Improve Morale, Productivity and Performance While Saving Money in the Process

After 21 years helping clients recognize and reward their employees, we’ve seen a lot of changes. Today, there are four distinct generations in the workplace and engaging them effectively is a growing challenge for the whole management team.
That’s why we’ve created Schaefer Recognition Group and are launching this educational newsletter series. Our goal is to offer HR executives a variety of unique and effective ideas on how to best motivate, recognize and incentify their employees and train managers; with particular focus on the younger people.
Our goals with this online tool are simple and straight forward:
1. Each will be short, so you don’t need to invest a lot of time to get the information. We will include three sections –
a. A brief article featuring some timely facts and helpful ideas regarding a relevant recognition, incentive or training topic.
b. A case study introducing a creative, new award or program idea that we are working on with one of clients.
c. The Vocational Shrink’s Recommendations – featuring some suggested reading and helpful training ideas to improve the communications between your employees and their supervisors.
2. We won’t be pitching you stuff or trying to sell you products. We know that recognition is all about employee perception, and the awards are the last step in a successful strategy. This is about sharing what we’re learning every day and providing you with concepts that you can use right now and test for yourself.
3. Our staff is open to your input, so we can go find the answers to your most pressing recognition concerns. If it’s a problem for you, you’re probably not alone, so let us use our sources and experience to find some practical suggestions and we’ll offer it to all of our readers.
That’s it, a to-the-point, no-nonsense, resource that will keep you up to date on the best ways of getting the most out of your most valuable asset – people!
Please feel free to share this with your associates and friends at other firms who might find it useful. And don’t hesitate to let us know how we’re doing and what information we can provide that will make your life easier, your business more profitable, and your employees happy to be on your team.

Analytical, logical and sequential American thinkers make up the highest ranks of most major American information companies. These left-brain characteristics (rooting from an early industrial revolution world) are becoming hard on the typical American business’s pocketbook, but there are emerging options. China is now the number one English-speaking country in the world. Their knowledge of the English language, their population and their enormous capacity for linear, left-brain tasks make their services the obvious choice for U.S. companies who are looking to outsource to reduce costs.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is in-sourcing manufacturing and distribution operations from international companies. This means foreign companies are outsourcing the skills their domestic labor force is not cut out for. These foreign companies need right-brain, lateral thinking American workers to make all of their communications and deliverables culturally relevant for the Western market.

As author Tom Friedman puts it in his book, The World is Flat, this is a new, competitive frontier. Every member of a workforce has to use the strongest tool in their toolbox in order to compete. For the American workforce this means supporting training that focuses on pattern recognition, intuition and visualization. The most valuable U.S. workers are the people with skill sets that are extremely difficult to outsource: vision, lateral information processing, creativity, whole thinking, etc. (all extremely crucial traits of excellent management).

Best-selling author Daniel Pink’s 2005 book A Whole New Mind – Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future and his new book Drive – The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us offers a similar insight. He justifies his prediction based on the fact that while American companies can outsource low-level clerical, computer technology, and “knowledge worker” skills, it’s the creative, high-touch, high-concept, artistic skills that will be needed in the future. Pink suggests that:

“the defining skills of the previous era- the “left brain” capabilities that powered the Industrial Age—are necessary, but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous—the “right-brain” qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning—increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders.”

Bottom line: The whole world is becoming one massive labor force!

Every organization absolutely requires a healthy balance of left- and right-brain-dominate thinkers so tasks get done (left brain) and so that the tasks that are being done are relevant (right brain). Don’t cultivate a company culture that favors one over the other. Instead, get the most out of your labor force.

How to get more from, without paying more to, employees — and they’ll thank you for it!

When surveyed, employees consistently will ask for cash, but research shows that it’s the least effective form of recognition – How come? Steve is a loyal employee who enjoys his work, is productive and reliable – the model employee. He was surprised when his 10 year service award package offered him cash as an option. It wasn’t like he couldn’t use a few extra bucks, but the fact that his employer was able to put a price tag on ten years of his life, left him feeling a little cold and confused.

Why is it that when the company offered the very thing that employee’s seemed to want, that it fell short of carrying the important message – “we care about you and are glad you’re on our team”? Maybe it has something to do with the question? Asking employees what they want tends to imply that you don’t know and really don’t care all that much. The moment they think that you are using recognition more out of obligation than desire, they will emotionally disengage, feel a bit insulted, and give you the answer they think you want to hear – “ . . . Aw, what the heck, just give me a gift card!”

