Author Archive for Melissa Michaels – Page 3

Employee Irritated by Annoying Boss

5 Annoying Boss Habits That Will Tick off Your Team and Other Lessons from Office Space

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 September 7, 2016
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Have you ever had a boss who had some irritating foibles that drove you up the wall? Those behaviors may have even become an inside joke among employees, a peculiar turn of phrase setting off a burst of laughter among coworkers or a physical quirk you mimic at the dinner table to make your kids giggle.

As funny as those traits might be, matters turn serious when you consider the high cost of employee turnover in the workplace. Make sure you’re not driving good talent away by practicing any of the following habits.

1) Did You Get the Memo?

Office Space is a comedic crash course on how not to behave as a boss, but the reason it resonates so deeply with audiences is its striking fidelity to corporate life. How many times has your organization adopted a new policy that yields little substance while only creating more busywork for employees? Whether it’s putting cover sheets on TPS reports or keeping a daily task log, it gets in the way of doing real work and drains you of motivation.

2) Eight Bosses

Also perfectly illustrated in Office Space are the hazards of management bloat. As Peter Gibbons notes in the above clip, “When I make a mistake, I have eight different people coming by to tell me about it. That’s my only real motivation is not to be hassled, that and the fear of losing my job. But you know, Bob, that will only make someone work just hard enough not to get fired.”

3) We Need to Talk about Your Flair

Does your company make you wear or do silly things as a cheap way of promoting their branding? Instead of living a brand based on a blend of research, reality and aspiration, they might tell you to use certain catch phrases or wear a particular color on Fridays. These infantilizing habits make you feel more like you’re at a high school pep rally than in a serious workplace.

4) Ahh, I’m Also Gonna Need You to Go Ahead and Come in on Sunday, Too

Have you had managers who spring surprises on you at the last minute and just presume you’re okay with them? Like telling—not asking—you to work on Saturday … and Sunday, and then phrasing it in such a way that you don’t have a choice in the matter. Bosses who don’t respect their team members’ personal time have overstepped their boundaries, and those who decree royal edicts rather than making requests are likely to find themselves without minions one day.

5) The Ratio of People to Cake Is Too Big

Do you have any Milton Waddams at your company? Employees thrive in an atmosphere of quality, fairness and respect, and if one or more team members feel they’re being slighted, that is a recipe for a toxic workplace. Lack of fairness doesn’t have to come from mistreatment, exclusion or bullying—it may also take the form of favoritism. If some employees feel a manager favors one of their colleagues, they will not only come to resent the manager but also to detest that colleague. In other words, if you’re going to have cake, make sure there’s an equal portion for everyone. After all, you don’t want any Miltons setting the building on fire.

More Behaviors to Avoid

Read more great tips on annoying boss habits to avoid in Six Boss Behaviors That Drive Your Team Members Bonkers and Five Meetings Your Employees Will Thank You for Killing or Fixing at The Balance.

Want to Be a Better Leader?

You may not be guilty of the above vices, but you probably have some habits you’re unaware of that may be irking your team. If you’re ready to become not only the best possible boss but the best possible you, get started with leadership coaching by calling Chris Cook at 541.601.0114 or emailing her today.

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Path Through the Forest

Are You Seeing the Forest for the Trees? Where Senior Leaders Are Failing

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 June 28, 2016
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When you think of senior leaders at your organization, are they more likely to spend their time:

  1. zooming from meeting to meeting, generating reports and bashing through an endless task list or
  2. developing strategy, delegating to trusted staff and inspiring employees through strengths-based coaching?

Most likely, your answer is ‘a.’ You may even be one of those managers swept away by the tidal wave of meetings, busywork and deadlines. There are any number of reasons for this—from downsizing causing work to be divvied among fewer employees to a myopic focus on immediate targets blinding us to the bigger picture.
You want a captain who has enough foresight to steer the ship away from danger. Share on X

The Grander Vision

Whatever the excuse, you have to admit senior leadership bears some responsibility for articulating the grander vision of the organization, seeing past the urgent projects and daily crises to achieve a broader, deeper perspective.

