Periodically, a parade of managers would gather around those nifty bulletin boards I mentioned last time and they’d expect the area lead person to give them a run down of everything that was plotted on all the charts they were supposed to be updating each hour. In the cases where the lead...
As I think back to the nearly two decades I worked in a manufacturing facility, it seems like we measured everything! If you’ve ever been through an ISO-9000 audit, or whatever the number is now (it was TS-16949 in the automotive manufacturing world as recently as eight years ago), you know...
Contrary to what seems to have become a far too popular belief, how we each make our living doesn’t have to drain every ounce of joy from our bodies… I remember greeting ole Front-Lobby Bobby one morning more than a decade ago and being given a response for the ages, “Just...
How many times have you had a task on your to-do list that you just didn’t want to mess with? You know, one that was not only a pain in the butt to deal with but also something you didn’t really understand why it even needed to be done? Assuming you’re picturing at least half a...
So here’s the reality of it all… All the profit in the world, even when it’s a direct result of building a positive work environment, won’t be what motivates our team members - especially if we’re trying to hang onto every stinking penny of it - unless we can...
Never mind the 15% overall revenue growth the AP News article I referenced in The Importance of Organizational Culture detailed… While we’re at it, let’s also disregard the turnover costs of up to 300% of an employee’s salary I share from Hireology in The Benefits of...
Creating an atmosphere where our team members don’t throw up when they think about working for us involves more than just avoiding the urge to be an insufferable jerk by demoralizing everyone we manage and yelling louder when they don’t heed our every command. There might not be cause...
What flashbacks do you have when you think about your most miserable job ever? There was an NCIS episode where Abby and McGee go back and forth with one another sharing their worst jobs before joining Team Gibbs. It started out with the boring ones and rapidly morphed into the most disgusting...
Since you’ve accepted the responsibility of leading your team, I’m going to assume you’re taking what we’ve dug into up to this point to heart by identifying what you really value and defining exactly why those things are meaningful to you - so don’t prove my faith...
SInce we’ve established the importance of organizational culture and we’ve developed a foundation for what that culture needs to be built on, it’s time we get serious about defining the specific values we stand for - the ones we want to be known for upholding, personally and...
I don’t believe there’s a cookie-cutter approach to identifying and defining the values any organization’s culture is built around, that really needs to be a very intentional process and those values should be as unique as the products and services a company provides to the...
What are you just not willing to compromise? Where have you drawn a line in the sand that you absolutely will not cross, or allow anyone in your organization to cross without being held accountable immediately? Lying? Cheating? Stealing? Harassment of any kind? I’m sure each of those things...
