The #1 Key to Employee Engagement, Performance, and Retention

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September 13, 2022 | Mark Altman

In our last posts, we covered why rewards aren’t enough to improve employee engagement and retention. We also shared why consequences have consequences when it comes to performance improvement. If rewards and consequences aren’t effective motivators of behavior change, what is? 

The answer is intrinsic motivation. The most effective way to inspire employee engagement, retain talented team members, and improve performance is to learn what matters most to your team members. 

A few examples of what might intrinsically motivate someone include:

  • Personal growth – professional development opportunities
  • Feeling challenged
  • Inclusion
  • Social justice and serving others
  • Fulfilling a sense of purpose
  • Sense of accomplishment
  • Mentoring opportunities
  • Allowing people consistent opportunities to do things they are passionate about
  • Fairness 

 If you discover that your team member is motivated by personal growth, perhaps they want to take online classes, or spend time job shadowing a senior executive, and/or participate in a training program. (Hint: ask them!)

If someone is motivated by serving people, what does that look like in their role? In what ways can they serve people that align with the business mission and objectives? 

Here’s a talk track to uncover your team member’s intrinsic motivation. 

You: Hey Janae, I want to better understand what drives and motivates you. What are your favorite aspects of working here and what do you love most about your job? 

Team Member: I care a lot about finding a sense of purpose in my work – I always want to understand how the part I’m playing contributes to the greater whole.

You: Do you feel you are making direct contributions to our success as well as your own? What can we do to help you feel more purposeful and fulfilled?

Team Member: Our mission statement speaks to me and was a large part of why I joined the company, but I don’t always understand how the work I do in the day-to-day fits into our mission.

You: That’s helpful, thanks. I want to better understand what we can be communicating differently and more frequently so you have more comfort around this.

Taking the time to understand what drives your team members intrinsically will pay major dividends in terms of engagement, performance, and retention. If you’re still struggling to have these conversations with your team, email us and we’ll share another conversation resource to get you talking to – and motivating – your employees. 

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

This is the Last Time We Can Have This Conversation

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August 30, 2022 | Mark Altman

Performance improvement is a critical part of every leader’s job – but if you’re like most leaders, it’s probably something you don’t enjoy, because you end up having the same conversations with the same employees repeatedly.

When motivating people to change their behavior, we often default to thinking we have two options: the carrot and the stick. We can incentivize and reward good behavior and we can disincentivize and threaten consequences for bad behavior.

We grew up fearing (or at least being aware of) the consequences of our behavior. If we didn’t behave, we got in trouble. At school, if we misbehaved in class, we were sent to the principal or received detention. 

In the corporate world, when someone is not doing what they are supposed to do – not turning in projects, showing up late to meetings, not responding to communications in a timely manner – it is tempting to force compliance to improve poor performance. But amidst a labor shortage and fear of losing credibility and trust with your team, are consequences really your best choice? 

If rewards aren’t enough and consequences have consequences, what is left in the toolbox? Stay tuned for next week’s post to learn an influential way to create an accountable culture with a great tool for performance improvement.

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

Why Benefits and Bonuses are Not the Key to Employee Retention

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August 23, 2022 | Mark Altman 

As an executive or HR Leader, if you’ve ever tried to improve employee retention with one-size-fits-all methods, you’ve probably ended up frustrated and confused. When you’re offering great salaries, benefits, bonuses, and time off, and people still aren’t happy, what can you discern from that? 

Human beings are wired to be motivated by rewards – so why don’t those rewards work the way we expect them to? 

Extrinsically motivated behavior starts from a young age. We’re rewarded with gold stars and A+’s for good grades (and sometimes toys or money or treats for those straight A’s!). We get extra credit points for class participation. We get allowances for unloading the dishwasher, mowing the lawn, and walking the dog.

When we grow up, these extrinsic motivators continue – we get bonuses, promotions, and extra time off at work for a job well done.

Rewards and incentives can work – but only if they are the right ones.

As employers work to engage and motivate their employees and make them feel valued and appreciated, they must recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach is usually ineffective.

People are different – and are motivated by different things. One tool that can help us better recognize and appreciate our teams (and thus better retain them) is corporate languages of appreciation.