You want a captain who has enough foresight to steer the ship away from danger and toward smooth waters. If she’s stuck in the engine room, how can she scan the horizon for icebergs and storm clouds?

Two Tracks: Senior Leaders & Individual Contributors

At The Context of Things, Ted Bauer recently blogged about how senior leaders shouldn’t be individual contributors. Instead, he floats an idea that got shot down by a previous employer of his: rather than making senior management the only career advancement option, offer an alternative “individual contributor” track—of equal pay.

This accomplishes two things: 1) it prevents unqualified people from becoming one of the 82 percent of poor manager hires (who subsequently make life miserable for their underlings and sap productivity), and 2) it acknowledges the unique strengths of key individual players, allowing them to blossom in ways that may otherwise never occur in a traditional corporate structure.

Such an approach could harness untapped talents while enabling the truly gifted leaders to rise to their calling. Managers who entrust their staff with tasks they would typically undertake not only empower those contributors but also free them to concentrate on influential strategic decisions.

Imagine a leader who balances an eagle’s eye view with an empathetic approach. Share on X

A Better Way

When only a third of senior leadership can identify company priorities, something is askew. When managers spend more time head-down at their desks than getting to know their staff, they are failing as leaders.

Imagine instead a leader who balances an eagle’s eye view of the organization—comprehending its innate culture, branding and marketing tactics—with an empathetic and astute appreciation of every employee. That manager would understand how to elicit the best from his employees in concert with the organization’s deeper mission, conducting a harmonious symphony in pursuit of long-term strategic goals.

The Path Forward

This may feel daunting to managers trapped in the corporate grind and facing a seemingly infinite to-do list. You don’t have to do it alone.

Through executive coaching, you can identify your own natural abilities, charting a path toward strategic leadership and becoming an inspiration for your employees as you model transformation.

In addition to igniting your personal and professional growth, Chris Cook can help your company discover its DNA. Her organizational consulting services will make the big picture crystal clear while outlining specific steps you and your staff can take to achieve your company’s aspirational vision.

Want to Explore the Possibilities?

Whether you want leadership coaching, organizational consulting, branding guidance or all of the above, Chris Cook can help. Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris today.

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Two Millennial Women Discussing Work

Millennial Mindset: What Gen Y Wants out of Work and Life

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 June 16, 2016
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When it comes to work, do you value purpose over salary? Growth over comfort? Do you want your leaders to empower rather than instruct you? Are you more comfortable with casual check-in conversations than a formal annual performance evaluation? Do you prefer to focus on your strengths rather than your weaknesses? Does your life take precedence over your career?

Then you might be a Millennial—or at least you’re attuned to the same values identified as characteristic of Generation Y in a recent Gallup report titled “How Millennials Want to Work and Live.”

According to William Strauss and Neil Howe—the authors credited with coining the term “Millennials”—the generation born roughly between 1980 and 2000 is globally conscious and civic-minded. They care more about community than personal advancement. This concern for larger causes has also earned them the sobriquet Echo Boomers.

Generation Me author Jean Twenge and other critics question the altruistic traits Strauss and Howe associate with Millennials in Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, finding them instead to exhibit a greater sense of entitlement and narcissism.

Wherever you fall on the debate, there’s no denying Millennials are seeking something deeper from their work, and that is why employers that offer meaningful roles are more likely to secure the loyalty of job-hopping Gen Yers.

There’s no denying Millennials are seeking something deeper from their work. Share on X

Whereas past generations aimed to land a good-paying job where they could climb the corporate ladder over the course of their career, Millennials are likelier to switch jobs in search of more gratifying opportunities. The Gallup report reveals that 6 out of 10 Millennials express a willingness to change jobs, and as many as 21 percent have changed jobs within the past year—triple the number reported by other generations.

Generation Y job-hopping costs the US economy an estimated $30.5 billion. That fact combined with their lower workplace engagement—only 29% are engaged, Gallup says—make it imperative for organizations to find ways of appealing to Millennials.

