The First 5 Minutes: How to Turn Good Intentions Into Finished Work

People often talk to me about having great intentions about what they want to get done on a given day or week.

But then, they get to work and it all those good intentions go out the window as they deal with all the urgent crap that comes up.

We are all faced with constant distractions and interruptions from others — not to mention a fair amount of wasted time that we inflict upon ourselves through procrastination, 2000 messages in our inbox, or just the general chaos that leaves us waiting, searching, or wasting time vs. doing.

Create your daily five minute plan

I have found a simple practice that only takes five (5) minutes, and it makes an enormous difference in turning those good intentions into finished work.

Each day, before you do anything else, spend the first five minutes planning your day. Think about and write down, “what are the specific things I need to finish today?”

That’s it.

The simple act of doing this shifts your whole mind set from chaos to control.

Take control of your day

You start your day defining and taking control of the kind of day you want to have instead of starting your day reacting to whatever came in on email.

If you start your day by reacting to email, you have ceded the kind of day you are going to have to everyone else.

Sure, on minute six when you “finally” look at your email, there might be something that you must do right away, but if you did the planning beforehand, you will think and act very differently.

Be more productive

Instead of just jumping into reactive mode, by having thought about what you want to get done that day, you give yourself the chance to judge the priority of your intended plans against the new things that have “come up.”

Instead of just getting on the roller coaster by jumping in and reacting, you might decide to first knock two quick things off your list because they are quick and important, and then work on the reactive, urgent tasks during the rest of the day.

Or you might decide that this new task and your thing are tasks that deserve equal time, so you come up with a strategy to make enough progress on both of them by spending no more than four hours each.

If you didn’t think about your plan ahead of time, this new thing you are reacting to will just take over your mind and your time, and you will fail to make progress on the things you intended to get done.

A real example from today…

As an example, today, my my five minutes of planning generated this list: create a proposal for a client that is due tomorrow, work on a key webpage on my website, exercise, answer five specific emails, and publish my blog for this week.

Once I looked at my incoming email, I discovered website issues, new requests, and a plea for help from a colleague.

I decided to lead with the website issues for the first hour, then create the proposal (for up to 2 hours, which I finished), then exercise, the answer the 5 specific emails, then help my colleague, then publish my blog. I got a start on my webpage project, and put the rest of my webpage work on my plan for tomorrow.

Without my plan, I can tell you I would have spent the whole day reacting, not getting my stuff done, (and convincing myself that there wasn’t time in the day to exercise).

But with my five minute plan in focus, I got almost everything on my list done, plus all the reactive, (important) stuff that came in. There were plenty of emails I did not reply to today.

Does it have to be the morning?

Some people prefer to do this at the end of the work day, or before they go to bed. That is fine. Just make sure:

1. You take five minutes to make a plan every day.
2. That you look at it first thing — before you look at your email.

Additionally, know that your brain is very receptive first thing in the morning.

What you feed your brain in the first 15 minutes after waking will have a lot to do with the kind of day you have.

So why feed it email? Why not fill it with good stuff instead? Something that energizes you?

Whether or not you use the morning to build your five minute plan for the day, keep control of the first 15 to 30 minutes of your day by keeping email (and everyone else in the world) out of it.

Then YOU can decide the kind of day you want to have when you wake up in the morning.

Don’t let email ruin your day

If your email is going to piss you off, you will be much more capable of handling it, without it ruining your mood and your day, if you deal with it in minute 31 vs. the first waking minute of your day.

Instead of letting email get you all riled up first thing in the morning, use that time connect with your spouse, your kids, your pets, or yourself — first. The before you dive into email, make your 5 minute plan or check the one you made last night.

You will have a much better shot at having a good, productive day that makes you feel accomplished and happy if you start your day in a positive way that you keep control of.

