Entries from June 2007 ↓

There are a number of social clubs and professional associations. The common factor amongst these different assemblies is to create a ground for people of common interest to exchange and work towards a common goal.

I have belonged to a number of associations & clubs through out my life. In my youth I was a member of a student association which catered for the youth. The organisation driven by the youth themselves created opportunities for the development of students by organising sports& cultural activities. More importantly it was a training platform for the more daring members to hone their leadership & communications skills. The diversity of the people and sometimes different & opposing views of the members often create dissensions within the association. Working and succeeding in a project together with the members build up friendship and give great satisfaction and happiness. More importantly these experiences build memories that we cherish for ever.

Over forty years after, I still vividly remember the wonderful experience I had with my team members in competing in the National Youth Drama Festival organised by the then Ministry of Youth & Sports. Winning the award of Best Actor, the best supporting actor, best production for “The Dark Horses” crowned the joint effort of our team.

Last night, with an immense pleasure, I attended the 80^th birthday of my aunt who had been since 1961 the Drama Coach of the Chinese Student Association. We reunited the actors and stage managers and hands for generations of Drama lovers. Most of us today are retirees after  successful and meaningful life. Looking back, we can appreciate the training our participation to a youth club helped us to lead our working life. The story of John Yinkoo ( told last night) who joined Mauritius Telecoms a clerk to finish up his career as the CEO of the company was a very touching story.

I am grateful to the elders who started the club and for many years support it. LeeAh Luck ( present last night) who is today in his 80’s was one of them. I was so glad to see him last night.

Are Youth club out of fashion today? What is the new form of association which can provide the same services? Luckily, there are still plenty of clubs alive.

La réflexion de St. Ambroise (340-397) sur le texte de St Luc est généralement ce qui nous est enseignée. A savoir que « Ce ne sont pas les gens bien portants qui ont besoin de médecin, mais les malades. » (Mt 9,12) Montre donc au médecin ta blessure, de façon à pouvoir être guéri. Même si tu ne la montres pas, il la connaît, mais il exige de toi que tu lui fasses entendre ta voix. Nettoie tes plaies avec tes larmes. C’est ainsi que cette femme dont parle l’Évangile s’est débarrassée de son péché et de la mauvaise odeur de son égarement ; c’est ainsi qu’elle s’est purifiée de sa faute, en lavant les pieds de Jésus avec ses larmes.

A l’écoute du texte hier à la messe, j’ai eu une nouvelle dimension à creuser. La juxtaposition des mots : pardon et amour m’a envahi l’esprit.
Je te le dis : si ses péchés, ses nombreux péchés, sont pardonnés, c’est à cause de son grand amour. Mais celui à qui on pardonne peu montre peu d’amour.

 Un amour infini de Jesus pardonne infiniment. Est-ce là le message du Christ?

 

J’ai en mémoire une personne pour qui je prie Dieu d’aider et qui, depuis de nombreuses années, ne veut toujours pas pardonner des offenses qu’il aurait subies.  Il semble encore vivre cette haine des personnes avec qui il a eu des démêlés dans le temps. Même le temps n’a pas su guérir ses plaies de souffrances. Or on dit souvent que le temps guérit !

De même, dans la vie des couples, de temps en temps les égos des uns et des autres bondissent dans des proportions au delà du seuil de tolérance acceptable. Dans ce cas là, s’il reste un germe d’amour, le pardon donné et reçu fait rejaillir la vie du couple.

En ce Dimanche de Juin où fleurit le poinsettia, j’implore le Seigneur de semer des graines d’amour dans nos cÅ“urs. Mois de Juin, mois, dédie au Sacre Coeur de Jésus, Coeur d’amour infini….