It actually has to do a lot more with perception than logic. Employees want so much to be genuinely appreciated, that the minute you give them the smallest hint that you’re attempting to manipulate them with carrots and sticks, you lose.

It’s really just about doing a few very basic things right and in the correct order. This requires training supervisors to understand some straight forward principles, realize that it’s to their personal benefit to make recognition a powerful management tool (appeal to their natural self interests – in a good way!) and communicate more effectively, so their people believe they mean it.

Once honest emotional engagement is achieved, you’ll be amazed at how quickly financial incentives can take you and your firm to another level of measurable, bankable ROI that will have everybody wanting more. It’s an educational challenge that too many companies ignore, but are paying for over and over again. Here are three thoughts to consider:

1. No one disagrees that cash is important. The reality, however, is that you owe it to yourself and your stockholders to do what’s best with the company’s money. The data overwhelmingly supports the fact that well-designed incentives will out-perform cash by more than 2 to 1, as well as carry far lower tax consequences. Supervisors will embrace these tools when they understand their value, see what’s in it for them, and have a clean, well-defined path to run on. You can give a gift valued at 1% of an employee’s salary, and if done enthusiastically, they’ll feel the love. But, give them a 1% bonus or raise and they’re looking at the classifieds. Same dollars, totally different result . . . it’s all about perception!

2. Most companies use a variety of disjointed programs to recognize and reward their people. Even if the programs are working, it’s impossible to determine the level of participation and financial return. Imagine if you orchestrated all of the tools used to communicate with employees, so they could be properly measured, kept relevant to company goals and you could easily teach your supervisors the proper way to implement them. This is called an Umbrella Recognition Strategy and the benefits are numerous. However, there can be potential challenges involved in transitioning your organization to this approach. Here are the three steps you should be willing to take to consider implementing an Umbrella Strategy:
• You need to have upper management support. Only then will you be able to get all of the program owners to open up and provide the information needed to analyze the current situation and begin to see opportunities for improvement.
• Your team has to be open to new ideas and be willing to brainstorm all viable options. One of the few positives to this current economic downturn is that things are on the table today that would probably not be open to discussion during more robust financial times.
• The goal of your team needs to focus on developing the greatest ROI on your recognition investments, not protectionism or departmental isolationism. A macro view of the situation, where everyone is considering program initiatives from a broad perspective based on company culture, mission and long term objectives is the secret to getting the best overall program and the ROI you deserve.

3. As you begin to evaluate your current recognition programs, you’ll be surprised at both the amount of money leaking out of the organization in various ways and why there may be inherent confusion from the employees’ perspective. We recommend a Four Cornerstones approach:
• Communications – People need to see where they fit in the overall
scheme of things. Every employee wants to know the direction of the organization and the plan to get there. Communication addresses the “what to do” and provides a professional, well organized theme.
• Training – Managers need to know how to give recognition rather than
just presenting awards. Training focuses on the “how to do” and is an important element to Performance Improvement. Effective training avoids your best intentions being seen as nothing more than “throwing ‘em a bone”.
• Reinforcement – Recognition is not an event, it’s a process. Employees need to “want to”, but how do we achieve this emotional engagement? It’s done by validating. Employees must feel important and appreciated when they go the extra mile.
• Measurements – Things that are measured tend to improve. Measurements address the “how are we doing”. With the vision and strategy in place, the objectives and responsibilities of each employee to support the strategy must be determined. This is the most overlooked part of performance improvement programs, because it requires responsibility and can often be uncomfortable. Outstanding employees want to be measured and ineffective employees want to remain invisible.

There’s a lot more to recognition than just handing out awards and gifts, but therein lies the opportunity to turn accepted expenses into significant profits. Companies that take on the challenge of embracing this new view of employee engagement are seeing impressive improvements in productivity, profitability, morale and teamwork along with significant reductions in the turnover, recruiting and safety related costs.

They’re not what you think, but are surprisingly easy to fix by focusing on a few simple changes in communication style!

