In her June 16th article on The Whale Hunters blog, Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith reminded me of the importance of doing what you promise, what I call getting it right the first time around. Barbara’s story touched some of my own raw feelings about bad performance or a betrayal of trust. Companies touting quality and then delivering less are prime offenders.
Dr. Smith’s joy of creating something luscious for dinner was interrupted when she found that a premium grocery store had sold her husband rotten potatoes and mushrooms that were unfit to eat. She explains, “From a very expensive, high-end so-called “luxury” grocery story, I had two high-priced items on the same day that were unfit to eat.”
Despite the apologies and the manager’s gracious attempts to make her happy, Barbara raises the crucial question:
“So do we ‘trust’ them? The answer is unequivocally NO. Trusting them to rectify their mistakes is nowhere near to trusting them to deliver fresh, edible produce in the first place. When I shop in a high-priced store whose brand is all about superior quality, then superior quality is what I expect.”
She then makes an even more powerful point:
“There is a big difference between MAKING IT RIGHT after a big screw-up and DOING IT RIGHT from the get-go.” Continue reading…
What will you accomplish in 2011? Setting personal expectations is much like setting expectations in business. If goals appear doable, we are likely to achieve them. Worries and fears can become a self-fulfilling prophesy. So let’s take a hard look at our options and ways to increase the odds of getting what we want.
Setting Expectation with Others
How we set expectations can greatly affect what we get back from others – our staff or colleagues – and therefore contribute to or detract from our own success. Treat your staff like winners, communicate in a way that makes them feel confident in their abilities to perform, and they will do what’s expected…and more, says Sterling Livingston in the Harvard Business Review classic, “Pygmalion in Management.” Continue reading…
Gen Y (aka the Millennials) will be invading the workforce for some time to come. I have personally discovered a few things that managers can do to successfully motivate and direct young professionals.
As businesses adapt to a changing economy, we expect the job market to remain extremely competitive. Gen Yers are feeling more pressure to get professional experience before officially entering the workforce. Roz Courtney confronted Gen Y/Millennial stereotypes in her post on September 10, daring the business world to involve us and reap the rewards. If you want to motivate and retain the best talent, perhaps it helps to understand what the Millennials need and how they think. Here are several rules of the game – Gen Y rules – which make good business sense. Continue reading…