Often employers default to Gift-Giving to show appreciation: letting someone go home early, offering bonuses and promotions, etc. But here are three other corporate love languages that can help show your employees that you care.

  1. Words of Affirmation: Sharing specific positive feedback with your team; e.g., “Derrick, I appreciate all the effort you put into pulling together the new pitch deck. It looks polished and professional, and you did a great job.”
  2. Quality Time: Making time to meet with your team members one-on-one to demonstrate your care and investment in them and their work; e.g., “Lily, let’s talk about your future. Where do you want to be in a year or five years? How can I help you get there?”
  3. Acts of Service: taking care of tasks you know your team members don’t enjoy; e.g., “Hey Travis, I know uploading blogs to the website is one of your least favorite tasks. Let me take care of it this week.” 

Taking the time to understand what motivates each member of your team is a sure-fire way to improve retention and engagement. 

Enjoy this post? Contact us at MindsetGo to empower your leaders and teams to build confidence, develop skills, and shift mindsets and habits for lasting change.

There’s No Downside to Intentionality…Right?

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March 14, 2022 | Mark Altman & Megan Fine


Intentional (adjective): done on purpose; deliberate


As a leader, you’re likely onboard with the idea of thinking and acting intentionally. You set goals, OKRs, and KPIs thoughtfully, considering the needs and objectives of your organization, and making data-driven decisions for optimal outcomes and success. 

As coaches, we also counsel our clients to behave intentionally – to think through their goals, motivating factors, and consequences of inaction – and execute their action plans with mindfulness and focus. 

So, when then does intentionality become a problem? When can intentionality be taken too far? 

When we are outcome and data-driven, we often achieve our objectives – but the question is, at what cost? What do we miss when we are laser-focused on hitting our targets and optimizing time and productivity? 

We miss people. When we are so focused on end results, we can forget that people – human beings – are driving and producing those results. We miss the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of the individuals who help us achieve our success. 

MIT Sloan recently released a study on the drivers of the Great Resignation, and fascinatingly, high levels of innovation at an organization was a strong predictor of attrition: “The more positively employees talked about innovation at their company, the more likely they were to quit.” Innovation is fantastic – until it comes at a cost to your people. 

The same goes for productivity. Take meetings as a prime example. We’ve all been in meetings that aren’t intentional – disorganized, lacking clear next steps, or the “this could have been an email” type. On the other hand, meetings led with the intention of making every second count can sometimes leave us feeling out of breath, like we didn’t have time or space to voice concerns, share ideas, or thoughtfully consider the work at hand.

Leading in a way that takes people’s experiences into consideration starts with self-awareness. Do you authentically check-in with your team at the beginning of your meetings before diving into the work? Do you allow time for people to share ideas, discuss, and collaborate? Do you ask for feedback rather than assuming you know how people are experiencing your meetings? 

If you don’t, that’s okay – you now have the self-awareness to start building these habits. Keep noticing where you might be prioritizing outcomes and efficiency at the expense of your people, and make sure intentionality isn’t working against you by ensuring their thoughts, feelings, and experiences are part of the equation. 

For support with meeting facilitation and employee engagement, CONTACT US at MindsetGo. We empower your leaders and teams to build the confidence, develop the skills, and embrace the mindset to create lasting habit and behavior change. 

Overcome the Loyalty Objection

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Loyalty isn’t deserved, it needs to be earned. How to overcome a prospect’s guilt regarding staying with an existing service provider.

If a prospect truly believes your service is better and would prefer working with you, then it would be a no-brainer for them to move forward right? The problem is, even when people know the right decision to make, they are conflicted by being disloyal to their current provider. The following is a good approach on how to overcome that obstacle.

