How would you like your business to perform 259% better than your competitors?  What if there was one thing (albeit a major thing) that you, as a business owner, could do that would create this huge competitive advantage?  Would you do it?

Surprisingly, you probably wouldn’t.  Most business owners don’t view this approach as a real ‘competitive advantage’ – instead writing it off as touchy feely and not important.

The advantage I’m talking about is employee engagement…or being a great place to work and it’s illustrated by the performance of Fortune’s Top 100 Great Places to Work business versus their peers in the Russell 3000 stock index.  Granted small businesses don’t trade on a stock exchange, but it’s not a stretch to assume those results reflect the underlying performance of the companies.  Check out the performance comparisons below:

Equally impressive, Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For experience less than 50% of turnover compared to their peers…across all industries!

Of course it’s one thing to appreciate how engaged employees…and being a Great Place to Work could  make a difference in results, but the real challenge is figuring how to build that kind of environment for your own business.

One place to look might be what’s going on at Zappos – a hugely successful company built around a company culture of service and delivering ‘wow!’.  Zappos went from almost going under after the Dot-Com bust in 2001 / 2002 to generating over a $1 Billion in revenue less than 8 years later.  Since that time, they’ve been purchased by Amazon for $1.2 Billion – primarily as a model on how to really implement an amazing company culture.

According to Tony Hsieh – the CEO of Zappos and the author of the best selling Delivering Happiness, the essence of what it takes to be happy in general boils down to 4 things:

• Perceived Control (ability to make things happen)
• Perceived Progress (ability to get better)
• Connectedness (the number and depth of your relationships)
• Being part of something bigger than yourself

This ties in well with Daniel Pink’s Motivation 3.0 Model that he outlines in the book ‘Drive’.  The Motivation 3.0 model uses 3 key components as the drivers for motivation:

• Autonomy (ability to make things happen, decision making control)
• Mastery (ability to get better, develop skills that are important to me)
• Purpose (opportunity to work on something exciting that’s bigger than just me)

The underlying assumption here is that happy employees are motivated employees are engaged employees who have a great place to work.  In other words, all of these things tie together.

How do you apply this to your business?

For most business owners, adopting this new motivation model or building a strong company culture around things that will make employees happy seems almost impossible.  It’s definitely hard to make major changes, but the good news is that you don’t have to change everything at once, you can make incremental changes at your own pace.

Here are few things you should consider doing to get started:

Get to know your employees!

Do an employee survey that will help you learn more about what your employees think, what makes them tick, where they want to go and what kinds of things would motivate them.  In a smaller business you have the ability to really get to know everyone on a more personal basis – you still need to keep a professional distance, but the more you build a real relationship the more you will be able to engage them and find out what makes them go.

Delegate authority!

This is something you have to do anyway if you want to grow your business, but for the purposes of motivating your employees, you should brainstorm decisions that your employees should be making without you.  In a call center environment that might mean giving your call center representatives the ability to ‘make the customer happy’ with whatever means are necessary…up to a certain dollar amount. 

For other employees, identify ongoing decisions that have historically been escalated to management and ownership and figure out how to push those decisions down to the working level as much as possible.  Obviously you can’t just hope everything works out, so you’ll want controls and reporting in place, but your employees can and want to own more responsibility (and if they don’t you should get rid of them).

Involve employees in planning!

A big part of engagement is having everyone buy into where the company is going and how they’re going to get there.  As the owner you have the responsibility to lead the way, but that shouldn’t translate to a command and control approach, rather you should be leveraging your employees skills and experience to help you come up with great ideas.  Hold regular planning and status meetings with employees – done right these are very empowering and productive…and critical to keeping everyone engaged.

Consider flexible work arrangements!

If you’re like most business owners I know, you work a ton of hours but you would be very unlikely to go back to taking a job…even for good money.  Why?  A big part of the reason is the flexibility you have as the owner.  You work a lot of hours, but you (generally) have complete control over what hours you work.  Guess what – your employees would love that kind of flexibility as well!  Obviously different industries and different businesses will require different hours of operations, but there’s likely a lot more flexibility that’s possible than what you’re currently doing.  Brainstorm how you could pass along some of that to your employees.

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it!

