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Help Your Employees Set And Define Better Goals

Compassion, Engagement, Leadership, Mindfulness / By My Holland / Defining goals, Help your employees define their goals, Helping employees

It oftentimes happens that with the start of a calendar new year or a fiscal year among business companies, employers set up their employees to develop and achieve goals. Left to their own devices, these guys could pretty well be writing down traditional new year’s resolutions as in reducing weight or refraining from going to sleazy girlie bars or, they may simply go through the motion of listing down objectives as nonchalantly as doing the grocery list. Of course, it’s got to be a little more serious than that. Reason enough why employers should play a role in their staff’s goal setting. Here are several ways you (as a business owner or entrepreneur with employees) can help your guys set better goals: Reiterate the company’s mission. It’s funny. In a survey of three thousand US workers, only about four in ten know what their organization stands for and what makes their brand different from the rest. You have got to help employees better understand the over-all mission . Redefining this and sharing the company-wide goals will get your guys working towards goals that will run parallel to your company’s. Make the employee goal-setting a two-way affair. You can’t let this be the employee’s sole responsibility. You, as a manager have got to jump in and make it a collaborative process. Why? Because it’ll help to get those objectives more aligned with your company’s mission. Ensure you help make those goals as specific as possible as to include the who’s, what’s, when’s, where’s and why’s of it. And, use concrete numbers so you can quantify and measure the results in realistic terms. Set your employees up for success. Work out goals that are within reach or, you may want to break down long-term goals and set up timelines for what has to be done and when. This will make short-term, smaller goals more achievable which should provide the motivation to push on. Map out an achievement plan. Don’t stop at simply setting and defining goals with your employees. A goal achievement plan is essential as well. This is where you need to have control points as you get to know what needs to be accomplished for the quarter and how all concerned should actively work to address any issues that may have risen. This should also help to keep your guys on track. So you’ve been the conscientious manager who assisted the team members in the setting of goals. Now take a step back and review what you’ve collaboratively put down. Honestly, ask yourself the question … “Are these the goals that will inspire passion among my team members? Will these drive them to go the extra mile?” If you’re getting affirmative answers, give yourself a pat on the back and treat yourself to the biggest ice cream cone at Dairy Queen. If not, I don’t have to tell you… it’s back to the drawing boards till you’ve got something that’ll fly!

Empathy at Work Drive Your Business Forward

Compassion, Emotional Intelligence, Mindfulness, Positive Psychology / By My Holland

What Is Empathy? Empathy is the capacity to recognise and understand the emotions of other people. It’s about putting yourself in another person’s shoes, understanding his/her perspective and reality. You’ve heard about this often enough during call center and customer service trainings where the trainers tell you to “put yourself in the customer’s shoes to better understand what’s going on in the customer’s heart and mind.” You might think that empathy is spontaneous. It’s not. There’s a little science to it. What happens is …when you hear a compelling story or see a scene or a situation that hits your soft spot, our body releases Cortisol which helps us to concentrate on the subject matter. Simultaneously, the body also releases Oxytoxin. This is sometimes called the “Trust Hormone” or the “Bonding Hormone.”. It’s what makes us care about the subject matter and increases our empathy. Recent research which had men undergo an aerosol shot of Oxytoxin found that this group had exhibited emotional empathy in higher levels. All of us have these, but depending on genetics, our mood at the moment and how we relate to the other person, levels of our individual empathy varies. Why Empathy Is Important In Businesses The ability to connect with and relate to people, (in particular, prospects and regular customers of a business) is true empathy. It’s a force that can move the business forward because empathy makes you think beyond yourself and your own concerns. The minute you begin seeing and understanding that side of the business, you’ll realise there’s a lot to discover and appreciate. This inevitably leads tocreativity and innovation and happy customers. To start applying empathy at the workplace more effectively, especially among employees who interact with customers, you as a manager might want to have them consider the following guides: Get rid of your own perspective. Instead look at things from the other person’s viewpoint. As soon as you do this, you’ll get to realize these guys aren’t being wicked or unkind or difficult and unreasonable. They’re just responding to the situation with the information they’ve got. This happens all the time with customer complaints. Listen and listen well. Listen with your ears (what is the other person saying? what kind of tone is he using?) Listen with your instincts (Is he communicating all the important issues? Is there something he’s not telling you?). Listen with your heart (how do you think he/she feels?). Acknowledge the other person’s perspective. Once you recognize why the other person believes what she believes, then acknowledge it. This doesn’t equate to you agreeing but it’s an acceptance of other peoples opinions and they may have solid reasons to have those opinions. Be flexible. When interacting with your company’s customers, be prepared to change directions as the other person’s thoughts and feelings might also change. Getting yourself and your team to develop an empathy approach at the workplace may just be the most relevant decision you can make to improving your business. When you start understanding others, they’d want to understand you too and that’s how effective collaborative work goes.

Loving what you do… small steps

Compassion, Mindfulness, Productivity, Wellbeing / By My Holland

Can you picture Tiger Woods driving a heavy truck hauling cargo from the piers to their destination in the city’s warehouses? How about Meryl Streep? Do you see her counting dollar bills as a bank teller? Neither, I’ll bet, can you visualise Steven Spielberg as a used-car salesman convincing a prospect to buy that Toyota Camry. Along with a lot of other people, these three personalities : an excellent young , meticulous golfer, an accomplished, multi-awarded actress and a highly successful film director with the wild imagination of a 12 year old, all love what they do. They enjoy every aspect of the careers they’ve chosen to pursue and excel in, and presumably wouldn’t trade it for anything else. Fate has been good and generous to them – loving what they do and getting paid handsomely for it. The celebrity status, the fame and glamour that come with it are gravy for a remarkably delicious steak! Wouldn’t it be grand if we can all just do what we enjoy doing and get a hefty paycheck at the end of each month? Is there actual truth to what most commencement speakers tell a graduating class, “Do what you love. The money will follow,” ? Surely, it’s inspirational, but there aren’t any guarantees. You could pretty well go broke doing what you truly care about. The experts say desire is all important when you’re treading into the unknown. When you simply want to follow your passion and do what you enjoy doing, or at least pursue something that’ll lead you to what you love in order to do your best work, a certain degree of uncertainty revolves around it. Success isn’t a sure thing. It’s a make or break thing. Your strong desire though will push you to be more creative, more resourceful and help you go for the whole nine yards. So, what if I have the desire but am sure it won’t lead to anywhere that’ll bring in the money, should I still go for it? In a research study, “The Power of Small Wins” which ran in Harvard Business Review a few years back, it showed that people who progress everyday toward something they love, feel tremendously satisfied and fulfilled. And so to answer the question … Yes, go for it! But let’s qualify that. If chasing this thing you’re crazy about won’t enable you to bring food on the table or, it would keep you away from a college degree, then hold back. Don’t make any big bets on your desire. This does not mean though that you cannot work on your passion a little at a time, or start building blocks. Spending 15 minutes or half an hour a day on it will keep the embers burning. And you really should. Why? Because you could be wrong! Assuming doing what you love won’t bring in the greenbacks could ruin your whole life. So, take those small steps towards what you love doing. Who knows? You just might discover that this passion of yours is a treasure chest waiting to be opened.

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