  1. Be empathetic. This is where Emotional Intelligence comes in and why I prioritize this set of competencies above all else in sales and leadership. Validate their concerns and be curious to why they value the existing relationship as it will give you a perspective on what they fear they would lose in addition to qualities they would want to maintain in their next relationship.
  2. Let them know an authentic story where you were faced with the same challenge and how you overcame it.
  3. Share a story about a previous prospect and how they were able to move forward and overcome this fear of disloyalty. There are three types of stories that may apply:
    • If it’s not allegedly broken, don’t fix it story – a former prospect who several months later recognized specific benefits despite having a fabulous relationship with their previous supplier. If your prospect talked to his client, they would say “Thank Goodness I made this change.”
    • I didn’t know what I was missing story – because people fear change, they don’t actually take the time to assess or evaluate their current service provider instead they make choices based on emotion. This would be a story of how you came in and did a diagnostic, assessment, or consult to show the benefits of change and why despite their loyalty to their current provider, the prospect should have made this change a long time ago.
    • Proactive vs Reactive story – A prospect who kept postponing because of their guilt over being disloyal and then had to change reactively because their current provider couldn’t deliver, didn’t have the knowledge or experience, or didn’t have the resources to solve their newfound problems.
  4. Don’t Defend and Justify – whenever salespeople are faced with an objection there is a tendency to want to defend it or justify why you/your company approaches it the way they do. I coach the opposite. Instead of wanting to prove the prospect wrong, use discovery and inquiry methods to find out what is really going on. When a prospect says they are conflicted about changing vendors and they are going to stand pat, you can ask the following questions to gauge what level of dissatisfaction they actually feel. *Remember tone is very important when conveying these questions.
    • If you are feeling conflicted about changing, what prompted you to bring us in here in the first place? (Remind them why they asked you to come in as their guilt might have distracted them)
    • When is the last time you tried an alternative or did an apples to apples comparison to ensure you are getting the best solution?
    • If you were to make a change, are there specific aspects of service, quality, performance, etc. you feel like you would be losing?
    • If you had a magic wand and your current provider could improve on a few things, what would you tell them?

Often prospects need an alternate perspective because it is an innate human quality for many people to anticipate or fear the worst. Remember, if you are dealing with someone who is conflict-avoidant, their fears might be irrational, but without an alternate perspective they will never know.

To address this, I ask “If you told your contact you had found a better solution, what would you be worried that they would say? Once the prospect articulates their concern, I turn the tables and ask “If the roles were reversed, what would your expectation be? In other words, if someone you had a solid relationship with came to you and said they were switching from using your product or service and had practical and tangible reasons to do it, would you hold that against them? The answer would typically be no. Unless you have a signed contract, there is no obligation to stay with a vendor purely out of loyalty. It’s your job to help your prospect identify what really matters in choosing a service provider and recognize that loyalty only goes so far.

As a final thought, I close this technique by acknowledging to the prospect a core value of mine to reinforce that I would expect and hope to be held to the same standard if I was the vendor and a competitor attempted to replace me.

To learn more about our Sales Emotional Intelligence program, or to learn more about the various MindsetGo offerings, please visit MindsetGo.

Let’s Get Engaged!

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Employee Disengagement

One of the most common observations about employees nowadays is that they are disengaged. But, what did we expect? We have seldom created a culture of open and honest communication and as a practical rule, that environment will not invent itself. It can only happen intentionally. Only by creating an atmosphere where employees feel engaged and valued, can we get genuine answers to those vital questions. Companies will often bring in outside consultants to do engagement surveys to gather more information about their employees. This is a necessary first step, however the ensuing critical thinking process is what will determine if and how to use the survey results.

Actions Need to Equal Words

Are you prepared to make changes if employees communicate they’re unhappy? Are you prepared to address their concerns if enough people are asking? We always advise companies to not ask questions you aren’t prepared to act on and have a clear metric on how many people need to voice a frustration to motivate you to change. Without some clear understanding of what the organization is prepared and able to do, any engagement survey is unlikely to fulfill its promise.

Next Steps

A difficult decision to make with assessments is whether to make them anonymous. When employees know that the assessment isn’t about punishment or judgment, and there are no consequences, the individuals will be more apt to be open and honest with their communication to leadership. On the flip side, leadership must acknowledge that creating the conditions for open conversation isn’t likely to happen if there is no past precedent. The challenge we help organizations with is how to create that culture for authentic sharing of thoughts, ideas, feelings, and general feedback. We must prepare for these crucial conversations before, during, and after we inquire about our employees’ engagement.

Accomplishing Success

After all, W. Edwards Deming, the father of modern quality, reminded us of two things—that the most important things in a company can’t be measured, and that people are entitled to enjoy their work.

