“Our mission is to delight our customers as the number one technology driven global manufacturer and marketer of value differentiated XYZ products and services. We will strengthen our leadership position through a shared-value culture of employee involvement where an intense focus on continuous improvement delivers shareholder value in everything we do.”

In the last LinkedIn article I published, Mission Accepted? Mission Accomplished?, I painted a picture of a mission statement full of big words, printed on fancy paper and mounted in an expensive frame, hanging on the wall in the front lobby of most organizations. Then I challenged anyone reading to consider whether or not anyone other than the first time guest at the location ever paid any attention at all to what it actually said…

The one I sanitized and shared above was not only hanging in one of those really nice frames, it was printed on the back of everyone employee’s ID badge they used to clock in and...

As we move from the DRIVEN folks we looked at last time who only make up about 10% of the population to this next group who are just as Fast-Paced and make up around 30% of everyone we’ll ever interact with, there are some very key differences we need to consider as we prepare to have a candid conversation!

While the individuals with the last primary behavioral style we looked at tend to lock onto the task at hand, our more INTERACTIVE team members will typically be more focused on the people who are involved than just what needs to be done. Their INFLUENTIAL nature is great for rallying the team together, but it can also lead them to get INVOLVED in more things that could ever possibly have time to see through.

This INSPIRING group loves to be in the spotlight any time they have a chance, and the perceptive their team members have of them is extremely important to them! While they truly feed off INITIATING fun activities for the groups they’re a part of, looking bad in...

Through the last several posts, we’ve taken a hard look at just how important it is to have candid conversations with our team members when they’re not keeping it between the ditches rather than ducking the issue and hoping things will get better on their own. While we’ve looked at some very specific examples of what works, and some that just don’t, there’s one more thing we can do to increase the effectiveness of those often difficult conversations!

In a LinkedIn article I published recently called How THEY Want to Be Treated, I touched on how much The Platinum Rule applies in these situations. If you’ve been reading these posts for more than a few weeks, you know where that reference will lead us over the next few. If that’s not ringing any bells and you think that was just another one of my grammatical errors, put The Platinum Rule in the search box here on our blog and you’ll find all you need to get up to speed in a hurry…

We’ve been looking at different scenarios where team members aren’t performing to the level they’re capable, whether that be through their words or their deeds. In some cases, it can be very intentional. But there are certainly times where they’re just not aware that more is needed. 

For the most part, supervisors, and owners have great relationships with the people around them. That’s how it really should be, right! Solid relationships lead to long term working relationships, but that can also make it pretty tough to have a candid conversation… That said, not addressing a situation can lead to all kinds of yucky business down the road!

One of the fundamentals I learned early on with behavior-based safety, more specifically when addressing at-risk behavior with a peer, was to be very intentional about pointing out the potential for injury from that behavior and be very careful not to question their ability or intent in the process....