Harrison CEO Secret Guide to Managing and Motivating Employees

1. Auflage 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9944067-1-2
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Are your employees happy and productive? Is your business competitive and growing? CEOs have long needed a straightforward guide to managing and motivating twenty-first century employees. Here is that book. 'The CEO Secret Guide' provides a six-part method to help CEOs solve their most pressing issues surrounding people management and motivation. Award-winning best employer CEOs share their experience and offer advice on a wide range of topics, covering everything from vision and values to performance and KPIs. There are case studies covering some of Australia's best employers, including Starlight Children's Foundation, Birdsnest and BRW Best Place to Work winner, UM Australia.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Harrison, Claire

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1

STARTING WITH YOU

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

– Steve Jobs

Invariably, Best Workplace CEOs have, at one point or another, spent time working to better understand themselves as leaders (and individuals). They look inwards to better understand why they do what they do. They dig deep to find the root of their passion for work and life. While not everybody finds their passion, great leaders always do. If you are not passionate about what you are doing then you will not be an inspiring leader of people, which will make it almost impossible to be successful in business over the long term.

You need to be passionately committed to your job and your business. Unless you are motivated by this passion, you will not be able to inspire those around you. You will not be able to lead yourself or your employees to achieve the spectacular. The title of CEO brings with it a long train of responsibilities, hard work, huge hours, unforeseen challenges, and a never-ending burden of stakeholder expectations. Without the passion for your business and leadership of your people, why do it?

This is why, as the highest priority, I am asking you to take stock of yourself – of your motivators, your talents, your values, and your passions. There are a few areas that are particularly important. Let’s look at each of these individually.

HOW TO EXAMINE YOUR PURPOSE

Your passion

You need to understand your passion to understand your purpose. To do this, consider the following questions:

•   What truly drives you as a person?

•   What is important to you?

•   What are your personal values?

•   What really gets your blood boiling?

•   What would you like your legacy to be?

•   Why are you a leader? Why not some other position?

Answering these questions honestly will help you understand the real reasons you do what you do. By better understanding your passion – your ultimate motivator – you will be well placed to lead and grow a business that is in sync with your authentic self.

Of course, not all passions are equally economically viable. To be a successful CEO you will need to find a way to commercialise your passion. Steve Jobs did this at Apple, combining his passions for technology and liberal arts.

I have had the privilege of spending time with Vicki, an amazing woman and the CEO of a large and diverse not-for-profit organisation. She was part of the initial founding team of the organisation 20 years ago, which now employs over a thousand people across a wide variety of services and social enterprises. Just to be in the presence of this woman makes me feel inspired to do great things. Vicki is doggedly determined to achieve amazing outcomes for people living with a wide range of disabilities. She advocates on their behalf while also establishing new and innovative self-funded services to meet their needs. Vicki is not just a social advocate for disadvantaged people. She is also a savvy businesswoman who understands the levers in her industry. She surrounds herself with an amazing team and empowers them to think innovatively. The organisation has grown from strength to strength. She has done all this thanks to her passion. It drives her to be better, to do better, and to improve the daily lives of those who are most vulnerable. Her passion (and her willingness to follow it) has made the world a better place.

Job satisfaction

When your business and your passion are in sync, the result is a high degree of job satisfaction. Still, it is unlikely that you enjoy all of your duties as the leader of an organisation equally. When you perform some tasks, your job satisfaction levels will be much higher than when you perform others. You need to consider each of the tasks you perform according to the following two factors:

1.   What you are good at – your strengths/talents

2.   What you like to do – what you enjoy and/or are passionate about.

Therefore, each of the tasks you perform will fall into one of the four quadrants below based on your strengths and enjoyment:

Ultimately, you will perform at peak levels when the majority of your tasks fit into quadrant two. That is, when you are doing a job you love and that you are great at.

It is not unlikely you will need to perform tasks that fall into categories one and four, but you should limit these because they will not provide you the level of happiness and productivity that you seek in your job. In the case of category four, you may enjoy going through all of the applications received for a management position with the intention of short-listing the applications for interview; however, your track record with this task might be poor, so you should utilise the skills of a more appropriately qualified person. In category one, you might find the task of proofreading policies and procedures. Perhaps you are a fantastic proofreader, but you don’t enjoy spending your time doing it. This is another task that you’ll want to assign to one of your people who is not only good at proofreading but also enjoys doing it.

You should not be doing tasks that fall into quadrant three: results will inevitably be poor and, not only the task, but perhaps the role as well will become more and more tiresome with each passing day. To improve your level of job satisfaction and productivity, delegate, eliminate or outsource these tasks.

Understanding your limitations

Great leaders understand their strengths and how to leverage them, but the best leaders are also aware of their limitations. These might not be able to be leveraged in the same way that strengths can, but the humility that comes with an honest reckoning of one’s shortcomings can be turned into a powerful leadership tool. Nobody expects you to be good at everything – placing this kind of expectation on yourself is often at the root of disappointment and unhappiness. Ensure that you have people on your team who are able to bridge the gaps in your skill-set. Take stock of your limitations by asking the following questions:

•   Which of your tasks do you find most difficult to complete?

•   How do you behave when under stress?

•   Do you really listen and understand what people are telling you?

•   Do you have strong communication skills?

•   Are you an efficient delegator?

•   Do you procrastinate more than you should?

•   Do you have solid financial management skills?

•   Are you good at ensuring that structures, processes and policies exist for systemising and growing the business?

These questions may lead you to still more questions. This is all part of the self-examination that helps great leaders better understand themselves and their roles within the organisations they lead. Think about your answers to these questions and what they suggest to you about areas for possible self-development or improvement. Where there are clear gaps, develop a team of superstars around you who are able to do what you cannot (or would rather not). Delegating in this way will ensure that things are done right – and usually by somebody who would include these tasks in the second quadrant of the task table we discussed above.

Whether or not you have trouble answering these questions, seek feedback from your team members. They may identify a limitation you have missed. Be aware that some of this feedback might hit a sore spot. The key is to welcome feedback (positive and negative alike) openly and without judgment so that you are able to learn and grow as a leader and as a person. This can be a confronting experience, but it will provide you with highly valuable information that no amount of mirror-gazing can provide.

Be aware that, if it’s honest feedback you’re looking for, your position as CEO may make it rather difficult to come by. Some of the best leaders I’ve encountered use external coaches and mentors to help them assess strengths and pinpoint areas for development precisely because they understand that the feedback they get from within the organisation is sometimes not as comprehensive as it could be. In what follows, you’ll notice that a number of our award-winning CEOs stress the significant role that coaches have played in their business success.

Being aware of your limitation is only the first part. Most importantly, once you understand your limitations, act upon this information. Target some areas for delegation, some for elimination, and others for self-development work.

Emotional intelligence

Engaging, and persuasive communicators almost always possess a high degree of emotional intelligence (EI). EI is a critical success factor for CEOs (indeed, for any member of the leadership team). While IQ is something that we are (for the most part) born with or without, EI can be taught and developed. EI is about being able to read others, which could be an individual or millions of them. EI allows the possessor to change minds and to thereby influence people’s...