Minute Motivation

At this time next week I’ll be in Florida, enjoying sunshine, beaches, and Mickey Mouse. Every year I go to Orlando the first week of September for a worship leader’s conference at Disney’s Contemporary Resort. The conference features great music and inspiring speakers, and I always come away recharged and refreshed. For many, September means the start of the new school year, so vacations are finished for the season. Did you get some time away this summer? Did your team members get a chance to get away for some family time and personal recharging? Studies show that encouraging employees to use their vacation time has a significant effect on employee engagement. A study by O.C. Tanner revealed that: “Among employees who take a week or more of vacation, 70% say they’re driven to contribute to their organization’s success, as opposed to the 55% who don’t regularly take a week of vacation; 65% say they feel strongly about working for their organization a year from now, compar...

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to work with Vanessa, a student in the network’s summer intern program. Vanessa has spent the summer working in several areas in the business and human resources areas. On these two days, she was assigned to work with me in coordinating General Network Orientation, our orientation presentation for new employees. As we were working together, we chatted about her experiences here. She told me that she’d had a number of internship opportunities, and I asked her why she chose this one here at Kettering. She said that while a number of the internships were attractive to her, she had heard great things about the culture at Kettering, and wanted to experience what made this organization special. She said that she has found the reports to be true, that this is truly a great place to work. A recent blog on tinypulse.com looks at the competitive advantage created by a company’s culture. The article looks at the emphasis on culture at companies like G...

Two weeks ago the news headlines stated that Apple had become the world’s first trillion dollar company. The value of its stock had reached a height never before seen. As one might imagine, this was cause for celebration within the company. I was fascinated with the memo that CEO Tim Cook sent to his employees to mark the milestone. In the memo, Cook said: “Today Apple passed a significant milestone. At our closing share price of $207.39, the stock market now values Apple at more than $1 trillion. While we have much to be proud of in this achievement, it’s not the most important measure of our success. Financial returns are simply the result of Apple’s innovation, putting our products and customers first, and always staying true to our values. “It’s you, our team, that makes Apple great and our success is due to your hard work, dedication and passion. I am deeply humbled by what you do, and it’s the privilege of a lifetime to work alongside you. I want to thank you from t...

As we continue in the employee engagement process cycle, we are now moving to the action plan. August is the time to look at the survey results with our teams and ask, What are we going to do now to continue making this a great place to work? It can be easy to look at action planning as one more task, another thing to check off our to-do list. But what if, instead, we saw this as a great opportunity, a chance to build our relationships with our teams, and work together to improve the work environment? I read an article from the Gallup Business Journal, by Melissa Dunn Lampe and Joanne Earl. The authors look at the importance of action planning (which they call impact planning). After looking at the benefits of this process, as well as some of the potential challenges, they end with a paragraph subtitled “Have fun.” “Many workgroups face one or more problems that makes impact planning challenging. The benefits of following through, however, far outweigh the burdens. And it...