In the movie Multiplicity with Michael Keaton and Andie MacDowell, the character of Doug Kinney (Keaton) clones himself so he can get more work done while having more time for his family and to enjoy himself. As you can imagine, everything goes wrong and at the end there are four Dougs and craziness ensues! Things are pretty stressed at his job as a foreman for Del King Construction. One of the best lines is when his counterpart Ken comes up with an idea to get things moving (and to brown-nose the boss a little). Ken states proudly, “At my old job they used to say, ‘if you don’t show up for work on Saturday, don’t even bother coming in on Sunday!’” It was hysterical in the context of the movie (actually Doug wasn’t laughing), but it does lead to one of the root causes of low employee morale.

In these hectic, overworked, understaffed times, it’s easier than ever for managers (who are usually even more overworked than their subordinates) to come across something like the Quintus Arrius line to Roman slaves from Ben Hur, “ . . . we keep you alive to serve this ship, so row well and live!” It demonstrates how easy it is to come across as a leader who believes that everybody is lucky to have a job, so you better suck it up, keep your nose to the grindstone and don’t complain.

Sadly, this view, while effective during this struggling economy, is killing your productivity today, and will lead to significant retention, recruiting and training costs down the road. The moment your employees begin to feel that you don’t appreciate them and that they’re only on board to row, you have amplified the root cause of low employee morale and it’s going to cost you big time.

Here are five suggestions that will help you to avoid destroying morale and experiencing both the hard and soft costs of poorly engaged employees:

Suggestion #1 – Form Relationships Built on Trust
Strong, effective relationships are built on trust. If you don’t have strong, trust-based relationships with your people, everything you do to recognize them will be seen as manipulation. When employees feel that you are using recognition to “get more out of them” rather than to show that you value them personally, they begin to emotionally disengage and morale suffers. It’s not hard to develop trusting relationships with your people, but it does take time, consistency and integrity.

Suggestion #2 – Show them Respect
The book The One Minute Manager introduces a theory of personal responsibility that allows managers to get maximum results with a minimum of time invested with each staff member. The secret is in showing them respect, defining their expectations and avoiding micro managing. Most employees respond well to being given enough rope to hang themselves, as long as their job is well defined and they are allowed to fail periodically without fear of unrealistic retribution. Respected employees are more alert, creative, and productive. When they do make a mistake, they’ll fix it, move on confidently and don’t make that mistake again.

Suggestion #3 – Nurture Creativity
Once you’ve built trusting relationships and developed a foundation of respect, employees with automatically respond with more creativity. The best way to nurture and benefit from their new-found creativity is to go by the philosophy that there are no bad ideas, only undeveloped ones. Trusted and respected employees with managers who reinforce the fact that they have some flexibility to try new things will surprise you with the creative ingenuity that they bring to their work. The best part is that you get this for the same price you’re paying unhappy employees who are doing just enough to get by.

Suggestion #4 – Build Effective Teams
Team building is a more complex challenge than fostering high morale in individual employees. Here are five problems that many teams develop that keep them from being as effective as they want to be in accomplishing company goals:
Absence of Trust – due to invulnerability
Fear of Conflict – artificial harmony
Lack of Commitment – ambiguity
Avoidance of Accountability – low standards
Inattention to Results – caused by individual status and ego issues

In the absence of trust, morale is at its lowest and self protectionism becomes the rule. It doesn’t take a PhD in Psychology to realize that this will limit productivity and make work a lot less rewarding for both employees and their managers. This “every man for themselves” attitude destroys teams and makes it impossible to optimize goal setting and achieve corporate objectives in a timely manner; if at all.

By learning to communicate more effectively based on honesty, consistency, vulnerability and respect, your teams will be able to focus unselfishly on common results. This in turn keeps individual egos and agendas in check.

Suggestion #5 – Make it Real
One of the first things to stress with your management team is what I call “Making it Real”. This means to be genuine and believable in interacting with their people. Employees tend to fall into some common negative habit patterns that employees experience when they feel underappreciated. When your managers understand how to be more open and vulnerable with their staff they work towards trust, respect and improved communication.

“Making it Real” is the answer to the question, “What is the root cause of low employee morale?” Maybe it’s because it’s so simple that it is so often missed, but without your people believing you are genuine, honest and practicing high levels of integrity, any efforts you make to improve morale will be suspect. If you keep this in mind in your dealings with your people, you will be surprised how easy it is to improve morale, so you can enjoy the benefits of higher productivity, better retention, lower costs and an overall happier, more satisfying workplace.

. . . but whatever’s in second place is a long way behind!

