When times were good, I hear people say, “How do we motivate our people?” Five years ago it was easy, money was free flowing, and most employee appreciation budgets were large. We could, through extravagant parties, give large bonuses and provide extensive training and development opportunities.

Now things are different and the rubber meets the road when it comes to employee engagement and loyalty. Budgets for employees are tight or non-existent. We tell our staff “you should feel lucky to have a job.”

I want to encourage business owners and leaders to think about the big picture. Our economy may never be what it was, but it will be back and more competitive. Those companies who have been able to retain their teams with authentic loyalty will be able to sprint past those who have not. Those companies who have not focused on employee engagement will see large turnover, as other organizations who have positioned themselves for growth seek talent. How are you going to keep your employees for the future?

 
• Do not underestimate the power of one-on-one communication. Leaders mustmake a conscious effort to talk to your teams and understand what they are happy about and worried about, both professionally and personally.

 

• Continue to conduct performance reviews! Everyone wants to know if they are winning or losing. If you do not tell employees how their performance stacks up, how can you expect them to be engaged in their work?

 

• Celebrate the small things. Give your employees a reason to celebrate their accomplishments when they align with your company’s objectives. Positive, specific encouragement to your teams will return dividends to your organization.

 

• Ask employees how they are motivated, what drives them to get out of bed and come to work in the morning.

Most managers do not want to know the answers to the last bullet. I am finding that most people are driven to gather their paycheck. For many business owners, they long for the days where people felt passionately committed to their work, and this is where drive comes in. Most employees are not driven by money. They are driven by autonomy, the freedom to create, give input and be apart of something great. Our job as business owners is to establish an environment where this is possible. How?

 
• Help your employees determine their strengths and build their jobs around tasks they are good at and they enjoy.

 

• As your employees form their opinions and foster an environment of innovation and creativity, will trying something new for 30 days kill your business? Give your employees a chance to show you what and how they can contribute.

 

• Communicate and then over-communicate the vision of the organization. Where is your company going to be in three years and how can each employee help the company get there?

Most of all, think back to when you started your career and the things you wanted from your supervisor. Think about the things you did not want. What motivates you as a business owner, and what gets you out of bed to come to work? The pace, attitude and enthusiasm starts at the top, be an example of what you want to see from your employees.

Looking for more material on this topic? Check out these helpful resources:

http://www.danpink.com/

http://www.tmbc.com/

http://www.entrepreneur.com/humanresources/employeemanagementcolumnistdavidjavitch/article202352.html

First, being apart of Ignite, was one of the best things I did in 2009. If you are even considering submitting for 6, I encourage you, please do, it will be an experience that will open your mind, your experiences and is tons of fun!

In reflecting on what made Ignite great, for me there are, 4 P’s!

Passion, Proactive, Practice and Perform!

Passion, you have to have it! Don’t submit on a topic that you aren’t crazy about in some form or fashion!

Proactive, do the Ignite volunteers (who are spectacular by the way) a favor, and be on it, be proactive, meet their deadlines, you will only be helping yourself in the end if you do!  I have been doing presentations for years, and one of the best things about Ignite was I learned a new way to present. Historically, I think in PowerPoint and make my presentations from a visual perspective, that is why I was drawn to Ignite in the first place. I quickly learned that starting with pictures for a five minute presentation was the wrong path. Start with your content, write it, read it and then speak it, speak it many times. Once you are satisfied with your content then look for photos.

Practice, and when you think you can’t practice any more, practice anyway. The one thing about Ignite, it is far better to be overprepared than not.  I practiced stading at the island in our kitchen, staring at my laptop reciting over and over again my five minutes of fame! I put a digital clock next to my lap top so I could get used to the twenty second flip and better hone my message to meet the time frame. Once I felt I had the right words in the right time, I recorded myself on my phone and would listen to the playback. This really helped me work out the bugs.

Perform, lastly, if you have done the first 3 P’s, your performance is icing on the cake and enjoy the evening. The volunteers, the audience, the environment, soak it all up and have a blast! And don’t miss the afterparty!

I was so inspired by Ignite that I asked my Masters students in a Human Capital Managment course at University of Phoenix to do their presentations with pictures only. I showed them Ingite videos and given the content we had to cover, they got away with more than five minutes, but the response from the students was amazing. They were far more engaged in their presentations, the audience was focused on hearing the content instead of reading the slides, everyone was more present and therefore retained the information. It was fun! It made me realize the power of speaking to pictures and the whole reason why the messages at Ignite are so powerful.

So whether you speak at Ignite Phoenix 6 or not, try doing your presentations in a new format, follow the 4 P’s and you will always have a great presentation!

Lastly, I have to give a big thanks to all of the Ignite Phoenix Volunteers and Crew, specifically, @bpcarson and @jmoriarty for their support and encouragement.

You can see my five minutes of fame http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bf8mByPU0BU! Enjoy!