In an article published last Thursday on L’Express, we were informed of the inauguration of an aquaculture farm in Bambous: Val Farms Ltd. It is a laudable project and hopefully the drive and competency of this young entrepreneur will be crowned with success. All previous attempts to breed fresh water fish & prawns have not lasted for many reasons.  Flopped Berri Rouge  farming was the last attempt which was sponsored by the government fisheries department. The Mauritian public turned their back to the Berri rouge fish and would not accept to consume the fish. Barramundi the Australian fish would appear to appeal more to the local taste; the proof of the budding will be in the eating. Good luck and a courageous salute to Mr. Mike Koon.

To produce 60000tons of fish per year with an investment of 4 millions rupees seems too good to be true. I suspect that the reporter must have mixed up to figures. It was stated in the article that Mauritius imported 58 million rupees worth of fish. Will the farms be producing fish worth 5400 000 000 rupees based on the indicative price of Rs 45/ per half kilo?

Extract from L’Express

 

La première récolte de berris rouges se fera dans deux mois. “Après une étude de marché, nous avons trouvé que le berri rouge avait un grand potentiel d’exploitation pour nous”, révèle Mike Koon. L’australien barramundi a, quant à lui, été plus compliqué à gérer de par son adaptation difficile. “À chaque fois, il faut importer le barramundi et le taux de mortalité est très élevé. Nous en avons importé 84 000 et pensons en récolter 5 000 en août. Mais nous espérons avoir des géniteurs pour pouvoir reproduire les barramundis ici”,affirme Mike Koon. Selon lui, le barramundi a aussi un grand potentiel car sa chair serait comparable à celle de la “Vielle Rouge”.

La ferme de Bambous a nécessité un investissement tournant autour des Rs 4 millions. Elle emploie aujourd’hui dix personnes. Le projet est une idée de l’oncle de Mike Koon, mais ce dernier s’était déjà spécialisé dans l’aquaculture. “J’ai étudié pendant quatre ans en Australie et j’ai aussi travaillé dans des organisations gouvernementales dans le domaine là-bas”, explique-t-il. Il a aussi assuré la formation de tout son personnel.

60 000 tonnes par an

Pour sa première récolte, Val Farms Ltd devrait avoir un rendement variant entre 3 000 et 5 000 tonnes de poissons. Sur le long terme, l’entreprise a une capacité de récolte de 60 000 tonnes par an. Elle compte aussi inclure les camarons dans son élevage. “Pour l’instant, nous avons quelques camarons à l’état expérimental. Nous voulons les avoir en biculture plus tard”, conclut Mike Koon.

Maurice importe actuellement du poisson à hauteur de Rs 58 millions par an. Val Farms Ltd espère trouver preneur pour ses poissons rapidement. Pour l’instant, il est prévu que le berri rouge soit mis en vente à Rs 45 le demi-kilo et le barramundi à Rs 80 le demi-kilo.

I had a very enriching session yesterday with a business consultant from Price WaterHouse Coopers France: Jacques Lesieur. He shared with the participants of the seminar his expertise on Balanced Score Card focused on Small & medium entreprises.

The saying “what gets measured, gets done” has never been more relevant. Today, leaders are using measures to drive performance.

With the right measures in the right places, you not only get a picture of performance that is concise, accurate, and current but a tool that can be used to achieve strategic goals, provide targeted direction, align efforts, sustain performance improvement, guide shifts in directions, and achieve balanced results. By deploying a linked measurement system like our Performance Scorecards, you can identify at a glance what is most important and how you are expected to contribute to success.

Defining the “right” measures is critical. Performance Scorecards allow you great flexibility in defining the key result areas to be measured.

Performance Scorecards can be linked vertically to help managers focus on strategic priorities and corporate profitability and growth. They align with the top-level vision and mission, core values and passions, key results areas and key indicators. Cross-functional teams can use linked scorecards to see their processes end-to-end and evaluate whether they deliver the right outcomes for internal and external customers.