Gallup Chairman and CEO Jim Clifton identifies six cultural shifts organizations can make to engage and retain Gen Yers:

  1. Prioritize purpose over pay. Fair compensation is important, but meaning matters more. Gen Yers would rather work at a job that pays less but makes them feel they are contributing to a good cause and helping the larger world. Unless your Millennial employees feel inspired by the mission of the organization, connected to the culture and creatively challenged by their responsibilities, they’re going to seek out more fulfilling jobs.
  2. Offer development opportunities. Millennials want to grow both personally and professionally. They’re less interested in perks like pool tables and espresso machines than in learning new skills and acquiring knowledge.
  3. Be a coach—not a boss. This shift from an autocratic leadership style to a collegial, empowering one benefits not only Millennials but all employees. People automatically become more engaged when leaders recognize and develop their strengths, making them feel more valued while helping them become better individuals.
  4. Converse rather than assess. Reared on social media, Generation Y takes a more casual approach to communication. They don’t want to wait a year to get feedback during a formal annual review—they desire ongoing discussions so they constantly know where they stand and how they can improve.
  5. Focus on strengths instead of weaknesses. Rather than dwelling on weaknesses, discover your employees’ strengths and cultivate those talents. Gallup notes, “weaknesses never develop into strengths, while strengths develop infinitely.” That’s not to say organizations should pretend the weaknesses don’t exist. A leader who understands their employees’ abilities and flaws can redefine individual roles to minimize weaknesses and maximize strengths across the collective whole.
  6. Create jobs they love. More than previous generations, Millennials identify their work with their lives. They want to know they are spending their hours wisely and doing fulfilling work at a company that appreciates them as human beings.

By understanding the work and life goals of Gen Yers, you can attract the brightest young stars to your organization—and keep them there. Unattached, connected, unconstrained, and idealistic, Millennials will flourish in a culture that treasures their strengths, gives them a sense of purpose and drives them to be their best selves.

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Focused Woman Tennis Player

Discover Your Drive: 5 More Tips for Building Self-Control

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 June 2, 2016
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This is the last in a series of articles (see part 1 and part 2) investigating the life-changing impact of self-control and how you can hone yours.

Below are five more tips gleaned from Kelly McGonigal’s The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.

1) Avoid Goal-Sabotaging

Working toward a goal requires balancing between our desired outcome and our immediate urge for gratification.

Scientists have found those reminded of their progress toward a goal are more likely to backslide as a way of rewarding themselves.

If we’ve successfully resisted sugary desserts for a week, we begin to experience goal liberation, which tells us we deserve a little treat for being so good.

This can lead to a one-step-forward-two-steps-backward goal-sabotaging pattern. Be alert to this threat, and you’ll get a leg up on your temptation.

2) Don’t Let Your Brain Trick You

Our brains can mistake thinking about a goal for the actual work itself, causing us to pat ourselves on the back prematurely.

When fast food restaurants offer healthier options like salads, people are more likely to order unhealthy alternatives like burgers and fries. Browsing an eco-friendly site causes us to indulge in some not-so-green behavior, thinking we’ve already done our bit to offset our carbon footprint.

Simply considering the better option substitutes for action in the brain, giving us permission to deviate from our higher aspirations.

Penalties introduced to deter bad behavior often backfire for this reason. Daycare centers that imposed a fee for parents who arrived late found instances of lateness increased. Paying the fee assuaged parents’ guilt over being late, removing incentive for being on time.

3) Find Your “I Want” Power

The way to build self-control and overcome goal-sabotaging behavior is to focus not on your progress but rather on your long-term motivation (your “I want” power).

In one study, students asked to remember an instance in which they resisted temptation were 70 percent more likely to give in to their next temptation. An almost equal percentage—69 percent—fended off temptation when asked to recall why they had resisted in that past moment.

4) Befriend Your Future Self

People who have a strong sense of their future selves are more likely to make the best decisions when it comes to long-term goals like retirement savings.

It’s easy to let the demands of now interfere with our aspirations to set money aside, but that becomes more difficult when we’ve taken the time to envision ourselves at retirement age.

Studies show those with high future self-continuity tend to behave more ethically and responsibly as well as becoming a better person in the present.

People with low future self-continuity are more likely to cheat on tests, steal in the workplace, gossip and lie to secure short-term advantages.

McGonigal writes, “It as if feeling disconnected from our future selves gives us permission to ignore the consequences of our actions.”