“Let’s Just Give ‘em A Gift Card . . .” and other comments of a mediocre manager

Connie was dreading the upcoming HR meeting. It’s not that she wasn’t excited to share how the company blood drive was progressing or the response to the wellness initiative, but Connie knew that the subject of enhancing the employee recognition and incentive programs was going to be a battle. Bob will get on his soapbox and preach about how we’re already paying enough in wages and people are lucky to have a job at all in this economy. Brenda will remind everybody that employees just want money or stuff they can use. Joan will chime in with how bored her staff is with traditional logoed awards and how we should probably just hand out gift cards for the mall. Sound familiar? If you can relate to Connie’s frustration, perhaps the following ideas that might help you improve your next meeting, and make it more enjoyable.

It’s been said that – “Money Isn’t Everything . . . (but whatever’s in second place is a heck of a long way behind!)”. Tough to disagree … which is probably why compensation tends to be the measurement of success and progress in most people’s eyes.

If it’s true, however, than why are productivity, loyalty, and morale still such huge and costly problems in corporate America today? Why can’t companies just offer employees enough money to make them go the extra mile and everyone wins?

There are three problems with the “It’s All About the Money” approach:

1. Maslow’s View – Way back in the 40’s when Abraham Maslow developed his famous Hierarchy of Need Pyramid, he described the fallacy of relying on money to motivate and reward.

As everyone remembers, you don’t move up through the five levels of “Need” until your current level is satisfied. Money resides in Level 1 – Physiological Needs (basic survival; a roof over your head, food and clothing). Most employees in our society are living predominantly in Level 4 – Self Esteem (a desire to be Loved and Respected; having already achieved Level 1, as well as Level 2 – Safety (benefits, 401K, security) and Level 3 – Social Needs (friends, family, supportive colleagues). Just look at advertising and this becomes quite clear. It’s all about how you look, how you feel, diet, exercise, cloths, make up, plastic surgery, cars, lifestyle, etc. Nothing’s wrong with this, but it defines a huge amount of time that makes up most of your employee’s lives. Money, while everybody wants more, and while important, is no longer motivating, because it dwells within a completed level of the pyramid. It’s a Want, not a Need.

2. Money as the Measure – Financial measurement has driven corporate thinking since the Industrial Revolution and is now the common denominator for the world economy. How else can you score the game of business? The problem is that it skips a very important aspect of human achievement, performance, and employee engagement. If you do a blanket survey, every employee wants money – this is universal and nothing new. But, if you ask them why they do what they do and what personally excites them about their work, it’s never about money; but about the emotional aspects of their work, life and personal interactions. Companies must understand and relate to the emotional “Needs” of their people first (Maslow Level 4 thinking), before trying to motivate and incent with money. Only when people feel genuinely loved, appreciated and respected as a human being will they strive to make you (and themselves) more money in the long run. Money is a quick-and-dirty fix, so is seen as impersonal, manipulative, and self-serving. Organizations that rely on money alone, find it to be a very expensive and short-lived recognition tool.

3. Brain Biology – All financial thinking is left brain, the logical, calculating side. A decision involving money will always consider value, fairness and time. Conversely, love and respect are emotional and are processed by the right side of the brain. They are considered from a warm, holistic, feeling viewpoint, not logically motivated. The big problem with moving so quickly to money as the measuring and motivating tool is that it’s cold, calculating and must be refreshed regularly. This is expensive and time consuming, even when it works. The approach recommended by many today is to engage employees personally, emotionally and honestly first, then allow their rising self-esteem and feelings of value to drive their desire for more money. This approach, while requiring time, vulnerability and getting outside most manager’s comfort zone, ultimately lasts longer, gets far better results, and costs significantly less money. As a matter of fact, when done properly, it actually makes the company much more money than it costs, so is the true Win-Win-Win solution for business success.

Money will always be the ultimate measure of business and personal success, but the smart companies get there in three steps:

Step 1: Show the Love – Let employees know you care about them as human beings, not just as workers; and be genuine about it, so they believe you really mean it.

Step 2: Treat them with Respect – Keep everyone informed and make their work relevant; show them they are important to the company and you value their input.

Step 3: Share the Wealth – Now that you’ve got their attention and they feel good about the place, offer well organized, realistic, fair and meaningful opportunities to share in the revenue that their improved performance brings to the organization. Today’s technology allows you to orchestrate all of your current employee programs into a single, cost effective strategy that makes it easier to train managers to implement and comes across sensible and worthwhile to your employees. Finally, measure and evaluate the results, so you can prove that your effort is paying off; and it will!