Scorecard Management Cycle

The Performance Scorecard Management Cycle defines a six-phase approach for creating and linking scorecards:

• Phase 1: Collecting. Gather inputs that define the “right” measures—such as strategic goals, senior-level measures, and business objectives; plus work team outcomes, core processes, customers’ expectations, and supplier requirements.
• Phase 2: Creating. Design the scorecard to support key result areas that define the “right” measures for promoting desired outcomes.
• Phase 3: Cultivating. Conduct reviews with the scorecard to improve performance, and refine objectives to be more relevant and results-oriented.
• Phase 4: Cascading. Establish workgroup scorecards, aligning objectives and measures company-wide, and define management measures that link executive scorecards with front-line processes.
• Phase 5: Connecting. Use feedback to drive improvements with individual performance plans that are tied to team objectives and measures—thereby achieving results that support goals.
• Phase 6: Confirming. Determine whether or not the “right” measures, the “right” number of measures, and the “right” relationships among measures exist to clean out obsolete measures and reduce reports that add no value.

For further reading & study on the subject, I would advise “The Strategy Focus Organisation” of Kaplan & Norton. Note that the same processes may well be used in other fields outside the business world.Being familiar with the subject I was suggested last week to my Champlain to use this methodology to our Parish.

If there was only one single recommendation I would give to any new entrepreneur starting his carreer:  “life-long learning”.

We often talk of the need for “continuous education” in the context of total quality and of personal improvement, but we rarely speak of it as a governing principle of life.
I would argue that separate and apart from our jobs, we all have a moral obligation to learn and progress. And life-long learning is not so much about big campaigns and programs, academic degrees and credentials, as it is about short daily study sessions and small doses of relevant on-the-job training. Daily or periodic reflexions on lessons learned which will find application in the future.

I quote some lines below from Stephen Covey on the subject which is enlightening:
“The principle of balance is key to continuous learning. I recommend a balance between personal and organizational development; between current job-related needs and future requirements; between industry-related learning and general education. Make sure that your approach is systematic and based on feedback to you personally and professionally. Your learning should balance theory with practice, arts with the sciences.
Also make sure that your learning and development are motivated by a desire to be of greater service. Such “virtuous intent,” as Adam Smith called it in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), is central to moral entrepreneurism. Far too many organizations exploit a person’s knowledge and training; likewise, many individuals exploit the training and education opportunities offered by their organizations. Such “hit and run” activity is expensive for both parties. So there is a mutual responsibility. Organizations make a tremendous investment in the learning and development of human resources. I believe that individuals who take advantage of corporate training programs ought to stay with the company long enough to supply returns on the investment.
Adam Smith talks about the “virtuous energies” that must be exercised by individuals and organizations. Both must feel a mutual responsibility for each other. If the free enterprise system is to function properly, said Smith, “all economic relations must be based upon internal individual virtue” and “a mutual caring one for another.”

My guess is that about 20 percent of the present work force is obsolete. And in another 10 years, another 20 percent could be obsolete if we don’t overcome the cultural norm that education ends when our schooling ends. We need a deep commitment to both personal and professional development on a continuous basis.
The individual must take personal responsibility for professional development, and not put it onto the organization. The proactive person will see the organization as a resource, also as a source of a feedback regarding what learning is most relevant. But the individual must make it happen.
As proactive individuals take more responsibility for their own learning and professional development, they begin to see the organization as a supplementary resource. They do not transfer primary responsibility to the organization. They do not expect their organizations to freely provide all the learning and training needed for them to excel in their jobs; however, they take full advantage of relevant training when it is offered, and they pay back their organizations by making significant value-added contributions.
A business can only do so much; the rest is up to the individual. As individuals, we ought to take into account the needs of the organization in our personal and professional development program; otherwise we may be developing for the wrong reason or the wrong time. Our personal development should be relevant to the economy, to the industry, to the company, and to our current assignment.
But we also need to develop in a general sense to avoid becoming obsolete if our company or function becomes obsolete. If our development is too job related, we are more vulnerable to market forces. While we need to be competent specialists in our current jobs, we also need to start and maintain a personal “general education” program.
I believe that is best done in one- to two-hour sessions every day of our working life. We also need about one day a month in training that is systematic and conceptually aligned not only with our present job, but also with our future contribution. I schedule myself for training about one day a month, and I also set aside one to two hours every day for general education.”