By Patty Azzarello is the founder and CEO of Azzarello Group

The 8 Qualities Employers Most Want in Their Employees

1. Being a team player (selected by 71 percent of surveyed companies): “Being part of a team has taken on a higher priority since many companies are still operating with leaner work forces and there is a greater need to accomplish goals through others” said Ford.
2. Fully focused on satisfying customers (chosen by 68 percent of employers): “Employees should share complimentary letters and emails they receive with their bosses. Don’t assume that he or she already knows about your excellent customer service, but do it in a discreet way,” Ford added.
3. Motivate and engage others in their jobs (chosen by 65 percent of companies): “In a challenging economy, employers appreciate when their employees reach out and keep each other motivated and involved in their work,” noted Ford.
4. Success in achieving your “critical few objectives” (picked by 62 percent of companies): “These are the top one or two reasons why you were hired in the first place. Accomplishing these will count more than any other contributions you have made,” said Ford.
5. Work smart (preferred by 60 percent of companies): This includes being up to date on the latest technology, keeping your skills and professional knowledge current, and continually searching for improvements in productivity, efficiency, and profitability.
6. Work hard (selected by 57 percent of employers): “Although companies for years have preferred working smart to working hard, they still want to see that you are dedicated to your job, put in an extra effort and volunteer to fill any gaps when necessary,” said Ford.
7. Add value to the organization (chosen by 52 percent of employers): Retention rewards are a recognition of your value. Track and document the specific ways you have added value to your employer.
8. Contribute to improving the bottom line (selected by 48 percent of businesses): There are various ways to do this, including helping to increase sales, cut costs, decrease turnover, and make useful suggestions and recommendations.

BY John Hollon is Vice President for Editorial of TLNT.com, and the former Editor of Workforce Management magazine and workforce.com.

What Exit Interviews Reveal About Why Employees Leave

From a PwC study of 19,000+ employees who completed exit interviews with PwC clients, the results are clear:

Better compensation is only a part of the reason why people leave an organization.  In most cases it is a symptom of a more complex need that people have to work for an organization that is fair, trustworthy, and deserving of an individual’s best efforts.  Don’t take your people for granted.  While you may not be able to provide the pay increases you were able to in the past, there is nothing stopping you from showing that you care for your people, are interested in their long term development, and are committed to their careers.”

Moreover, five out of the 10 reasons are directly related to supervisor skills or lack thereof (I include recognition for contributions in this category as too often this is fully reliant on the supervisor).

Indeed, employees do leave managers, not companies.

Company Culture Dilemma: Getting Execs & Employees on the Same Page

How do we “live” out the company culture?

Some “94 percent of executives and 88 percent of employees believe a distinct workplace culture is important to business success.”

In fact, executives and managers alike agree on the importance of culture to organization success, as evidenced by these results from the survey:

• 83 percent of executives and 84 percent of employees rank having engaged and motivated employees as the top factor that substantially contributes to a company’s success.
• There is a correlation between employees who say they are “happy at work” and feel “valued by [their] company” and those who say their organization has a clearly articulated and lived culture.
• There is a correlation between clearly articulated and lived culture and strong business performance.

And yet, “Only 19 percent of executives and 15 percent of employees believe strongly that their culture is widely upheld within their own organizations.”

Therein lies the rub. If we all agree that culture is critical success, how is it that we cannot seem to figure out how to live out that culture?

Perhaps it’s because executives and employees do not agree on what factors most impact a culture. Keep in mind, it’s these factors that make it possible to “live” and uphold the culture broadly throughout the organization.

Factors that most impact culture

• No. 1 Factor: Executives say financial performance (65 percent), but employees say it’s regular and candid communication (50 percent);
• No. 2 Factor: Executives say its competitive compensation (62 percent), while employees say it is employee recognition (49 percent) or access to management (47 percent)

It’s also not at all surprising that the factors executives consider to be most important ranked among the lowest for employees.

Indeed, what’s most needed is to get executives and employees on the same priorities page. Instead of focusing so much on “competitive compensation,” perhaps executives should insist on fair pay structures and then more effectively use that budget to fund a strategic employee recognition program.