5) Choose Your Friends Wisely

Poor habits spread like a contagion through social networks. You are more likely to smoke, drink heavily, gamble, engage in crime or succumb to addiction if you hang out with people who practice these behaviors.

While genetics influence obesity, there is also a cultural/social component that involves unhealthy lifestyle choices like eating processed foods and failing to exercise regularly.

Research shows a person’s chances of becoming obese increase by 171 percent when a friend becomes obese, 67 percent when a sister does and 45 percent if it’s a brother.

But there’s a flip side to this phenomenon: surrounding yourself with people who have similar life goals substantially increases your chances of fulfilling those objectives. This is why regularly attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings is crucial to addiction recovery.

Want to eat healthier, take up marathon running, quit smoking or start writing that novel you’ve been dreaming about for years? Find a community that will support you in your goals, and they will help hold you accountable to your dreams.

Want a Coach in Your Corner?

Ready to go from wishing to achieving? Chris Cook can inspire, support and drive you to achieve your goals and live a happier, more fulfilling life. Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris today.

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Yoga Stretch in Mountains

Dig Deep: 5 Tips for Building Self-Control

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 May 17, 2016
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In our last post, we explored why building self-control is critical to achieving your long-term goals. Now, we equip you with the tools and techniques you need to beef up your willpower muscle courtesy of The Willpower Instinct author Kelly McGonigal.

1) Know Thyself

According to McGonigal, understanding what causes you to lose control is key to strengthening it. By recognizing your vulnerabilities, you are positioned to sidestep the pitfalls that usually trip you up.

Research tells us those who are overly confident in their powers of self-control are the likeliest to succumb to temptation. Pride goeth before a fall, as Proverbs, Shakespeare and Greek mythology remind us.

2) Let’s Get Physical

Willpower is affected by sleep, diet and blood sugar levels. Studies show those with higher blood sugar levels exhibit lower impulse control. They are emotionally frayed and more susceptible to poor decision making.

It’s a bad idea to go shopping when you’re hungry, tired, stressed or cranky. You’ll spend twice as much while getting less of what you need and more of what you don’t.

If you want to build self-control, you need to get your physical health tip-top with sufficient sleep and a healthy, nutrient-dense diet.

3) Reduce Stress

Stress weakens our willpower, so reducing stress will help fortify your self-control.

The American Psychological Association (APA) has found the following strategies to be most effective in relieving stress: exercising, playing sports, meditating or praying, taking a walk, practicing yoga, listening to music, reading, being with loved ones, spending time in nature, enjoying a massage and pouring yourself into a creative activity or hobby.

4) A Spoonful of Sugar

If you’re dreading a particular task, find a way to associate it with a reward. By tapping into the reward center of the brain, you can get your dopamine neurons firing and transform a mundane project into an adventure.

Don’t want to do those dishes? Start blasting your favorite music and get your groove on while scrubbing plates.

The yard needs weeding? Challenge your partner or a friend to a weeding contest. Whoever fills their bucket first gets to choose the dinner menu—and the loser cooks it.

Get creative and have fun, and you’ll find yourself flying through those chores.

5) Practice Willpower Exercises

Here are a few simple exercises you can use to strengthen your self-control muscle:

  1. I won’t. Pick something small like refraining from saying “um” or “like,” not crossing your legs while sitting or using your non-dominant hand for a specific task like brushing your teeth or setting the table.
  2. I will. Incorporate one task into your daily routine that you don’t currently practice. It might be keeping a one-sentence journal, doing a yoga pose upon waking or reading a poem every night before bed.
  3. Self-monitor. Start tracking yourself so you have a clearer picture of how you spend your money, time or energy. If you are trying to reign in your spending, use a financial application to analyze how much you spend on what. If you want to cut your carb intake, keep a food journal to help you identify your weak spots. If you find your evenings disappearing into thin air, track how much time you spend watching television.

Need Someone to Hold Your Feet to the Fire?

Chris Cook can help you clarify your life goals and build the willpower to achieve it. Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris today.

But Wait, There’s More

We’ll share the next five secrets to bulking up your willpower in our next post.