 One of the ways to keep me abreast of new developments was to join an executive club which purpose is to provide the executives a monthly seminar on topics of interest to them. Even now well after my retirement I keep on learning by attending the monthly seminars organised by Association Progres du Management.

« Ils ont donné de leur superflu, mais elle, de son indigence »

Il faut donner ce qui vous coûte quelque chose. Il ne suffit pas de
donner seulement ce dont vous pouvez vous passer mais aussi ce dont vous ne pouvez ni ne voulez vous passer, des choses auxquelles vous êtes attaché. Votre don devient alors un sacrifice qui aura du prix aux yeux de Dieu… C’est ce que j’appelle l’amour en action. Tous les jours, je vois grandir cet amour, chez des enfants, des hommes et des femmes. Un jour je descendais la rue ; un mendiant vint vers moi et me dit: « Mère Teresa, tout le monde te fait des cadeaux ; moi aussi, je veux te donner quelque chose. Aujourd’hui, je n’ai reçu que vingt-neuf centimes pour toute la journée et je veux te les donner. » Je réfléchis un moment ; si je prends ces vingt-neuf centimes (qui ne valent pratiquement rien), il risque de n’avoir rien à manger ce soir, et si je ne les prends pas, je lui ferai de la peine. Alors j’ai tendu les mains et j’ai pris l’argent. Jamais sur aucun visage, je n’ai vu autant de joie que sur celui de cet homme, tellement heureux d’avoir pu faire un don à Mère Teresa ! C’était un énorme sacrifice pour lui, qui avait mendié toute la journée au soleil cette somme dérisoire dont on ne pouvait rien faire. Mais c’était merveilleux aussi, car ces piécettes auxquelles il renonçait devenaient une fortune, puisqu’elles étaient données avec tant d’amour.

Ces quelques mots, m’ont fait questionner ma generosité apparante! Partager jus qu’a en souffrir : n’est ce pas cela l’amour en action ?

D’écrire un blog quotidien me coûte !

Just like Maximillen Brabec with whom I spent an insipiring day a fortnight ago, Peter Drucker, always seek a reply to the prime question: What is our Business?
I was pleased to read through again the legacy article written by Business Guru Drucker only a year before he left us in November 2005.

Answering the question, What is our business? is the first responsibility of leaders. That business purpose and mission are so rarely given adequate thought is the single most important cause of business frustration and failure. In outstanding businesses, success rests largely on raising the question, What is our business? clearly and deliberately, and on answering it thoughtfully and thoroughly.

With respect to the definition of business purpose and mission, there is only one focus and starting point—the customer. The customer defines the business. A business is not defined by the company´s name, statutes, or articles of incorporation. It is defined by whether customers are satisfied when they buy a product or service. To satisfy customers is the mission and purpose of every business. The question, What is our business? can be answered only by looking at the business from the outside, from the point of view of customer and market. Customers are only interested in their own values, wants, and reality. So, any serious attempt to state “what our business is” must start with the customers´ realities, situation, behavior, expectations, and values.

Who is the consumer? is the first and most critical question to be asked in defining business purpose and mission. It is not an easy or obvious question. How it is answered determines, in large measure, how the business defines itself. The consumer—the ultimate user of a product or a service—is always a customer. Each customer defines a different business, has different expectations and values, and buys something different.

It is also important to ask, Where is the customer? and What does the customer buy? If they ask the question at all, most managers only ask What is our business? when the company is in trouble. Of course, then it must be asked. And then asking the question may, indeed, have spectacular results and may even reverse what seams to be irreversible decline. But the question should be asked at the inception of a business—particularly for a business that has ambitions to grow. The most important time to ask seriously, ‘What is our business?’ is when a company has been successful. Success always makes obsolete the very behavior that achieved it. It always creates its own and different problems.