And yes, financial performance is inarguably important, but success can only be achieved when all employees are pulling in the same direction.

Recognize and reward them when they live your values in contribution to achieving your financial performance objectives. This gives them regular communication on what matters most to executives.

Derek Irvine is Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce

Company Culture - Recognition or Repression

1. A culture of repression – This type of culture can take many forms, but the key characteristics include employees who are more focused on advancing their own goals/agendas than the company’s, an air of “why give my opinion because nobody will listen anyway,” and general fear (of management, of bully colleagues, of “sticking your neck out.”)
2. A culture of recognition – In a recognition culture, on the other hand, employees both clearly understand the company’s goals and focus their work to achieve them. Because they’re encouraged to do so, employees far more readily share ideas and innovative thinking, and work in an environment of mutual support.

A culture where people can focus on the job

Mike Sheehan, chief executive of the ad agency Hill Holliday, described these two types of cultures in his own way in a recent New York Times “Corner Office” column:

“I think there are two kinds of cultures, and then you can subdivide them after that. One is based on a foundation of insecurity, fear and chaos, and one is based on a firm platform where people come to work and they’re worried about the work itself. They’re not worried about things that surround the work and are not important. I’ve tried to make Hill Holliday that kind of environment, where people come to work and they’re not worried about their peers shooting them. If leadership doesn’t provide a forum for that kind of behavior, it dies quickly. People forget about it and they just focus on doing their job.

“You don’t want a conflict-free zone, but you want the conflicts to be about the work itself. Sometimes you have to dig a little bit and talk to people, but if you find out the conflict is about the work, then that’s good, because it’s healthy. I think that in a lot of workplaces it’s the opposite — people have to come to a consensus on the work, and so all the conflicts are political.

“That’s one thing that the founder, Jack [Connors], instilled in the culture. It’s not a democracy. You’ve got to make tough decisions and then you’ve got to move on. ‘The enemy’s out there,’ he would say. ‘The enemy’s not in these four walls.’”

Indeed, that last line is the rub. If you have a culture of recognition, you must be willing to protect it by identifying “enemies” that slip inside your four walls and removing them.

By Derek Irvine is Vice President, Client Strategy & Consulting Service at Globoforce

Interviewing Made Simple, in Just Six Questions

There are really only two questions that need to be answered in the hiring selection process:

1. Is this the right person for the job?
2. Is the job right for this person?

To answer these questions, we need to ask only four questions:

1. Can this person do this job?
2. Will this person like doing this job and do it well?
3. Will this person like working with us?
4. Will we like working with this person?

By Mel Kleiman, CSP, is an internationally-known authority on recruiting, selecting, and hiring hourly employees. 

Keeping Employees Happy? Hey CEOs, This Isn’t Rocket Science

When employees are happy, customers are happy

CEOs need to shift their focus from their customers to their employees. No, I’m not crazy. I get that it’s the customers and ongoing business development that keeps the lights on. What’s hard to see however (and I’m sorry to say that I’ve seen it first hand), is when companies put a higher priority on customers and numbers than they do on their employees.

It’s not a difficult concept. When employees are happy, customers will be happy. When customers are happy, the bottom line will take care of itself.

On the flip side, do you think employees will go overboard for a customer when they don’t feel they’re being treated fairly? Think they’ll burn that midnight oil for you at crunch time?

Leaders and CEOs have a lot on their plates. When it comes to how to treat people right, maybe this seems like an overwhelming undertaking. I understand that, too. But it doesn’t need to be complicated.

Good leadership MUST start from the top so that it can trickle down to the rest of management. This is not negotiable. The responsibility of providing good leadership shouldn’t fall on HR’s shoulders because HR doesn’t run the company — the CEO does.