Clearly rolling out significant changes on how you operate your business is not an easy thing to do, but the upside is clearly there.  If you have a business where every employee is engaged, on the same page and helping to make things happen, you will routinely be blowing your competitors out of the water…which will translate directly to the bottom line!

What changes could you roll out in your business in the next few months?  Which of these ideas resonated with you and made you think ‘hmmm…’?  What ideas did I miss?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Similar Posts:

• What motivates you? A book review of Drive
• 51% of Employees are very, very sad!
• Confronting the Brutal Facts – Employees

How important is it to keep a positive perspective?  It’s a popular topic on the self-help and self development circuit as one of the keys to long term happiness (or at least contentment).  There have also been a lot of scientific studies – in this article on the benefits of positive thinking from the Mayo Clinic it’s pretty key, a positive outlook will help reduce stress, help you live longer and be healthier overall…all in all not a bad deal!

As a business owner, staying positive is even more important…especially considering the alternative.  You’ve got plenty of things to worry about – starting with finances, people, competition…overall it’s a long list.  Now picture the difference of approaching these issues with a positive perspective and outlook versus a negative outlook?  With a positive approach, anything is possible and problems can be solved.  With a negative approach, everything is an issue and soon it all feels very overwhelming – it would be much easier to throw in the towel if you’re approaching things negatively. 

It might sound a little touchy feely, but I can tell you that it impacts a lot of business owners that I talk to.  The idea is summarized nicely in one of my favorite songs from The Shins – Young Pilgrims:

“But I learned fast how to keep my head up ’cause I
Know there is this side of me that
Wants to grab the yoke from the pilot and just
Fly the whole mess into the sea.” – The Shins

I think we all fight our own demons from time to time, but there is a real upside to keeping your head up – when you can open up and look at the possibilities you’ll be surprised at the great ideas and solutions you can come up with.

So positive thinking can impact your results (as I’ve written before)…it’s a wonderful, important thing to do, but what if you’re just not wired that way?  It’s not like you can just flip a switch and start thinking positively.  How you think /  your approach to things is a habit and it will require some changes if you’re going to be able to make being positive stick. 

Here are a few ideas to help you get started:

Be aware of your thoughts

A good place to start would be to simply start raising your awareness of what your thoughts are…how often are you thinking and talking to yourself in a negative way?  This is especially important because it turns our your brain is physically wired to reinforce whatever you’re thinking on a regular basis – check out points #2 and #3 from this great list of 30 Amazing Facts About Your Brain from Tim Brownson.  You tend to get more of whatever you think, so if you’re being negative, it’s easier to be negative the next time around.

Question? When you talk to yourself (in your head) are you positive or negative?

Give some serious thought to who you spend time with

Jim Rohn has a famous quote:

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”

If you’re hanging out with people who are inherently negative, you’re going to be negative as well.  Attitudes (along with success or failure) are contagious – it may be time to consider cleaning up your tribe (easier said than done, but it could have a huge impact on you).

Question?  Are the people you spend the most time with challenging you and helping you get better…or are they holding you back?

Start reframing when you notice potentially negative situations

Reframing is simply the conscious act of changing your perspective on something (an event, an outcome, a person, etc.).  Typically what ever we’re looking at or talking about isn’t inherently good or bad, it depends on how we frame our perception…and you can choose that frame.  Tim Brownson also has a good article on Reframing and how to use it.

Question?  Do you consciously look at a situation or an outcome and find a way to reframe it in a more positive light?  Could you?

There are a lot of other ways to impact your outlook – exercise can be a great way to lift your mood…a lot of people recommend some form of meditation…listen to positive music, read positive books or magazines, watch uplifting movies or shows.

How important is positive thinking to you?  When you’re trying to stay (or get) positive, what works best for you?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them in the comments below.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

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• Does positive thinking really help results?
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There are a bunch of unhappy people out there.  And the really scary part of that equation is that most of them are your employees (well maybe not your employees, but someone’s employees).

Several recent studies have shown that over 50% of employees are unhappy with their job and would consider leaving if they got the chance!  Imagine 50% of your employees leaving you next month…I imagine that would make you unhappy as well.

It sounds far fetched that a bunch of people would leave at once, but there are a lot of people who have held onto jobs they didn’t like for a long time simply because they didn’t think there would be anything else out there.  As the economy starts to warm up (which it’s doing slowly) there will be new opportunities and those unhappy people are going to bolt – even if it’s a lateral move, just to get out!