As we all remember, you don’t move up through the five levels of “Need” until your current level is satisfied. Money resides in Level 1 – Physiological Needs (basic survival; a roof over your head, food and clothing). Most employees in our society are living predominantly in Level 4 – Self Esteem (a desire to be Loved and Respected; having already achieved Level 1, as well as Level 2 – Safety (benefits, 401K, security) and Level 3 – Social Needs (friends, family, supportive colleagues). Just look at advertising and this becomes quite clear. It’s all about how you look, how you feel, diet, exercise, cloths, make up, plastic surgery, cars, lifestyle, etc. Nothing’s wrong with this, but it defines a huge amount of time that makes up most of your employee’s lives. Money, while everybody wants more, and while important, is no longer motivating, because it dwells within a completed level of the pyramid. It’s a Want, not a Need.

2. Money as the Measure – Financial measurement has driven corporate thinking since the Industrial Revolution and is now the common denominator for the world economy. How else can you score the game of business? The problem is that it skips a very important aspect of human achievement, performance, and employee engagement. If you do a blanket survey, every employee wants money – this is universal and nothing new. But, if you ask them why they do what they do and what personally excites them about their work, it’s never about money; but about the emotional aspects of their work, life and personal interactions. We teach our clients to understand and relate to the emotional “Needs” of their people first (Maslow Level 4 thinking), before trying to motivate and incent with money. Only when people feel genuinely loved, appreciated and respected as a human being will they strive to make you (and themselves) more money in the long run. Money is a quick-and-dirty fix, so is seen as impersonal, manipulative, and self-serving. Organizations that rely on money alone, find it to be a very expensive and short-lived recognition tool.

3. Brain Biology – All financial thinking is left brain, the logical, calculating side. A decision involving money will always consider value, fairness and time. Conversely, love and respect are emotional and are processed by the right side of the brain. They are considered from a warm, holistic, feeling viewpoint, not logically motivated. The big problem with moving so quickly to money as the measuring and motivating tool is that it’s cold, calculating and must be refreshed regularly. This is expensive and time consuming, even when it works. The approach recommended by many of today’s top consultants is to engage employees personally, emotionally and honestly first, then allow their rising self esteem and feelings of value to drive their desire for more money. This approach, while requiring time, vulnerability and getting outside most manager’s comfort zone, ultimately lasts longer, gets far better results, and costs significantly less money. As a matter of fact, when done properly, it actually makes the company much more money that it costs, so is the true Win-Win-Win solution for business success.

Money will always be the ultimate measure of business and personal success, but the smart companies get there in three steps:

Step 1: Show the Love – Let employees know you care about them as human beings, not just as workers; and be genuine about it, so they believe you really mean it.

Step 2: Treat them with Respect – Keep everyone informed and make their work relevant; show them they are important to the company and you value their input.

Step 3: Share the Wealth – Now that you’ve got their attention and they feel good about the place, offer well organized, realistic, fair and meaningful opportunities to share in the revenue that their improved performance brings to the organization. Today’s technology allows you to orchestrate all of your current employee programs into a single, cost effective strategy that makes it easier to train managers to implement and comes across sensible and worthwhile to your employees. Finally, measure and evaluate the results, so you can prove that your effort is paying off; and it will!

I was invited to participate in a fun and unusual exercise; analysing the staff and management on the TV show The Office from any HR Consultant’s perspective. I had to brush up on my knowledge of the show and the characters, but for any of you who are even casual viewers, you can imagine the challenge.

The humor on this show is due to it’s disfunction, but in an interesting way, that same disfunction is responsible for the success of the company. This wacky group turns out to have some interpersonal strengths that actually transend the lunacy and it makes for a wonderful and surprisingly educational HR opportunity. Click the link below and see what you think. I had a blast and expanded my thinking.

http://www.hrwatchestheoffice.com/

Three Strikes and You’re IN!
How a Love of Baseball Helps Improve
Workplace Productivity and Profit

Baseball is a simple game, not easy, but simple if you just understand the basics.

