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Happy New Year! It's
hard to believe we're at the halfway point through this decade already!
Wasn't it just yesterday that we worried about the Y2K problem?
For
the last 20 years, my wife, Heather, and I have used the start of a new
year as a time to spend an evening together reviewing the past few
years and looking at our vision for the next five. We feel this has
made a huge difference in keeping us focused – and together. Each year
we focus on each of the key dimensions of our lives: family, social,
community, spiritual, business, home, and health.
I
have long believed that vision, values, and purpose (what I call "Focus
and Context") are at the core of leading ourselves and others. That's
why Focus and Context is the hub of our "leadership wheel" that both Growing the Distance: Timeless Principles for Personal and Career Success and The Leader's Digest: Timeless Principles for Team and Organization Success are built around. This is the perfect time of year to look ahead and envision our ideal future.
There is a large selection of columns, articles, and book excerpts on Focus and Context freely available on our web site. Go to www.clemmer.net/excerpts/values.shtml to browse through them.
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| More on...Pensions, Money, and Retaining Top People |
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Dear Jim,
One
of your services is to keep the fundamentals of management before your
audience. I find I get impatient with managers who don't do their
homework on existing management doctrine which has survived 50 years of
testing.
I think that's about
the time span for Herzberg's work on motivation, and I think he might
say to your reader, "maybe it's true in your Company, but if so, you
had better see what else you're NOT offering people to get them to
stay." I think I recall that money (including benefits) is not a
motivator. Job challenge, enjoyment in doing the work, and recognition
are the key motivators.
In my
strategic planning workshops, I find these basics are received as
though they were new breakthroughs. I personally feel it is never right
to spend Client money on "discovering" what has already been proved by
those more qualified than I, and I do welcome your service in enforcing
such basic doctrines to your audience.
John Heggie, John F. Heggie & Partners Inc.
Newmarket, Ontario Canada
I wholeheartedly agree with John, and disagree with both his senior managers.
Our
company employs journeymen welders and machinists in Edmonton. The
economy is so strong in our city that we have had situations where we
are constantly looking for new people, and are not able to find them.
We
have, however, been very successful in retaining our employees by
paying a competitive wage, and offering a supportive environment, and
challenging work. We recently had a long term employee resign for
reasons of increased pay, only to return to our company about 6 weeks
later, as he missed the supportive environment in our shop.
My
point is that there are many ways to incent people, of which money is
only one. I think an employer is much better served to offer a
supportive environment, and a challenging workplace, at a competitive
wage. Making the mistake that the only incentive people respond to is
money, is to ensure a very short term focus on the relationship with
your employees, and almost guarantee that in the long run, your
business will have more employee turnover than it should have.
Richard Hewson, CMA, Comptroller, IMAC Design Group
Edmonton, Alberta Canada
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| Municipal Leadership: Bridging the Council-Staff Trust Gap |
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I
continue to work with federal, provincial, and municipal levels of the
public sector. This work has ranged from Leadership @ the Speed of
Change workshops and presentations (see www.clemmer.net/speaking/lsc.shtml for more on my most popular topic area) to facilitating highly customized team development and planning retreats.
Based on some of my recent engagements with municipalities, the editors at Public Sector Digest
worked with me to produce an article on "Bridging the Council-Staff
Gap." Building a strong partnership between staff and council is
essential to effective municipal management. In many instances this
lack of harmonization is caused by lack of agreement on the defined
roles for both staff and council members. Click here to read the article outlining this common problem and a strategy for dealing with it.
If you're in the public sector, check out The Public Sector Digest at www.publicsectordigest.com. Click on their "Tour" button (on the right) to get a deeper look at this learning and development service.
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Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from the Leader Letter in your own print publication or e-newsletter as long as you include this paragraph:
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"Reprinted with permission from the Leader Letter,
Jim Clemmer's free e-newsletter. For over 25 years Jim Clemmer's
practical leadership approaches have been inspiring action and
achieving results. His 2,000+ presentations and workshops/retreats,
five bestselling books, columns, and newsletters are helping hundreds
of thousands of managers worldwide because they are inspiring,
instructive, and refreshingly fun. And best of all, they work! His web
site is www.clemmer.net."
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| More on...Losing Customer Focus |
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A woman walked up to the manager of a department store. "Are you hiring any help?" she asked.
"No," he said. "We already have all the staff we need."
"Then would you mind getting someone to wait on me?" she asked.
I
read this last month & laughed - even shared it with the rest of
our organization to drive home the point of customer value.