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Decadent Chocolate Truffles

I Will, I Won’t, I Want: Why Strengthening This Power Will Supercharge Your Success

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 May 4, 2016
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It affects your career, relationships, health and financial stability. It’s the difference between dreamers and doers, wannabes and winners.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), lack of it is the top reason Americans have trouble achieving their goals. And it is the second secret ingredient Angela Lee Duckworth identifies as critical to success: self-control.

While our last article examined the first component to success—grit—this post focuses on the latter.

The Marshmallow Test

Most of us have seen the 1960s and 1970s footage of Psychologist Walter Mischel’s Stanford Marshmallow series of experiments on delayed gratification. In the above clip, motivational speaker and coach Joachim de Posada reprises this famous experiment in Colombia.

If you’re not familiar with the test, it involves placing a four-year-old in a room by herself with a marshmallow. The child is told if she waits 15 minutes, she will be given a second marshmallow. If she eats it, however, she will receive nothing.

The ensuing struggle each child undergoes is both humorous and revealing. De Posada—author of Don’t Eat the Marshmallow … Yet! The Secret to Sweet Success in Work and Life—jokes about one little girl who was clever enough to eat the inside of the marshmallow so it would appear untouched, “We know she’ll be successful, but we have to watch her. She should not go into banking, for example.”

While two out of three children cave in to temptation and eat the marshmallow, one of out three refrains, exhibiting the self-discipline that will help her achieve success in life.

When Mischel conducted a follow-up study 15 years later, 100 percent of the children who had resisted the marshmallow were demonstrably successful, whereas the majority of those who’d succumbed had lower competencies and were doing poorly in school and life.

Strengthening Your Self-Control Muscle

“Self-control is a muscle,” Kelly McGonigal writes in The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.

That’s exciting because it means we have the ability to strengthen it. We may sometimes feel powerless to resist temptation or keep our nose to the grindstone when facing a daunting task, but we just need to learn how to build our willpower.

Whether you want to quit smoking, eat a healthier diet, accomplish a professional goal or reduce the amount of time you spend on social media, you’ll need self-control to get there.

Take the I Will, I Won’t, I Want Power Challenge

McGonigal outlines three forms of willpower and challenges us to put each one into practice in a concrete way:

  • I will. Think of something you’d like to do more of that you’ve been putting off—and do it.
  • I won’t. Tackle a bad habit that’s negatively affecting your health, relationships, work or life in general.
  • I want. What’s a long-term goal you’ve been dreaming about but keep getting distracted from? Time to get started.

Need Help Building Your Willpower?

Chris Cook can help you discover and fulfill your I will, I won’t and I want power challenges. Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris today.

Stay Tuned

Our next two posts will teach you 10 strategies you can deploy to strengthen your self-control.

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Monument Valley

True Grit: The Secret to Long-Term Success

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 April 17, 2016
  ·  4 Comments

Note: There is a more recent version of this post here.

What’s the strongest predictor of success in school, on the field or in your career—IQ, EQ, socioeconomic background, leadership skills or talent? Actually, it’s none of those. It’s grit.

From spelling bee finalists to Westpoint cadets, athletes to rookie teachers, scholars to salespeople, MacArthur fellow and University of Pennsylvania Psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth found two consistent predictors of achievement: grit and self-control.

Duckworth discusses the pioneering research on grit she and her colleagues have been conducting at the Duckworth Lab in the following TED talk.

What Seventh-Graders Taught Duckworth

Having left a lucrative job in management consulting to teach seventh-grade math, Duckworth started noticing something funny. The students with the sharpest IQs were sometimes the lowest achievers, and those with poorer IQ scores sometimes outshone their more talented peers.

None of the typically assumed factors for success accounted for the patterns she was seeing. What did those who excelled have in common?

After five years of teaching, Duckworth got a PhD in psychology to find out. She shares these discoveries in her forthcoming book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance. Already the #1 bestseller in Educational Certification & Development at Amazon, the book explores why focused persistence gets us further than raw ability.

It’s Not How You Succeed—It’s How You Fail

Those who glide through life don’t get a chance to develop the stamina and chutzpah that help them overcome obstacles when they do arise. Grit is not about skating by but rather about doggedly bouncing back every time you stumble.