Six leaderships basics

HR should be coaching and promoting good leadership styles, but at the end of the day, it has to start at the top. So now that we have that clear, here are a few basics:

• Listen to new ideas. You never know who will come up with the next “big” one.
• Provide good feedback. People want to know how they’re doing. It is a big deal. Don’t take it for granted.
• Celebrate the little victories publicly. It’s free and goes a long way. Trust me.
• Be sure that folks are learning from mistakes. If they’re not, take action.
• Don’t get hung up on surveys. Leave your office and visit the trenches. You won’t melt if you mingle with the underlings, I promise.
• Communicate and communicate more! People feel valued when they know what’s going on in the organization.

Get out of the boardroom, ditch your ego, and apply that basic psychology and some common sense to your leadership style. Be sure the entire management team is doing the same thing. Rinse and repeat.

In an environment that needs change, it will be slow but you will see a positive difference.

By Kimberly Roden is the founder of Unconventional HR.

Employee Engagement: 9 Tips to Help Employees and Leaders Achieve More

Tips to help leaders enable employees

Leaders can have a big impact in helping others achieve by taking those principles to heart. Listed below are tips to help leaders do that very thing and enable their employees to achieve more.

• Ask yourself the following questions about how your employees achieve:
• Do I know the goals my employees are working on in their achieving cycles (personal and professional)?
• What are the roadblocks getting in the way of their progress? What am I doing to remove those roadblocks?
• Is there a clear connection between their professional work and the important work of the team? How can I strengthen that connection and help them understand it clearly?
• Are they overloaded with minutiae or busywork? What can I do to eliminate this type of work?
• Do I know how each employee is motivated? What actions can I take to enhance their motivation?
• Set clear goals with employees. People make more progress when leaders are clear about the link between what they do and what matters to the organization. And successful teams are those that have clear goals, and where people know how their work affects those goals. Help your people gain lineof- sight visibility from their work to the team’s goals.
• Help employees break projects, goals, and work assignments into small victories. Small victories tap into motivation. Achieving is fueled by making small amounts of progress, such as accomplishing a task or solving a problem. Help those that work with you jump into an achievement cycle and experience the benefi ts and rewards of moving through all five steps.
• Teach people how to manage time and energy wisely. Coach employees to fully engage in the task at hand, focus on the important rather than the urgent, avoid distractions, and create balance and renewal in the achievement of the goal. Help them learn to say no to urgent requests or terrifi c ideas that aren’t aligned with the important work of the team.
• Commit resources and remove roadblocks. Enable people to move forward in their work by committing appropriate resources, removing obstacles, helping them work across boundaries, and aligning processes, structure, and systems.
• Help employees engage others. Encourage those you work with to reach out and engage others with similar goals. Remind them that goals can be created independently, but achieving them almost always requires help and support from others.
• Identify specific motivators and adjust accordingly. Discuss with employees their extrinsic motivators, and identify opportunities and implications to bolster the achieving cycle. If they are motivated by recognition, identify ways to give meaningful praise, show approval for their work and team behaviors, or commend them for achievements along the way. Find ways to acknowledge them in front of their peers and express appreciation. If they are motivated by rewards, identify both economic and noneconomic rewards that you can give as a consequence of achievement.
• Discuss achieving opportunities outside of work. Have conversations with employees about what they want to achieve in their careers and in their personal lives. Highly engaged individuals fi nd sources of motivation inside and outside of work. Talk about all aspects of achieving, knowing that the organization still benefi ts whether an employee becomes more engaged from working with an outside volunteer organization or from working on a project to solve one of your biggest customer complaints. Genuine interest and a little fl exibility on your part can go a long way toward increasing motivation, achievement, and ultimately engagement.
• Adjust motivators over time. Stay connected with your employees. Remember that people’s motivations can, and often do, change over time. Have achieving conversations with employees regularly, preferably outside of the annual performance review process. Adjust as they adjust.

By Timothy R. Clark is founding partner and CEO of TRClark .

The 5 Ways That Highly Engaged Employees Are Different

How do you learn engagement from someone who’s disengaged?

You don’t. That’s like trying to learn French from a Spanish teacher. People simply can’t teach you what they don’t know.