But I saw it from a whole new perspective this morning as I read it again.
Why
hadn't the 'manager' picked up on this customer's dilemma before she
had to seek help? Was he/she another victim of the age old lie ... "it
wasn't 'his/her' job?"
People follow our example ... that's leadership in its simplest form.
Doug Hyde, Human Resource Manager, Can-Oat Milling
Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada
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| Your Recommended Resources for Leading Through Communication |
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Hi Jim,
I
recently received your December newsletter and I wanted to say that I
enjoy receiving them every month... they keeping me actively thinking
about leadership! Thank you for your work and continuous contact.
I
have some exciting news... in the next few months I will be developing
some leadership workshops for students at (Wilfrid) Laurier
(University) in a seven seminar workshop series called "Leading Through
Communication".
I am developing the content and presenting for three seminars. The topics of these seminars are:
1) Communication Basics
2) How to be an Assertive Communicator
3) Converting Your Communication into Action
I
am wondering if you could recommend any materials, books (even some of
the content in your latest two books), etc. that could be helpful in my
process of developing the content and presentation for the three
seminars listed above.
Hope business is going well and wishing you and your family all the best during the holiday season!
Eric Mallia
I have a series of excerpts and articles on communications at www.clemmer.net/excerpts/communication.shtml.
However, many of these are about organizational communication. I don't
have much material on the skills of personal communication.
Can you recommend resources for Eric? Please e-mail me at [email protected] with your suggestions.
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| Leading Spirited Teams |
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Over the past 12 years, I have had a few dozen articles published in Canada's national newspaper, The Globe & Mail.
My most recent article on what kills team spirit and how to build
spirit has produced one of the strongest responses ever. It seems to
have touched a nerve with many people in many organizations. Click here to read the article, "Team Spirit Built From the Top."
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| Top Improvement Points from December |
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| Thoughts That Make You Go Hmmmm...on Focus and Context |
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"Twenty
years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you
didn't do than the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover. "
- Mark Twain, American humorist
"In
the last three decades findings in experimental psychology have
suggested that one's belief about the world may actually change it.
This idea is very disturbing to the usual conceptions of the mind,
suggesting that mind can actually influence events at a distance --
that it can 'move matter' and thereby shape the world around us."
- Larry Dossey, Recovering the Soul: A Scientific and Spiritual Search
"I've learned that only through focus can you do world-class things, no matter how capable you are. "
- Bill Gates, Founder and Chair, Microsoft
"What
this power is, I cannot say. All I know is that it exists...and it
becomes available only when you are in that state of mind in which you
know exactly what you want...and are fully determined not to quit until
you get it."
- Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone
"We
must look for ways to be an active force in our own lives. We must take
charge of our own destinies, design a life of substance and truly begin
to live our dreams."
- Les(ter Louis) Brown, Indian writer, author
"Dream
lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the
promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of
what you shall at last unveil."
- James Lane Allen, American novelist
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| Rare Public Workshops in Ontario |
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If
your organization has been striving to improve customer service levels
but not quite pulling it together, you may want to attend my two-day Leading a Customer-Centered Organization
workshop in Mississauga. I have distilled 20 years of research,
experiences, best practices, and leadership/personal development into
this intensive session. Check it out at www.clemmer.net/events/lcco/lcco.shtml.
Mississauga, ON - February 7-8, 2005
Leadership
is clearly THE key to success. That's why it's such a popular topic.
But despite all the talk about leadership and change, many "change
fatigued" people are still struggling with how to strengthen their
leadership and how to help their team/organization successfully
navigate change. Join me in Kitchener for two intensive days at my Leading @ the Speed of Change workshop. Check it out at www.clemmer.net/events/lsc/lsc.shtml.
Kitchener, ON - May 31 - June 1, 2005
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| Feedback and Follow-Up |
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I am always delighted to hear from readers of the Leader Letter
with feedback, reflections, suggestions, or differing points of view. I
am also happy to explore customized, in-house adaptations of any of my
material for your team or organization, drop me an e-mail at [email protected].
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I hope to connect with you again next month!
Jim
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post or pass this newsletter on to colleagues, clients, or associates
you think might be interested. If you received this newsletter from
someone else, and would like to subscribe, click here: www.clemmer.net/subscribe.shtml Phone: (519) 748-1044 ~ Fax: (519) 748-5813 ~ E-mail: [email protected]
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| Copyright 2004, Jim Clemmer, The CLEMMER Group |
