Can You Win the Talent War?

High on challenges to business leaders today these days is the ability to attract and retain great talent.

In his best-selling business book Good to Great, Jim Collins pointed out, " The number one job of a leader is to get the right people on the bus and the wrong people off the bus."

Consequently, business leaders are feeling the stress of trying to fulfill their number one responsibility in a truly challenging era. Today more than ever, prospective employees are looking for hybrid work environments and additional benefits, while the pool of prospective employees is getting narrower as the federal government starts to impose stricter rules on employee immigrants to this country.

In addition, recent studies have shown that many young men are disenchanted with the workforce because they perceive a lack of respect for?their contributions to the work environment. The cost of losing these valued employees can be brutal.

The best part is that creating a culture that attracts and retains employees doesn't cost very much. It assumes that most employees want to accomplish something positive in their lives through their performance on the job. They are "intrinsically motivated" to take pride in their work and their accomplishments. This is consistent with the findings of psychologist Abraham Maslow identified "self-fulfillment" as the highest rung on the happiness letter.

This was also reinforced by the former Dean of the Psychology Department of the University of Chicago, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi?who wrote an entire book on the subject called Flow. Achieving the state of Flow is described as taking on challenges, overcoming them, and enjoying the pride of accomplishment.

Creating a culture that reflects these fundamental insights about all employees requires changing management practices. That is never easy, but it will pay off big-time in attracting and retaining quality employees.

So how do you build a culture like that kind of culture? Print this up and put it where only you can see it!

1. Adopt a leadership model best described as "confident humility," a word coined by Adam Grant in his book Think Again. His thesis is simple: unless you are like Elon Musk and endowed with supernatural brilliance and creativity, it's best to lead by instilling confidence in your team by having the humility to make clear that they need to participate in all key decisions because you don't honestly know the answers. It may be counterintuitive to the normal paradigm of American business leadership, but it invites employees to be equal partners in driving the success of the company. They will not be paid to impress the boss but to participate in addressing the customers' needs, which is the gold standard. The best evidence will be a point outside facilitators to your key management meetings so that you're not in the position of being the leader of those key meetings.

2. Respect all employees and make clear that your company's success depends on them. No greater illustration of this is a personal experience from my early days as a CEO. Two weeks into my tenure as a major company I learned quickly that the receptionist on my floor would talk to more customers than I ever would. They were the face of the company to customers, not me. Who was more important? When the building was first planted in America, the Japanese American president of Nissan told the Wall Street Journal reporter who wanted to know how the cars were being built in their plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, and remarked, "Why are you asking me? I'm just the president. Why not interview the people on the assembly line building the cars”?

3. That philosophy, in turn, requires leaders to constantly observe and then compliment people when they do their jobs well. Most research suggests that you have to compliment an employee or even someone in a relationship on an average of 6 to 1 for every criticism. It is almost impossible to calculate the value of sincere recognition of people's performance in contributing to a company's success.

4. Create a culture that does not punish failure but looks at failure or mistakes as learning opportunities to get better. That encourages employees to take risks, the heart and soul of innovation in any company. Find opportunities to celebrate what I call base hits on the way to achieving a major goal. Do not just wait for home runs. In those moments of celebration, ask each and every employee on a team to give their story of how the breakthrough occurred. As a CEO. I learned a tremendous amount listening to their stories, and yet you can't overestimate the pride people feel in telling the leader of a company what they did to increase the success of the team effort.

5. Lastly, instill a gainsharing plan that rewards all employees with the same percentage of their base when financial or strategic goals are achieved. Be transparent in showing the numbers to all the employees in periodic meetings. This creates a culture of shared accomplishment where the financial rewards go to everyone and not just to an all-too-often overpaid CEO.

Do not expect immediate payback. But often the best new hires come from recommendations from your existing employees. Word will spread quickly that yours is the kind of company that people enjoy working for and that beats all the perks any day of the week.

#Businessculture #FLOW #self-fulfillment #creativity? #gainsharing plans? #brainexpansion group

????????????????????????????????????Dan Steininger

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