It is not easy for managers of a successful company to ask, What is our business? because everybody thinks that the answer is obvious. It is never popular to argue with success. But sooner or later, even the most successful answer to the question, What is our business? becomes obsolete. Few definitions of the purpose and mission of a business have a life expectancy of more than 10 years.

In asking, What is our business? managers also need to add, And what will it be? What changes are likely to have high impact on the characteristics, mission, and purpose of our business? And how do we now build these anticipations into our concept of the business—into its objectives, strategies, and work assignments?

Again the starting point is the market, its potential and trends. How large a market can we project for our business in 10 years—assuming no basic changes in customers, market structures, or technology? And, what factors could validate or disprove those projections?

The most important trend is one to which few businesses pay much attention: changes in population structure and dynamics. Populations used to change very slowly, except as a result of catastrophic events. Today, however, populations change drastically, affecting buying power and habits, and the size and structure of the workforce. Population shifts are the only events regarding the future for which true prediction is possible.

Management needs to anticipate changes in market structure resulting from changes in the economy, from changes in fashion or taste, and from moves by competition. And competition must always be defined according to the customer´s concept of what product or service he buys, and thus must include indirect as well as direct competition.

Management has to ask which of the consumer´s wants are not adequately satisfied by the products or services offered him today. The ability to ask this question and to answer it correctly usually makes the difference between a growth company and one that depends on the rising tide of the economy for its development. Whoever is content to rise with the tide will also fall with it.

Asking What will our business be? aims at adaptation to anticipated changes. It aims at modifying, extending, and developing the existing business. But there is need also to ask, What should our business be? What opportunities are opening up? What might we create to fulfill the purpose and mission of the business by making it into a different business? Businesses that fail to ask this question are likely to miss opportunity.

Just as important as the decision on what new and different things to do is planned, systematic abandonment of the old that no longer fits the purpose and mission of the business, no longer conveys satisfaction to customers, no longer makes a superior contribution.

A key to deciding what our business is, what is will be, and what it should be is systematic analysis of all existing products, services, processes, markets, uses, and distribution channels. Are they viable? Will they remain viable? Do they still give value to the customer? Do they still fit the realities of population and markets, of technology and economy? If not, how can we best abandon them—or at least stop pouring in further resources and efforts? Unless managers address these questions seriously and act on the answers to them, the best definition of “what our business is, will be, and should be,” will remain a pious platitude. Energy will be used up in defending yesterday. No one will have the time, resources, or will to work on exploiting today or making tomorrow.

Defining the purpose and mission of the business is difficult, painful, and risky. But it alone enables a business to set objectives, develop strategies, concentrate its resources, and to be managed for performance.

The first lesson of my NLP seminar with John Seymour was entitled Building Rapport. In any human interactions, building and maintaining Rapport is the first action. To be able to exchange or converse with an interlocutor in the best way, one has to develop excellent communication skills. Is it more important to be a good sender of information or receiver? It is just as critical to listen as to speak. Is there an art to being a good listener? Yes. Does it come naturally? I think not. In fact, research indicates that we hear half of what is said, listen to half of what we hear, understand half of it, believe half of that, and remember only half of that.

Patti Hathaway in her book “the change Agent” quotes an old Chinese proverb: “From listening comes wisdom and from speaking repentance.” Her writings inspired me in this blog.

How important are the nonverbal aspects compared to the actual words we use when communicating? Your words are about 7 percent of your communication, tone of voice 38 percent, and body language about 55 percent, and yet, most communication training centers on the use of words.

Often we fake attention because our thought-to-speech ratio. We can think five times faster that the other person talking. Now you can do something productive with that extra lag time in your thought-to-speech ratio.