Authentic Happiness author and positive psychology luminary Martin Seligman is part of the team heading up the Growth Initiative, which focuses on the subject of growth through adversity.

Seligman and his colleagues are interested in identifying how and why some people thrive following tragedy while others wither. Their goal is “to better understand the conditions under which people can experience positive behavioral changes after going through highly stressful adverse events.”

Japan: A Case Study in Post-Traumatic Growth

Just as a scar thickens the skin, trauma can build the resilience necessary to weather future calamities.

A case study in post-traumatic growth, the nation of Japan flourished following the physical and psychological devastation wrought by the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings.

Written following the 2011 Japanese earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor crisis, this New York Times article argues that it is Japan’s very history with trauma that would enable it to heal from the latest onslaught.

In the article, authors Peter Fretwell and Taylor Baldwin Kiland outline the five necessary conditions to cultivate in the face of mass trauma:

  1. a sense of safety;
  2. calm;
  3. a sense of self and community efficacy;
  4. connectedness; and
  5. hope.

We can carry those lessons over into our individual lives as we learn to cope with—and grow through—adversity.

An Undercover FBI Agent Shares Her Secrets

Former FBI undercover and counterintelligence agent LaRae Quy shares these five tips for building the confidence needed to succeed in a recent article:

  1. Don’t fear failure. Taking risks, challenging yourself and making mistakes gives us an opportunity to learn—and grow. In other words, it’s what Homer Simpson calls a “crisitunity.”
  2. Value feedback. Quy cites recent Leadership IQ research indicating that lack of coachability accounted for 26 percent of failed new hires. Those who seek out and embrace constructive feedback are more likely to evolve.
  3. Practice. It gets you to Carnegie Hall for a reason—the more familiar you are with a task, the more effortlessly you will be able to execute it. You will also recover from a misstep with more grace.
  4. “Only connect.” Having the support and mutual respect of colleagues will bolster your confidence and strengthen your sense of community.
  5. Build grit. We’ve already learned the value of grit from Duckworth. There is no pearl without the sand.

How Much Grit Have You Got?

Find out by completing the Grit Survey available at Authentic Happiness. Registration is free, and you’ll gain access to tons of goodies.

How have encounters with adversity led to your growth? Are you ready to up your game?

Chris Cook can help you develop the necessary grit to achieve your goals. Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris today.

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Woman Speaking up at Meeting

Speak up! How Playing the Fool Might Just Save Your Company—and Your Job

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 March 14, 2016
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Memento Mori

“Remember, you’re going to die.” Otherwise known as memento mori, this Latin admonition was whispered by servants into the ears of victorious generals during a Roman triumphal procession.

These days, leaders don’t employ slaves to remind them of their mortality, but perhaps they should. Well, not slaves, of course … maybe something more along the lines of a Shakespearean Fool.

Playing the Fool

The Fool is the one character who has license to tell the truth—without repercussions.

Organizations don’t need yes-men. Rather, their survival depends on people who are courageous enough to voice their concerns, identify weaknesses and play devil’s advocate to delusional, narcissistic leaders who may be steering the company toward self-destruction.

I know, the Fool is a scary role to play. You may even feel donning the jester hat is tantamount to risking your job. Giving voice to unflattering truths takes courage. But where will your job be if the organization collapses?

The Hero’s Journey

You might agree someone needs to speak up about bad decisions. Why does it have to be you?

There comes a moment in every hero’s journey when the protagonist walks away, gives up or simply refuses to heed the call to adventure. That’s where most people’s stories end.

Sure, they’re spared the Belly of the Whale and The Road of Trials, but they also don’t get to experience Meeting the Goddess, Atonement, Apotheosis or The Ultimate Boon.

Which version of the story would you rather live? Do you want to play the silent observer too fearful to point out the iceberg to the pigheaded captain, or do you want to shout a rallying call to action before your company founders?

A Touch of Stoicism

To steel your nerve for the journey, it might help to practice a little Stoicism. We’ve explored the benefits of Stoicism’s negative approach to happiness in past articles (see Part 1 and Part 2).