So we decided that the key to understanding high engagement was to study the highly engaged. We studied 150 highly engaged employees in 13 different industries and 50 different organizations, from aerospace and health care to technology and media.

Do they behave in consistent ways? The answer is a resounding yes! Here is what we found:

1. Highly engaged employees take primary responsibility for their own engagement. When surveyed, 99 percent of highly engaged employees report that they take personal and primary responsibility for their own engagement. It’s a stunning and largely ignored fact. The highly engaged expect the organization to play a support role. The highly disengaged expect the organization to play a primary role. While most highly engaged employees embrace an employee-centered model of engagement (meaning “I own it; it’s up to me; I’m responsible for my own engagement”), most disengaged employees follow an employer-centered model (meaning “It’s my manager’s or the organization’s job to keep me engaged”). In sharp contrast, the highly engaged don’t wait around for the organization to engage them. They take deliberate steps to engage themselves.
2. Highly engaged employees feel the least entitled. Highly engaged employees understand they must dynamically manage their employability on an ongoing basis. They are far less predisposed to worry about what the organization owes them. They believe that high performance speaks for itself and that it will be recognized in any setting. It’s rather stunning, but most of the highly engaged individuals we studied think the concept of a “secure job” is a silly concept. They look at others who believe in such a notion as foolhardy. It’s not necessarily that we are going to become a world of temp workers, but a simple acknowledgment that no one and no organization has the power to grant true job security.
3. Highly engaged employees engage customers. Highly engaged employees can’t help but reveal themselves to customers. They project and infect customers with the contagion of their own engagement. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true of disengaged employees. Ultimately, an organization’s brand promise is kept or broken by the employee — the real and ultimate face of the company. Highly engaged employees make the customer experience. Disengaged employees break it. Whatever is inside the employee is sure to come out and infl uence the customer. Employees always reveal their level of engagement at the customer interface.
4. Highly engaged employees remain highly engaged almost anywhere. Highly engaged employees are amazingly agnostic to their organizational environment. We found highly engaged people in all kinds of organizational settings and environments: corporations, governments, hospitals, schools, nonprofi ts. It didn’t matter. They demonstrate agility and adaptability and recognize that organizational conditions are subject to market conditions and the business cycle. Their high engagement is portable; they take it with them. It’s both a mindset and a skill set. They create their own weather.
5. Highly engaged employees apply six behavioral drivers. Individuals who take personal and primary responsibility for their own engagement consistently apply six behavioral drivers: connecting, shaping, learning, stretching, achieving, and contributing. The ongoing process of applying these drivers allows them to sustain high levels of engagement over time.

Highly engaged must take the lead

Don’t misunderstand. We’re not saying that leaders and organizations shouldn’t help engage their employees.

They should! Extrinsic motivators help drive engagement, and leaders play a vital role in fostering conditions that boost engagement, such as creating a dynamic culture, developing good leadership, creating a compelling strategy and vision, aligning reward and recognition systems, and providing ample resources.

We are saying, however, that highly engaged employees must take primary responsibility. They must take the lead.

As an individual, you’re responsible for enabling behavior. If both elements come together, the result is a highly engaged individual. It’s important to understand both factors and how they reinforce each other.

“The employee’s role is primary”

And it’s critical to recognize a significant finding from our research about highly engaged employees: even in poorly performing organizations with lousy work conditions, limited resources, and few opportunities, those who are highly engaged still take responsibility and own their own engagement.

Here’s the principle: Organizational conditions that create extrinsic motivation are important, but never enough. The employee’s role is primary. The organizagtion’s role is secondary.

To maintain high engagement, you’ve got to take action. You’ve got to apply  the six drivers and create your own engagement.

By Timothy R. Clark is founding partner and CEO of TRClark .

The Top 10 Reasons That Your Employees Really Quit

The myth: 89 percent of employers believe that employees leave because of money.

The reality: 88 percent of employees leave because of things other than money.