Tom Peters notes: “Good listeners get out from behind their desk to where the customers are.” Do you give your full attention to the people who talk to you? If not, learn a powerful, technique that will improve your listening and help you gain rapport with anyone you meet. This technique comes from the science of neuro linguistics programming, developed by John Grinder and Richard Bandler. By incorporating NLP into the way we work with people, we can “read” people more sensitively, establish a positive relationship more quickly, and respond to them more effectively.

NLP offers a myriad of techniques to improve our ablities to become a better communicator. Mirroring is one example. We tend to like people who are like us. If we look like someone (and 93 percent of who that person is, is nonverbal), they will subconsciously say to themselves, “I like this person. They are just like me.” And, if we like someone, we trust them and want to do business with them. Think about the potential this has for promotions, building business, and building relationships and friendships.

Specifically, this is how you mirror: First, match the other person’s voice tone or tempo. If they talk fast, you talk fast. If they talk slowly, you talk slowly. When I speak in New York, I can’t speak quickly enough. If I’m in southern Texas, I slow my pace down to match their pace. One way to help you match the other person’s tempo is to match the other person’s breathing rate. Pace yourself to it. Match the other person’s body movements, posture, and gestures. If the person you’re mirroring crosses his or her legs, you cross your legs. If the other person gestures, you gesture. Of course, subtlety is everything. You may want to wait several seconds before moving.

The process of mirroring is natural. You do it naturally with people you like and have built rapport with.

Muhammad Yunus was made a Nobel Prize winner in 2006 and had been honoured by the world Press for his deeds. What can we learn from his action and drive in the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh which we could copy here in Mauritius? Micro Credit may well be a remedy to the “casseur” plague that some of the under privileged of Mauritius are suffering from. According to INSEAD: Social enterprise, Using micro credit to help to lift the poor out of poverty is still posting dramatic growth. In China, this idea had been used for centuries. Even in the early days of the arrival of Chinese traders in Mauritius, they had the same cooperative union system amongst themselves.

Kashf is an example of lesson learned from Yunus. It’s a non-profit organization which has been posting dramatic growth while focusing on providing micro credit and social support services to women entrepreneurs at the bottom of the so-called wealth pyramid.

Since its launch in 1996, Kashf has grown to become the third-largest microfinance institution in Pakistan with some 69 branches, more than 135,000 customers and about 90 million US dollars in outstanding loans.

Today, I spoke to Dharamjeet Bucktowar who has been involved with credit union for years in Mauritius. He told me that micro financing is progressing. The cooperative movement gives support to any group wanting to operate a micro finance project. However, he would have expected a much greater expansion of the cooperative movement. I am pleased to learn that Caritas is still involved in promoting this type of Social Enterprise. The funds available in the Paroisse de Ste Therese which I saw the inception now runs in million of Rupees. This is thanks to the motivation of the leaders and the able management of a few willing contributors.

Why not teach credit union at school and start a model credit union at the University of Mauritius? I would suggest to Dharamjeet to start Credit Union in all tertiary institutions of the country as a practicing ground.These students would certainly learn first hand to enhance their leadership,organizational,managerial,and communications skills.

Bill Catlette authored the book “Contented Cows give better milk” and in 2007 a new book: “Contented Cows MOOved faster.” What would you expect from a guy with such a name? Bill did not have to stretch his imagination to find a metaphor to support his stories and teachings to his audience on the very touchy subject of maintaining the work force and reduce employee’s turnovers in this era of employability. I almost fell out of my chair when I read the author’s name of the summary of his first book.

The 12 point ideas you can turn into action that I have retained from the “Contented cows”could be very helpful if you want better milk from your contended cows:

1. You will be surprised to figure out the cost of employee turnover? All told the cost of a replacement could be worth 150% of a person’s annual salary.

2. Identify an exemplary competitor. It makes sense that employers in your industry face challenges similar to yours. Filter for things like compensation and frilly-fad perks, and focus on leadership and other workplace practices that withstand the test of time.

3. The next time an employee attends any kind of training, ask them ahead of time to be prepared to tell you three new concepts or skills they learned from it, and one thing they will begin doing differently as a result. Don’t approach it like a grilling, but emphasize the need to transform learning into performance, and your desire to support them in their development.

