Susan Scott's Blog, page 67

Fierce Tip of the Week: Talk about Vacation

As essayist Tim Kreider wrote in The New York Times, “The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration—it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.”So, I ask: Are you taking the vacation you need to be the best “you” at work? Have that conversation with yourself first. Ask: What would my ideal amount of time off be? And if it is far from what is offered, what are alternative ways that I can be recharged? What can I put on the table as options?It all starts with your own reflection, and then you need to engage with others.According to a recent Fierce survey, paid time off policies are very important to today’s workforce. However, few conversations actually take place with employers. Respondents noted a need for more discussions regarding the quality of time off and the amount of PTO given to employees. In fact, 80 percent of survey respondents desire more than 20 days of PTO per year, yet 46.7 percent currently receive 20 days or less.This week’s tip is to have a conversation with your manager and team about time off.  Concentrate on being in service to your team, as well as honoring your needs, so that everyone can take the time off they need.

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Fierce Resource: The Why and What of Motivation

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Training Industry and explores the truth behind what really motivates people to achieve success.It’s common knowledge that motivation plays a critical role in employee productivity, quality of work, and execution speed. But many leaders still find it difficult to motivate their employees. What are we missing? The Why and What of Motivation finds that all motivation is driven from within. This means leaders need to shift their focus from exclusively offering extrinsic rewards to uncovering each employee’s intrinsic motivation.Is your team performing to expectations? Are you taking the time to connect with your employees?“Be willing to take the time to meet with and listen to employees, as much as they need or want. Schedule individual meetings to focus on pinpointing what really drives them and the type of recognition they prefer to receive.”Read the article.

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We’re a Best Place to Work

We are absolutely ecstatic to be a Seattle Business Magazine Best Place to Work! We want to thank each person at Fierce for bringing their heads and hearts to the work we do, each and every day.Fierce is a fast-growing, fast-paced learning organization that walks its talk. We teach our clients how to have real conversations that invite differing perspectives, that tackle tough issues, that “rock the boat”, that get to the heart of the matter, that develop the leader within everyone – all while enriching relationships.Our mission is to better the world, one conversation at a time, and we understand that it starts with ourselves. So we are real with one another and involved with our community.On top of that, we have these perks:Happy Hours: Employees are invited to monthly happy hours to help foster the company’s value of having fun together. These events have featured scavenger hunts around the city, photo booths or just gathering around the office margarita machine.Personal Development: Employees each receive a minimum of $1,000 each year for personal development, which can be used in any way they choose that will “improve their lives from the inside out.” Employees have used the funds for knitting classes, fitness training, glass blowing classes and a variety of other pursuits.Work-life Balance: Fierce employees work completely flexible work schedules and can telecommute. They also receive two months paid parenting leave, as well as unlimited personal time off.Sabbatical: After seven years with the company, employees are eligible for a one-month paid sabbatical.Social Events: Each year, Fierce hosts two company-wide social events, such as Major League Baseball games, private “Ride the Duck” tours on amphibious vehicles, and group cooking classes. In the words of our Founder and CEO, Susan Scott, “Listen. In every office you hear the threads of love and joy and fear and guilt, the cries for celebration and reassurance, and somehow you know that connecting those threads is what you are supposed to do and business takes care of itself.” Cheers to that!  

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Connect with a Recent Graduate

“Now go, and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make good art.” – Neil GaimanIt’s that time of year. Universities and colleges around the country have officially released another class of graduates into the workforce. Do you remember how you felt when you graduated? Were you excited? Scared? Bogged down? Carefree?I remember thinking – wow, this is it – pretty surreal. And off I went into the next phase of my life. The significance of the time was leveled with how equally anti-climactic it was. I remember thinking: Is this how everyone feels?During that time, a dear family friend, Dave, sat me down and talked with me about how I was feeling, what I wanted to do, and who I wanted to be. He asked me big, juicy, important questions. The type that couldn’t be followed by simple, small answers.Dave asked me those questions, because he wanted to make sure I was looking inside instead of outside for validation. I think people assume those conversations happen all the time with people after they graduate. I would argue they don’t.This week’s tip is to have an authentic, real conversation with a recent graduate. He or she may be in your family, a close friend, or a stranger.Make the conversation deep. Make it fierce.  

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Fierce Resource: Employee Engagement Depends on What Happens Outside of the Office

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Harvard Business Review and explores why current employee engagement models aren’t addressing the real issue.Most employee engagement models are centered on an organization’s culture and environment, instead of on the employees themselves. However, Employee Engagement Depends on What Happens Outside of the Office finds that you not only need to engage an employee’s work self, but also their internal self, external self, and relationships.Are you engaging employees’ whole selves?“That’s the core problem. When we only try to understand and affect what happens at work, we ignore the most basic tenet of person-organization fit: employees bring their whole selves to work. What happens after the workday may be just as important as what happens during it.”Read the article.

