for two reasons:

1. Higher dopamine levels correlate to positive, cheerful attitudes and
2. Higher dopamine levels are necessary for clear thinking.

According to Rock, dopamine is created in three ways;

1. Novelty – taking delight in new, often “small” things
2. Social Connections – at work and especially outside of work
3. Positive Expectations – being part of some bigger than oneself

Moods and attitudes are heavily influenced by those of others around us, so it is of utmost importance for managers to carefully guard their own attitudes and take time to be inspired. In addition, we should take a look at the above list, ensuring that our management skills and workplaces are conducive to positive, inspirational experiences.

I love this recent TED Video, which compares the leadership styles of various orchestra conductors, offering lessons for us all.

“After a decade-long conducting career in his native Israel, Itay Talgam has reinvented himself as a conductor of people in business.”  (from his Bio)

Talgam’s enthusiasm and passion are contagious. Set aside 20 minutes to watch this during your lunch break. It will be good for your soul.

This sobering Harvard Business Review article discusses the link between management and employee health, contrasting good and bad bosses, and the implications are startling.

Poor management practices can adversely affect otherwise healthy employees, raising blood pressure and increasing the level of stress hormones, setting the stage for heart attacks and strokes.

On the other hand, “a present and active manager, providing structure, information and support, counteracts destructive processes in work groups, thereby promoting regenerative rather than stress-related physiological processes in employees.”

There are  three specific behaviors you can exhibit to both reduce stress and lower the risk of heart disease in your employees:

1. giving information and sufficient control to employees in relation to their responsibilities
2. thoroughly explaining goals and subgoals and
3. effectively pushing through and carrying out changes

Read these carefully. Your management skills quite literally make a life or death difference.

Believe, and help others see why they should, too on the Management-Issues blog offers some excellent advice on creating a passionate, self-motivated team.

Quoting the article, “effective managers and leaders know what they believe and why they believe it”, though success lies beyond confidence and a positive attitude. The key is hiring the right people for the job, showing that you have confidence in them, and helping them find their own motivations to follow the leader’s vision. Good stuff.

Excellent, quick post over at Harvard Business Publishing and without giving too much away, having passionate employees starts with owners/managers/CEOs themselves.

(The attitudes of leaders have a huge impact on employees, so there are quite a few posts related to this topic. See The Power of Happiness Part I and Part II,  Attitude Adjustment, the Day-to-Day Management Affects Creativity series, Part I, Part II and Part III  and Negativity is Poison!)

In the planning fallacy, 37Signals reiterates something I blogged about last Fall; namely that despite our best efforts, and even with the knowledge that planning is often wrong, we still cannot plan accurately.

37Signals conclusion? “That messy planning stage that delays things and prevents you from getting real is, in large part, a waste of time. So skip it. If you really want to know how much time/resources a project will take, start doing it.”

Check out my earlier post, Why Planning is Counter-productive. It has better links if you’d like to look further into the planning fallacy. Also be sure to check out last month’s In Your Face, MBAs series.

As I was writing the previous post, The Power of Happiness, I noticed Harvard Business Publishing’s Discussion Leader Blog was also linking to the same research. They add a managerial perspective to the discussion in Why You Need to Be a Happier Manager.

The post links to other articles on the contagious happiness study from NYT and Time Magazine, and then offers these tips for managers (which I’ve summarized):

• Resolve to cheer - It is a leader’s obligation to spread confidence.
• Pick your moments - Especially when people need encouragement.
• Keep on doing it - Persevere.

“A happy workplace… (makes) coming to work a more pleasant experience. Productivity even improves, and so too does engagement.”

Happiness does not make up for an organization’s shortcomings, though along with a great product and excellent service, it is clearly an ingredient for success.

Great article over at Harvard Business Publishing’s Discussion Leaders about the difficulties of leadership when morale is low, mentioning two issues in particular; a lack of faith in management and the high amount of workplace anxiety due to job cutting. For the middle manager, the challenges are doubly difficult – as you are managing your staff in difficult times, your own job may be at stake.

What to do? The article offers this advice:

• Make the most of the situation, focusing on what is positive.
• Communicate, separating facts from rumors.
• Collaborate, working together to solve issues creatively
• Focus on results; not presenteeism and busy work.

Ultimately, the challenge is to be stronger as your company works its way out of the current downturn, moving ahead of your competitors.

This longer than usual 3-page article in BusinessWeek is aimed at management geeks, and applies to creative businesses only in a general way, yet it covers some very important issues.

Matching the Right People to the Right Jobs is just as critical to a company’s success as a great product or service. Sometimes employees are promoted into management even though they lack management skills. Sometimes businesses grow and it’s hard for managers to delegate their growing responsibilities. Sometimes the industries change. The article covers all of these cases, plus a few more, also discussing when it’s best to bring in outside consultants.