For more information on how MindsetGo can help your company culture, improve internal and external communication among your leaders and teams, and improve employee engagement, please check out MindsetGo.com or call us at 978-206-1535.

Beyond Engagement

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With all the buzz about how to engage people virtually, here are three quick tips to get people locked in from the get-go

  1. Magic Wand – ask the audience a question that gets them thinking about a dream problem they experience and would love solved related to the webinar topic . Have them type in a short answer. This allows you to access what is on your audience’s mind and make your presentation as relevant as possible.  It’s one great to learn new things but even better to know how and where to apply them.
  2. Y or N – another great method to engage your audience is to ask a question and simply ask them to type in a Y or N as a response. If many of your audience members won’t even respond with a letter, you may have lost them or best case, need to engage or re-engage them.
  3. Two Versions – many people are visual learners. Are the images you are relying on visually stimulating or is it just a bunch of words? Are they just staring at you the whole time? Visual support images should be used to supplement your verbal message and they should be compelling. The words can be sent after the fact in a handout or an alternate version of the PowerPoint that is focused on takeaway strategies and best practices.

To learn more about virtual, employee, or client engagement contact us at 978-206-1535 or info@mindsetgo.flywheelsites.com for coaching or training support.

Empowering Kids to Adapt to Online Learning

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Last week, I was in the kitchen doing dishes and was quietly watching my 13-year-old son staring at his computer screen during online learning. What a rare opportunity I thought! I can see if he participates, how he learns, and how his teachers engage their students.

 

While in earshot, I heard some class participation and noticed he was not particularly engaged. His teacher was doing her best to manage anxious and distracted students in uncharted territory. He looked up and I could tell he was uneasy about me being so close by. As a parent, it is a conundrum striking the balance between supporting your children’s learning and giving them privacy as they figure this out. There are obvious criteria to help guide a parent’s decision such as age, learning disabilities, and parent/child comfort level, but how do we prepare them for something they have never had to do? Below is a list of best practices to help your children forge ahead with an underlying theme to maintain effective habits.

 

  1. Most schools are making their online learning sessions very brief. Have kids leave their cell phones turned off and in another room so they can be engaged for these short periods of time.
  2. Encourage your children to ask questions and share during these sessions as that will help time pass, make the learning sessions more interesting, and utilize another support system if the opportunity presents itself.
  3. Help your children stay organized. Even though they have much less to do, it is easy for them to develop bad habits during this time. Support them in their ability to organize by asking supportive questions. Be careful of your tone and word choice in facilitating this conversation.
  4. Make sure they check email or learning portals on a daily basis again to maintain consistent habits.
  5. Sleep schedules have been drastically altered and rolling out of bed or staying in bed are not ideal ways to learn. Children should be up 30-45 minutes before class starts and have eaten.
  6. For a change, kids can be in comfortable chairs but make sure they are upright and not lying down.
  7. Children have more downtime than ever and most will resort to using screens which is okay, but parents should set time limits that may change each day. The key is to help children identify other things to do as this is a process they have never had to cope with.
  8. Create a loose routine and even have children set some S.M.A.R.T goals so they can still feel they are accomplishing something. Their goals can be related to hobbies and fun activities.
  9. With more time at home with your kids, teach them life skills you know how to do that would be helpful for them to know as they get older. My son has learned how to cook and now loves it so much he is asking me for opportunities.
  10. Bored is okay. It is the birthplace of imagination and also mindfulness. We all need to be able to express our disappointment and anxiousness while utilizing positive disruptions to take our mind off the fear of the unknown and the roller coaster of daily emotions .

 

Mark has been facilitating parenting workshops for the last 10 years and has worked with students of all ages during that time coaching in areas such as confidence, career skills, public speaking and emotional intelligence. Please let us know how he can help yourself, your school, your child, or your company with emotional intelligence, resiliency, and change management.

 

Mark Altman founded MindsetGrow  with the mission of training people of all ages and abilities to be more confident and skilled communicators. His non-traditional non-therapeutic approach helps parents and children shift mindsets and embrace generational perspectives to improve family relationship dynamics. He shows parents how to more effectively model the behavior they seek from their children and each other through empathic communication and listening.

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