Both Canvas and Gangplank share in the school of thought (no pun intended) that our education system needs to be altered.  We want our children to have a broader scope of the opportunities that surround them. Primarily by using creativity to spur imagination, ambition and initiative to open their minds to possible careers they may not have even known existed.  It seems as kids become adults they leave those skills in their childhood, and then they start to work and forget how to play.  

In a time when innovation is a buzz word, we see businesses losing market share and employees being laid off, employers want their teams to create.  However, we are expecting behaviors that don’t exist in our corporate cultures because we have taught people that it isn’t ok to fail or make mistakes. When was the last time you were celebrated in your workplace for trying something new or failing?

What happens when your eight year old daughter stops in the Lego isle at Toys R’ Us? Do you encourage her interest or say “Lego’s are for boys.”  Gangplank is encouraging kids to play and see what they like or don’t like.  By exposing them to topics they don’t get in traditional education like movie making, art, food service, technology, programming and acting children are getting a first hand experience to spark their interest in these various areas.

How much more profitable would our businesses be if our teams were truly engaged in the work? If every employee felt it was their calling to be doing the work the came to do in our workplaces each day?  Even if you aren’t in first grade, I encourage you to go out and try new things. What sparks your interest and how can you squash your fear of failure from trying it?

Many of the people who live in rural communities do not have access to basic medical care, let alone resources when they really get sick.

Why does this matter? Did you know that there are 60 million people who live in rural America? That is three times as many people that live in Australia. Here are some other interesting facts:

Most of the diseases American’s suffer from are lifestyle and behavior related and can be mitigated through better eating and exercise regime. Here are the top diseases rural American’s are suffering from:

If you are in an Arizona rural community and you’d like to improve the health of your town, funds are available through St. Luke’s Health Initiatives. Contact Christy Zavala, Community Development Program manager at christy.zavala@azdhs.gov for more information.

The National Area Health Education Center provides awesome programs to promote education and careers of health professionals in rural communities. If you are interested in a career in health care, this is a resource you should definitely take advantage of.

Also, if you have been laid off and want to improve your skills to move into a healthcare profession, there are wonderful programs offering training through the Phoenix Workforce Connection for urban and rural job opportunities.

I am grateful I had the opportunity to learn more about health in rural America, and I hope that you to will increase your awareness to the issues facing rural communities.

Information contained in this blog came from these resources:

http://www.ruralhealthweb.org/

http://www.azrha.org/

http://www.nationalahec.org/home/index.asp

Holly Miller, MD, MBA, FHIMSS

For many, this sounds far worse. It reminds me of the story of a man going on a job site and asking a worker, “Sir, what are you doing?” The man states, “I am laying block.” He goes to another worker asks the same question and hears, “I am building a wall.”  He goes to a third man and asks the same questions and hears, “I am building a cathedral.”

In these times, all of us, no matter what our position in our companies, need to be thinking about the sustainability of our cathedral. This is a call to action for all employees to look up from their computer screens and see the vision of the organization and ask themselves, what they can do to better support it.

1.      To support the vision, first find out what the vision is

2.      They ask how your job relates

3.      Learn new tasks, ask others how you can help them

Number three seems to be the hold up. It seems we are in a survival of the fittest mode, every man for himself, scarcity. This attitude is what continues to bring the system down.

Do not pretend to be busy; the managers know you are not! So be honest, be real and ask others what you can do for them, learn new skills.

Remember all of those things we had no time to do when our businesses were booming? Do them! Our businesses will boom again and we need to prepare, be ready to act and catapult ourselves ahead of the competition.

                  So please:

o       Ask others if you can help them.

o       Learn new skills to benefit the business.

o       Come up with ways for the company to save money.

o       Treat your customers well, ask them what they need and provide it!

o       Most of all, excel at your immediate job, do each task with excellence!

What are your ideas? What do you see people doing in your companies?

These tips come courtesy of my friend and blog coach Lacey French:
•  Format the blog so it breaks more so it’s easier to read. Use bullet points.
•   Always end on a call to action. Ask your readers to respond, tell you what they think, ask them if they’ve been in a      similar situation and can relate.
•   Make sure the post is always focused around information that is useful to your audience.
• Links are REALLY helpful. It’s great to link to outside resources – that also helps from a search engine perspective.

Here is a link to a site that I thought was helpful to writing your first blog:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/12/30/tens-tips-for-writing-a-blog-post/

I have also found, by reading more blogs I can see what I like and don’t like. For example, I have become a huge fan of the blogs on the Harvard Business Review site. They have great content and are short. Here is an example:

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/cs/2009/07/hire_smarter_with_social_media.html

This past month I also took a few courses on blogging through http://www.agencyside.net/. In class I learned from Jeff Moriarty that bloggers who have success, blog frequently. This I haven’t been so good at, so I promise to be more consistent.

So what do you think? Has this information been helpful? When you first started blogging, what information was helpful to you?

Thanks for reading!