4. Identify a major business challenge or opportunity in your company (declining sales, changing customer demands, new government regulation, emerging markets, or hey, even employee turnover), and invite people to form a task force to help you tackle the issue. Make sure the task force takes ownership for finding solutions. Then reward them (with real money) for results that make it to the bottom line.

5. Go do someone else’s job for a day. On a recent Southwest Airlines flight, I noticed a “flight attendant”, slightly older than the rest, and out of uniform. Turns out he was a pilot. That day, from coast to coast, he cheerfully went up and down the aisle dispensing peanuts, smiles, and a great attitude about the lessons learned from those he called “the people who really keep this plane in the air“.

6. Sit on the footlocker. Major General Melvin Zais, Commander of the 101st Airborne Division in Viet Nam, circa 1968, once said in a speech to future officers, “If you’ll get out of your warm house and go down to the barracks…and just sit on the footlocker…you don’t have to tell ’em they’re doing a great job. Just sit on the footlocker and talk to one or two soldiers and leave. They’ll know that you know that they’re working hard to make you look good.“

7. Conduct a survey. Go out there right now and find out how you’re doing in the morale department. If you’ve waited for the appearance of a dark cloud over your place of business, or if your fears of defections leave you feeling like the chair of the Republican party, you’re too late. Regularly (and formally) assess employee attitudes, morale, and perceptions of the work environment through the use of a survey. Feed the results back to everyone (as in, everyone) within one month.

8. On the premise that great places to work start with great people (kinda like baking a cake, isn’t it?), start measuring, managing, and rewarding each manager’s hiring performance over time. This IS part of your business metrics isn’t it? (If all you’ve got to say is “we measure employee turnover,” then, to borrow an expression from a currently popular game show, “You’re the weakest link. Good bye.”) Ditto if that portion of a manager’s bonus potential tied to quality of hiring is less than 25% of the aggregate.

9. Identify one person on your team who seems to be bored – underchallenged in their work. Ask them to develop an idea for a meaningful project they would like to work on. Involve them in as much of the detail as possible. Ask them to develop a budget, identify resources, timelines, and expected outcomes, and then get out of their way.

10. Show peoples the fruits of their labor. Find a meaningful way to show people how the product they make, service they support, or work they do is actually used, and enjoyed, by your customers. One company we work with meets this challenge with field trips. Yes, field trips. Like when you were in school. They make highly technical medical supplies. You know, tubes, valves, that kind of thing. The work is tedious, painstaking, and, well, boring.

The first step in combating complacency was to build some task variety into the job. Then, the plant manager started arranging tours of a nearby hospital, where the assembly workers could see their products at work, saving lives, and delivering drugs and pain relief to patients.

The assembly workers came back so excited that the office staff wanted to be a part of it too, so they chartered a bus for themselves. Now, everyone in the plant makes a couple of trips a year, to keep reinforcing the message, “What we do here is important.”

11. Engage a promising employee in a well-structured career development plan. Learn about their career aspirations and aptitudes, then explore available directions and opportunities. Involve them in a plan to begin taking concrete steps toward achieving that goal.

12. You undoubtedly spend tons of money on internal corporate communications. Here’s a little pop quiz you can use to see if it’s working. Ask the next 10 employees you happen to bump into to write down the company’ s top 3 business priorities. If the answers are all exactly the same, give us a call; we’d love to congratulate you (for real.) If they aren’t, you had better get busy, because as former NFL head coach Jimmy Johnson once put it, “confused players aren’t very aggressive.“

All right. We’ll make it a baker’s dozen.

The next time one of your employees does something they didn’t have to do, purely out of a sense of commitment to the team or the organization, write ’em a note. Yes, get a note card, and a pen, and write it out by hand, even if your handwriting is lousy. Put the note in the envelope with their next paycheck. Make this a habit.