Ask yourself, What’s the worst that can happen? You lose your job? Then what? Follow that thread to its possible conclusions. You may discover that, like many people, losing your job liberates you to pursue your true calling. Considering how you may handle the worst possible scenario prepares you to cope when it arrives—or rejoice when it doesn’t.

Tips for Speaking Up

Trinnie Houghton offers some tips for learning how to speak up in her article “The Risk of Not Speaking Up.” Finding your voice is empowering, and it can start as simply as chiming in at each meeting. Houghton reminds us the organization’s health may depend on your willingness to offer a diagnosis.

What Slayed Nokia

In an INSEAD Alumni Magazine article, authors Quy Huy and Timo Vuori contend it was not Nokia’s inferiority to Apple, the company’s complacency or its leaders’ obliviousness to the impending iPhone that killed Nokia.

Instead, they blame the corporation’s demise on middle management’s fear of telling the truth. Temperamental, abusive bosses created an oppressive climate in which people were terrified to report declining sales or bring up the elephant in the room—an outdated operating system that could never hope to compete with iOS.

Healing a Toxic Workplace

So what can you do to change the course of a faltering organization when the climate is hostile to truth? If the workplace is toxic and top leaders are too egotistical, obstinate and emotionally unintelligent to listen to insiders, hiring an organizational development consultant like Chris Cook can spell the difference between disaster and success.

An outside consultant arrives without baggage, and leaders can more easily engage in the discovery process without feeling threatened. Employees feel free to speak the truth while their identities are shielded from vindictive bosses, and top management can be guided toward a more realistic perception of their organization and the steps needed to heal it.

The Ultimate Boon

Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris Cook to start your organization’s heroic journey toward The Ultimate Boon today.

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Wheres the Beef? Why Customer Experience Is the New Marketing

Where’s the Beef? Why Customer Experience Is the New Marketing

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 February 19, 2016
  ·  No Comments

What motivates you to try a new product or service? Is it a million-dollar ad campaign full of sound and fury? Is it that steady stream of robo emails you keep marking as Junk? Or maybe it’s those sidebar ads that pop up based on your content browsing habits.

I’m guessing it’s none of these because you—like most of today’s consumers—have a finely attuned BS barometer. In other words, you don’t believe the hype.

Instead, you probably seek out recommendations from friends. You listen to word of mouth, and you do your research. You carefully study Amazon and Yelp reviews, looking for verified purchasers and reviews that ring true.

In a consumer world where everyone is connected, shoddy quality and poor customer service have a global ripple effect that can deliver a deathblow in minutes.

That is why, according to Experience: The Blog author Augie Ray, companies shouldn’t be so much concerned with content marketing strategies as with customer experience.

Where’s the Beef?

The days are gone when a company can glide by on glitz, buying its way into consumers’ hearts with earworm jingles and inane catchphrases. We’re inured to their tactics because we see through them.

Transparency is the new watchword. If it isn’t WYSIWYG, people tune out.

As human beings, we crave authenticity. We demand substance—from product quality to customer service, every element of the experience must deliver genuine value.

Make It Real

We want to associate with organizations that possess a deep sense of purpose and values that echo our own—companies that live their brand.

One reason Thrive Market has been so deliciously successful is they began with a clearly defined mission: “to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone.” And the many people who care about eating healthy, living sustainably, and helping to feed hungry families have been recommending them like crazy.

Rather than jumping into social marketing campaigns, Augie Ray argues in a recent interview that companies should be “focusing on improving the customer experience and then activating trusted peer-to-peer word of mouth.”

Be All That You Can Be

Cultivating a positive customer experience is not a skin-deep exercise. It goes down to the bones of your organization—your culture.

As we’ve repeatedly explored in past blog posts, your culture is your brand; your brand is your culture. Creating a workplace that is a palpable example of your core values helps nurture those values in your employees.

I’m Lovin’ It

If you want your employees to deliver a WOW experience to customers as Zappos does (see How to Live the Brand), you need to create a culture where you’re wowing your employees.

We already know from research that having happier employees means greater productivity and superior customer service (see The Top 4 Employee Needs to Fulfill for Greater Happiness and Productivity). The question is how to get there.

