Corporate Social Responsibility is good for retention and for the bottom line!
Corporate Social Responsibility is NOT about donating to good causes. It is about across the board sustainability for all stakeholders. Employees are an important stakeholder, probably the most costly one. A focus on wellbeing of all who work for the organization leads to sustainability – less absenteeism, less staff turnover, an attractive place to work…
Survival and being …
Most people tend to “react primarily”, as it is called. In other words, their behavior is largely automatic, they just react to the emotion without their behavior being a conscious choice. A situation produces a ready-made emotion from memory and an equally ready-made reaction (behavior) follows in response. All these kinds of ready-made solutions are…
Be patient with loss
As an excellent leader, it is quite possible you will be confronted with loss from time to time. Your own loss, or that of one of your team members. This loss may be of a personal nature, yet can also arise in the professional arena. Think of a project that was “your baby” being ended,…
Stimulate, facilitate and support
If your team member is just doing the same trick over and over again (no matter how complex or sophisticated that trick is), at some point it becomes ordinary. And ordinary is boring. And boring can lead to a bore-out. And with a bore-out, you lose valuable team members with valuable talents. And that is…
What your role is as a leader
Are you there to pull? Push? Or are you the charismatic leader who inspires? What is increasingly needed in a rapidly changing world is for leaders to be connectors and facilitators. You cannot do it on your own. You need others. And you don’t need a collection of clones of yourself, nor a bunch of…
Selecting intrinsically motivated candidates is better for sustainability
When employees come to work to earn a salary (that is an extrinsic motivation), they will do the necessary because they have to. When employees come to work because that work meets their needs, gives them pleasure and makes them feel proud, they will do what they have to -and much more- because it is…
Suppress your conversion reflex
If everyone were exactly like you, the world would be very predictable, yet also very boring. It would make all forms of learning redundant and leave no room for personal development. Embrace the fact that people are different and that this is good. So stop trying to convert others into a clone of yourself! Indeed:…
Feedforward is future-oriented
A characteristic of feedback is that you first tell what you find unpleasant and how you feel about it. The question is whether it is at all necessary to tell another what they are doing ‘wrong’ in your eyes. In feedforward, you only state what you would like the other person to do for you.…
Reaction is more important than intention
What you mean with what you say is secondary to what the other person understands. In fact, the other person responds to what they understood! As an observational listener you are therefore less concerned with what your own intentions are (or were) and pay much more attention to the reaction your message triggers in the…
Support authenticity!
Authentic employees are more likely to work in jobs that fit their core values. They do their work in such a way that they feel congruent, that their work fits who they are. You want to encourage authenticity because it supports and encourages engagement. Engaged employees perform better, and the more they can contribute to…