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Employee Engagement: Just Do It

Employee engagement and inclusion isn’t a cognitive issue. It’s an emotional issue. The problem isn’t out there. It’s in here. We want employees to be engaged and feel included, while we ourselves are detached, distracted, disengaged, focused on our To Do lists and the stock price. We want others to bring that elusive, coveted “discretionary effort” in the door with them every day but we don’t have time to engage in the kind of conversations that could enrich our relationships with them.The fact is, not having those conversations will take longer and cost more in the long term. When you disengage from the world, the world disengages too, in equal measure. It’s a two-step, you and the world, you and your organization. Your employees lost interest in you because you lost interest in them. Calling them associates or partners is often window dressing. If you want high levels of employee engagement you must gain the capacity to connect with your employees – at a deep level – or lower your aim. And that connection occurs or fails to occur one conversation at a time. If you’re a fan of Angry Birds, the eagle is to Angry Birds what human connectivity is to the relationships central to your success. It gets the job done!What gets talked about in your company, how it gets talked about and who is invited to the conversation determines what will happen. Or won’t happen. Your conversations must be fierce — conversations in which you and others come out from behind yourselves, into your conversations, and make them real. Once an organization crosses the line into “fierce” territory, very little else is required to create a culture of highly engaged, kick-ass employees. Without such conversations, your platform may be smoldering.So how can you “do” engagement in your organization?

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Engage By Doing

“Throw yourself into some work you believe in with all you heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.” – Dale CarnegieHow engaged are you feeling this Monday? With your job? With your company?The statistics aren’t looking good for how the majority of people would answer that. A lot of doom and gloom. Very few rainbows.Here are some recent news flashes about engagement:35% of US Managers are engaged in their jobs via  Gallup  State of the American Manager54%of employees were proud of their company’s contributions to society are engaged via  Dale Carnegie  Employee Engagement Study60% of employees lack the elements required to be highly engaged via  Towers Watson 2014 Global Workforce Study To me, it is quite depressing to think more than half of US managers wake up every Monday not engaged.So what do we do about it?Well, engagement requires engagement. There’s a lot of doing required — transforming this huge, complex topic into something tangible that we can act on. It won’t happen as a result of offering extravagant perks, but comes through reinforcing each and every connection within an organization.This week’s tip is to engage. Reinforce connections with yourself, your team, and your organization. Have a deep conversation. Be more real. Show up in your truest form.There are so many ways to “do” engagement. And now, it is your turn to begin. Want to learn more about how to “do” engagement? Join this webinar with Susan Scott, Fierce Inc. Founder & CEO, on Wednesday.

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Fierce Resource: Why Strategy Execution Unravels—and What to Do About It

This week’s Fierce resource was originally published on Harvard Business Review and debunks five myths for translating strategy into results.Myth: Communication Equals UnderstandingMany executives believe that relentless communication is the key to corporate success. But Why Strategy Execution Unravels—and What to Do About It finds that even with the unending stream of emails and team meetings most communication still gets lost in translation. Only 16% of front-line supervisors and team leaders understand an organizations strategic priorities.Myth: Execution should be driven from the top“Concentrating power at the top may boost performance in the short term, but it degrades an organization’s capacity to execute over the long run. Moreover, if top executives insist on making the important calls themselves, they diminish middle managers’ decision-making skills, initiative, and ownership of results.”Is your organization plagued by the “corporate nod”?Read the article.

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Legislated Optimism: A Worst “Best” Practice

Legislated optimism is the purview of the one-way leader. When optimism is legislated, meetings produce more nothing than something. Ideas die without a funeral or proper burial. Communication is primarily from the leader to everyone else. The reverse is not valued, not welcomed, because the leader and his or her inner circle of advisers know best.And the message is always upbeat. Information is presented with a coat of whitewash and abracadabra laid over it, as if leaders would have us believe they’ve sent all the Death Eaters flying. Naysayers will be sent to Azkaban.In a culture of legislated optimism, leaders know only the sound of one hand clapping. They ask questions not because they want answers, but because they want to hear how they sound asking them or because they are trying to create the illusion of inclusion. In this environment, conclusions are reached at the point when everyone stops thinking, which is often short of brilliant.  The leaders have already done the thinking for us and have called it good. No point in telling them what we’re actually dealing with every day, since to do so would not be a career- enhancing move.And this is a shame because our first thoughts, unfiltered, uncensored, are usually on to something. We may not even know how or why we know what we know, but we do know, and these thoughts are usually the most true, most honest, yet all too often the courage to capture and voice them fails us.Do you have legislated optimism in your life? Where?

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Fierce Tip of the Week: Schedule Time for Your Health

Professional Wellness Month is already halfway over. I still urge you to make a commitment. Taking care of yourself is critical for your success.So, what are you doing for your health and wellness in June?One person in our office joined a new gym. Two people we partner with committed to going to yoga. One person vowed to cut screen time down before bed.Small changes can have big impact. This week’s tip is to schedule time for your health for the rest of the month. Don’t make it too complicated. Here are some suggestions from community members:Get 30 more minutes of sleep each night.Go on a walk after dinner.Meditate for 10 minutes a day.Walk during lunch hour.Join a sports league. How do you schedule time in for yourself?Let me know what tips and tricks you have for others.

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