Be More

Honing your leadership capacities will help you foster a healthy, happy culture, and that in turn, will build the “empathy, loyalty, and trust” Ray describes as crucial to a successful company.

Ray writes, “The importance of purposeful, ethical leadership is underscored in Edelman’s annual Trust Barometer report, which finds that the biggest gaps companies have are in attributes such as listens to customers; treats employees well; is ethical, transparent and open; and puts customers before profits.”

Just Do It

Like a Zen koan, the paradoxical truth is that by prioritizing employee happiness and customer experience over the bottom line, companies ultimately profit more. How can organizations not see the value in that?

Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris Cook to start building a healthier, happier organization today.

Note: Special thanks to one of our readers (Lisa Baehr) for sharing Augie’s interview and inspiring this article.

Blog Branding Happiness at Work Leadership Coaching Marketing Organizational Development Science of Happiness
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Running a Marathon

Is Your Work a Test of Endurance or a Labor of Love? Find out with a Simple Survey.

Posted by Melissa Michaels on
 December 20, 2015
  ·  No Comments

What makes you happy at work? Benefits? Bonuses? Vacations?

Well none of these, actually. The top factors determining a person’s happiness at work are whether they a) enjoy the actual tasks required, b) are able to focus on the things they do best and c) are proud of their employer. Other factors that can impact happiness include relationships at work; the job’s social impact; feeling in control of your work and of workplace decisions; and sensing that you’re progressing and learning.

Statistics show your happiness at work is also a result of skill levels, providing service, supervising others and working at a small company, according to the Happiness at Work Survey jointly developed by Delivering Happiness at Work (DH@W) and Nic Marks.

DH@W is the consultancy firm Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh founded on the heels of his 2010 bestseller, Delivering Happiness.

Nic is one of the founding directors of Happiness Works as well as a fellow of the new economics foundation (nef) and a board member of Action for Happiness. He is best known for creating the award-winning Happy Planet Index—the first global measure of sustainable well-being. Nic spoke at the prestigious TEDGlobal conference in 2010 and authored one the first TEDbooks: A Happiness Manifesto.

More than 11,000 people in 90+ countries have taken the 47-question Happiness at Work Survey, which asks simple questions regarding work-life balance, use of time on the job and overall feelings while at work.

The results confirm that highly skilled workers are 50% more likely to be happy at work than their unskilled counterparts. People whose work involves caregiving or direct service are 75% happier than, for example, those in sales. Supervisors are 27% more likely to be happy than those who are supervised. And you are 25% more likely to be happy working for a company of fewer than 100 employees than for a business with 1,000 or more employees. Age matters, too. Workers age 40 and above tend to be happier than younger employees.

The 47-question survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. It asks questions such as, “How satisfied are you with the balance between the time you spend on your work and the time you spend on other aspects of your life?” and “How much of the time you spend at work do you feel bored?” The assessment also includes questions about colleagues and managers, workspace environment and your individual demeanor. After completion, survey respondents receive personalized reports intended to help navigate the way forward—particularly if, like many workers, they feel work is a test of endurance instead of a labor of love.

Some consider happiness in the workplace a fluffy subject. There’s an extensive body of research, however, demonstrating that a happy workforce can make a big difference. One large meta-analysis found happy employees have on average 31% higher productivity, their sales are 37% higher and their creativity is some three times higher than less-happy workers.

Recent research from the University of Warwick, UK, and IZA, Bonn, Germany, showed that randomly selected individuals who were made happier exhibited approximately 12% greater productivity, as measured by a standardized task of correctly adding combinations of numbers for 10 minutes. In one experiment, a comedy movie clip was played to a group of subjects. Their subsequent productivity was found to be substantially greater (approximately 13%) than the control group that had not viewed the clip (December 15, 2015, HBR The Daily Stat).

Take the happiness survey to find out how happy you are at work. We’ll be curious to hear the results!

Want to make a happy workplace? Call 541.601.0114 or email Chris Cook at Capiche. She will help you assess what’s happening now and make positive moves to increase happiness (and productivity) at work. Your work really can be a labor of love!

Blog Business Research Happiness at Work Organizational Development Positive Psychology Science of Happiness
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