Okay, you’re wondering what could baseball possibly have to do with recognizing employees and getting high performance in the workplace? Here’s a story that will bring this home:

Mike was born with a baseball glove on his hand. Looking back, he can’t remember a day he didn’t think about playing ball or watching his heroes on TV. At nine, then the smallest and fastest guy on the team, he caught a fly ball at the right centerfield fence and threw out a kid tagging up from second. At 12, Mike was the biggest guy out there and as a pitcher, struck out 17 batters in one game. The final play was a grounder back to the mound, so he assisted on the 18th out, too. They lost the game because he walked a few guys, but still got the game ball (remember, this was little league!).

Well, as it tends to happen, Mike’s pro career never materialized, but he’s still a huge fan and enjoys an annual ritual of going to opening day every spring. This year his buddy got them front row tickets on the right field side, Mike brought his glove in anticipation. The first pitch in the top of the ninth was a tailing line drive that was curling toward the stands. Mike instinctively stretched over the wall with fans on both sides scurrying in every direction and then heard a loud SMACK of leather on leather! In what seemed like an eternity, he pulled back his glove and found the prize. Immediately Mike turned and held the ball up to the roaring approval of 3,000 fans above. It was a moment he’d dreamed of since he was a kid and will never forget. He didn’t find out until later that they showed his catch twice in slow motion while the announcer espoused the virtues of bringing your glove to the ballpark. “Now there’s some great glove work by the veteran, Bob!”

Okay, so you’re still wondering what Mike’s love of baseball and his lucky catch have to do with employee recognition and workplace performance? Well, there are five significant lessons we can take from his story:

Training – Be prepared to make the play. Mike spent his whole life learning the skills to make this catch. Not only that, he was ready with his glove on, was still paying attention in the ninth inning and had the instinctive ability to make the play of this level without thinking. A well trained, focused, present and capable workforce will not only make more plays, but will have fewer accidents, waste less material, break fewer pieces of equipment, demonstrate more cooperation, achieve better productivity and make your firm a lot more money.

Practice – Looking back, Mike realized just how many hours he practiced the skills that ultimately made his reactionary catch possible. It was a backhand play on a fast moving baseball. Only well-practiced employees will be ready to instinctively do the right thing under pressure. Those few milliseconds of indecision that separate the well-intentioned rookie from the well-honed expert could make all the difference between a catch and a costly incident. Lost time accidents, injuries and equipment damage due to inexperienced employees continues to be one of the most expensive and wasteful areas for many companies.

Attitude – Have the confidence to go for it while others pull back or duck. Anybody can bare hand a little pop foul, but to snag a tailing liner you’ve got to have a combination of experience, confidence and guts. Employees who feel valued and respected are more likely to put in the hours and the effort to be really good at what they do; not because they fear being fired if they don’t, but because they like you, appreciate the company and want be a part of a winning team. They’re also a lot less likely to take their skills to your competitors when things get tough.

Recognition – When Mike turned to the stands and held up the ball, just imagine how it felt when thousands of cheering fans came to their feet in approval. Giving immediate, appropriate and genuine recognition when an employee takes a chance and it pays off is one of the most valuable things a supervisor can ever do. When your management team is ready, aware and has the tools at hand, this is not only easy, but soon becomes and habit that transcends the entire organization. Most people underestimate the value of an honest, timely pat on the back when it’s deserved. If your team is a well-oiled machine, your supervisors will have more time to concentrate on opportunities to use recognition, because so much less time is being wasted on recruiting, training, and coaching of new employees due to higher than necessary turnover.

Share the Glory – While Mike made the play, everybody around him seemed to enjoy sharing in the moment almost as much as he did as the high-fives ensued. Let’s face it, there’s only so much time in the work day for celebrating success and handing out recognition. The best managers realize this, so they make sure that as many peers as possible get to participate in each recognition moment. When other team members see how often it happens, they share the love and look forward to their turn. Team-based recognition is a great way to foster camaraderie and keep everyone more focused on the job at hand.

So how about that; Mike’s love of baseball and his emotional story really do carry the secret to optimizing your employee’s performance and your company’s bottom line. All you’ve got to do is hire good talent, show them you truly love and respect them, get out of their way so they can be the best they can be, allow them to take calculated chances to improve the company, and be there instantly and in force to congratulate them when they succeed.

What if you could create an environment in your workplace where this happened regularly . . . on purpose! Its fun, it’s easier than you think, and it won’t cost any money. As a matter of fact, it’ll make you money, and you’ll be able to prove it to the CFO!

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