According to the study, here are the top 10 reasons employees quit:

1. Limited career opportunities (16 percent)
2. Lack of respect/support from supervisor (13 percent)
3. Money (12 percent)
4. Lack of interesting/challenging job duties (11 percent)
5. Lack of leadership from supervisor (9 percent)
6. Bad work hours (6 percent)
7. Unavoidable reasons (5 percent)
8. Bad employee relations by supervisor (4 percent)
9. Favoritism by supervisor (4 percent)
10. Lack of recognition for contributions (4 percent)

How to keep every one of your employees

The above data ties in rather nicely with the facts and figures presented in my last webinar,Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Employee Engagement. (Here‘s a summary if you just want the highlights.)

Most notably:

• Only 29 percent of employees are truly engaged (Gallup);
• Disengaged employees are five times more likely to leave than engaged employees (Cornell);
• Despite all the investment and attention in recent years, engagement is actually decreasing (Gallup, Conference Board); and
• Pay doesn’t rank among the top four (4) engagement drivers (Right Management).

The top 10 list above makes it 187 percent clear that supervisors play a humongous role in whether employees leave or stay. As we often say here on the Blawg, it’s all about LOVE: treating your employees the way you’d like to be treated. According to the experts, the No. 1 thing managers can do to make employees stay is “value” them (Right Management), “care” about them (Monster/Unum) and be “genuinely interested in their well-being” (Towers Watson).

How to keep employee happy and engaged

But exactly how do do that? Here in one handy chart is a summary of approximately 85,927 hours of engagement research — something we call THE MAGICAL WHEEL OF ENGAGEMENT:

Employees desperately want their leaders to:

• ENVISION a bold, clear and inspirational future;
• EMPATHIZE with them to understand their motivations and strengths;
• ENHANCE their skills through education, exposure and experience;
• EMPOWER them to do meaningful work;
• EVALUATE them on a truthful and timely basis;
• ENCOURAGE them as much as humanly possible

If you do those six things, your employees will feel the LOVE and will stay with you forever. If you don’t, they won’t.

By Mark Toth has served as Manpower Group North America's Chief Legal Officer

Lead Like Braveheart: How to Inspire Heroic Effort From Your Employees

Your leadership style profoundly affects how your employees handle both micro and macro challenges.

Your leadership style affects whether they face the daily challenges of their jobs with whining and negativity or a positive, determined attitude. Your leadership styles affects whether your people face the major challenges brought on by the tough economy and other major challenges with fear and feeling helpless or whether they have a “Bring it on!” attitude.

Here’s a way to assess whether you bring out your team’s Inner Hero:

“Do you lead more like William Wallace, or like a 13th century Scottish nobleman?”

If you are a fan of the movie Braveheart, you understand the William Wallace reference and probably understand the question. If not, let me explain the context. After you read the context, please watch the video below.

William Wallace lived in the late 13th century and played a major role in the Wars of Scottish Independence. In the movie Braveheart, he was just a regular guy (played by Mel Gibson) who wanted to live an ordinary life as a farmer raising a family. Because of the actions of the tyrannical English king (Edward 1) who ruled Scotland at the time, he rose up and followed the path of the warrior.

His courage and willingness to stand up to tyranny animated his countrymen. His leading by example provided them a vision of what was possible.

Leadership that creates a “disengaged army”

When the rag tag collection of highlanders and simple farmers gathered on the battlefield and looked out across the field at the sheer size and might of the King Edward’s Royal Army, they knew they didn’t stand a chance. The overwhelming military might facing them from across the huge field left them frightened and dispirited.

One peasant gave voice to their collective fear when he asked out loud why they should give up their lives so the Scottish nobility would simply get more land, while they, the commoners, would continue to work that land for a pittance?

There was clearly no big “What’s in it for me?” upside for the Scottish commoners, and a huge downside. The Scottish nobility were asking the commoners to risk everything and offered no compelling reason why, nor did they show an interest in the commoners. The commoners existed to serve the nobility. The Scottish noblemen were the epitome of User Leadership rather than Servant Leadership.