What can you do?

Now is the time to start seriously thinking about what you can do to get people back into the positive side of the equation (and hopefully keep them on board and productive).

Famous author and coach Marshall Goldsmith wrote an interesting article on what employees can do if they’re unhappy:  Why you aren’t happy and what to do to make things better.  Based on a study he did, the unhappiness doesn’t directly correlate with hours worked or focus on fun versus work.  However he did discover that employees who work in an environment that matches their own Core Values are likely to be happier…in other words, you need to get the Right People on the Bus!

Another good article from Sean Silverthorne – How to Fix an Unhappy Employee, looks at 3 additional components that help drive work satisfaction:

• Work on what you enjoy
• Work on what you’re good at
• Work on something valuable to the larger organization

Great employees are the lifeblood of a successful business.  Without happy, productive employees, you don’t have a business, so it’s definitely worth the time to figure out how to make them happy to be there.

Are you concerned about your employees?  What are you doing in these challenging times to make them productive and happy?  Share your thoughts in the comments below – I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach

Similar Posts:

• Want your business to perform 259% better?
• Confronting the Brutal Facts – Employees
• Are you working to build trust…every day?

As a business owner, you always have choices on how you run your business.  It’s not unusual to see a taskmaster chewing out their employees and running a tight ship.  You will also find those businesses that are run with encouragement and a high degree of compassion.

The cynics out there will sneer at the power of positive thinking.  It’s all about profits and the bottom line and there’s no room for fluff and nonsense and making people feel good.  These employees are grown-ups, if they can’t handle getting yelled at, then they need to go somewhere else!

On the other hand, the uber-idealists will tell you that all you need is love (or maybe that was the Beatles) and as long as people are happy, the results, the bottom line doesn’t matter.  It’s okay to spend more than you have if it means helping people out and giving them what they want.

Clearly these are extreme examples, but directionally what is the better answer?

Let’s start by taking a look at our very own Kansas City Chiefs!

Haley turns Positive!

There’s an interesting take on this in Jason Whitlock’s article today:  Chiefs coach Haley shows how far he’s come .  For those very few of you that don’t know, the Chiefs aren’t a very good football team right now (and haven’t been for several years).  Their first time head coach, Todd Haley has generally adopted the approach of the no-nonsense highly critical manager who yells at his team and his coaches…a lot (maybe not as much as they do in Lawrence…but still a lot). 

However in yesterday’s game against last year’s Superbowl Champion Pittsburgh Steelers, Haley went out of his way to be positive and encouraging…and they won!  As Whitlock put it:

Haley coached an excellent football game. He concentrated on play-calling and encouraging his players. He left the refs alone. He didn’t overreact to the mistakes made by his players.

Good things happen when you expect positive results, when you put your mind in a positive place, when you treat the people fighting with you like they have as much invested in the outcome as you do.

Did the Chiefs win because of a positive attitude?  No.  However it’s likely they performed better, and they were able to bounce back after getting behind because they weren’t drowning in negativity.

As a leader, it’s your job to inspire and pick people up.  Yelling and negativity might have a short term effect of driving results, but in the long run it will work against you.

Example 2 – Positive Company Approach

I had the opportunity to do some Social Media training for a local company last week and I was really struck by how they ran their business.  This was a company that was investing serious time and money into their lower level employees – not on job specific skills, but on broader leadership and management training and awareness that would really help them see the big picture in the long run.

Additionally, you could see a real culture of working together and helping each other out.  The employees genuinely enjoyed working there, they appreciated their opportunities and their turnover was very low.

The kicker?  This company is growing so fast that they are struggling to find enough good people (in this economy).  Is that all due to the positive environment?  No – but I can tell you that it certainly helps!  These are employees that will do what it takes to help the company succeed – because they want to, not because they have to.

What kind of environment have you built around your business?  You can believe in the bottom line and still treat people with respect and positive reinforcement.  You may not get the quick response you get with yelling and screaming, but you’ll certainly get a better one – especially in the long run.

Have you seen any great examples of really positive (or really negative) companies out there?  I’d love to hear your thoughts – share them below.

Shawn Kinkade   Kansas City Business Coach

Similar Posts:

• What you’re thinking about is expanding
• …Fly the whole mess into the sea?
• 51% of Employees are very, very sad!