Noblemen leadership in Corporate America

The Scottish noblemen were attempting to rally their rag-tag army using an approach that, hundreds of years later, would be imitated by far too many leaders. The noblemen’s exhortations were not unlike the many senior executives who try to motivate their people by telling them how important it is to “make our numbers” and reach goals that will enrich the stockholders, but offer no real sense of why the employees should care.

They don’t address the “Why” — why doing this matters to the company, to employees, to their customers, and even to the world. Because they don’t capture the imagination, nor do they demonstrate concern for the impact their plans have on their employees, they fail to inspire desire, courage or greatness in their people.

So their employees don’t care. They remain disengaged.

Back to the Scottish nobility and their army.

Not surprisingly, with no compelling “Why” and a huge downside, the men in this rag tag army were less than inspired to face such a frightening foe. The Scottish nobles had done nothing to elicit their army’s “inner hero.”

In fact, the commoners started to disperse.

Leadership that unleashes heroic effort

Then, over the hill, comes William Wallace and his small group of inspired warriors. Listen to what he says to the frightened men about to flee the battle ground. Notice how he calls out their Inner Hero by appealing both to a higher purpose — recognizing the right for all people to be free — as well as their own self-interest — the chance to be free after living for years under tyranny.

His message, the message from someone leading by example, was far different from the Scottish noblemen’s which was essentially:

“Make these huge sacrifices for us (and there’s really not a whole lot in it for you).”

Wallace’s message was this:

“Dare to face this frightening foe, and if you do, you will receive something you thirst for — freedom. Do this and you will make possible something deeply meaningful to each of us.”

Are you a William Wallace or a Scottish Noblemen?

Think of people you’ve encountered who were leaders in title only, people who were like the Scottish noblemen. They were clearly “all about them.”

Then, think of leaders who were more like William Wallace. They inspired you to be great, through their actions and their words. They led by example. They saw and called forth your Inner Hero.

They also showed how your heroic efforts would make a difference in ways that you cared deeply about.

Reflect on the difference in your motivation level and also, how you felt about yourself, when working for these two types of leaders.

Then ask yourself which leader you resemble.

How the Braveheart approach can drive your team’s Inner Hero

1. Connect them to a higher purpose. Show your team members how they can, and do, make a difference in the world. Show them what they can do in their everyday work to make their part of the world a better place. Share stories about what they and their colleagues do that improves the lives and businesses of your customers. Challenge them to be their best — not simply for your company — but for themselves as people. Just as William Wallace tapped into the human hunger for freedom and helped his people overcome their terror of an overpowering enemy, tapping into what’s important to your people — and people in general — will call forth their Inner Hero.
2. Don’t just focus on your goals, focus on your people. While the Scottish noblemen exhorted the Scottish army to sacrifice for something that would benefit primarily only the noblemen, William Wallace asked them to sacrifice for something that had deep meaning to them. Do this with your people. Focus on what matters to them and connect your business goals and your employees’ daily work to these intrinsic motivators. Show your concern for your team by sincerely showing you care about them as individuals with unique personalities and lives. You show you care by actively seeking feedback on how you can remove unnecessary obstacles and hassles from their work. You also show you care by making sure they have what they need to do their jobs well, rather than communicate a “Suck it up” attitude.
3. Make sure you lead by example. A huge part of William Wallace’s influence came from the fact that he lead by example. He demonstrated incredible courage and did not ask others to do what he himself would not. Consciously reflect on what you ask of your team and then go through this list to see how well you are modeling these behaviors.
4. Get feedback. If you are not sure whether the way you communicate and act are more along the lines of the Scottish noblemen or like William Wallace, solicit feedback — whether face to face or, more productively involving a third party, do a 360 degree survey, get a coach.
5. Start now. If you know you need to work on this, start now. Don’t put this on your “Someday I’ll…” list. Get the process of getting feedback going right now.

BY David Lee is the founder and principal of HumanNature@Work