Getting Emotionally Involved May Be A Better Way To Cope When Giving Employees Bad News

Sometimes managers must do things that hurt employees, such as firing them, demoting them, or giving them bad news. Managers used to believe that doing these necessary but evil activities required managers to be cold, emotionless, and to deliver company-written scripts in an almost robot-like manner. Today’s best managers know that it can be better to show one’s feelings and to identify with the person receiving the bad news, rather than to hide from those feelings. Sharing the bad experience with the employee may actually help the manager cope better when performing necessarily evil behaviors in the workplace.

Source: Margolis, J. D., & Molinsky, A. 2008. Navigating the bind of necessary evils: Psychological engagement and the production of interpersonally sensitive behavior. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 847-872.

Improve Customer Service By Making a Blueprint Of Your Customer Service Process

Today’s best managers know the importance of providing excellent customer service, and work hard to continually improve it. Unlike physical goods, services are made up of a series of events or steps that unfold over time. Today’s best managers know that it is difficult to provide customers with a unique, or hopefully transforming, customer experience. One way to help improve customer service is by making a visual representation of the steps in your customer service process, called a blueprint, and then working on improving each step of that process.

Source: Bitner, M. J., Ostrom, A. L., & Morgan, F. N. 2008, Spring. Service blueprinting: A practical technique for service innovation. California Management Review, 50, 66-94.

Motivate Employees By Helping Them Fulfill Four Drives

Today’s best managers know that employees have four main drives and employees rely on their managers to help them fulfill those drives. First, rewards should differentiate levels of employee performance from one another. Second, the culture should help create collaborative and sharing relationships and teamwork. Third, jobs should be meaningful and enable employees to contribute to the organization. Fourth, be fair in your processes and outcomes, and be transparent in your decisions. Employees will tend to rate a manager poorly if that manager does not help fulfill all four of the drives, even if three of the drives are fulfilled.

Source: Nohria, N., Groysberg, B., & Lee, L.-E. 2008. Employee motivation: A powerful new model. Harvard Business Review, 78-84.

Setting Goals Can Influence Employee Beliefs About the Reason For Their Success Or Failure

Today’s best managers know that employee participation in setting goals can influence employee beliefs about their own performance. Employees who participate in setting goals for their performance tend to believe that the cause of their performance is something outside of themselves, such as task difficulty, when they are successful. However, they tend to blame themselves when they are not successful at reaching their performance goals. On the other hand, employees who don’t help set their own goals tend to believe the opposite. They believe that success was their own fault and failure was the fault of something outside of them.

Source: Karakowsky, L., & Mann, S. L. 2008, February. Setting goals and taking ownership: Understanding the implications of participatively set goals from a causal attribution perspective. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 14, 260-270.

A Sense Of Urgency.

This book examines the importance of creating a sense of urgency in your employees. Something is urgent when it is critically important and is central to the success or failure of the organization. Identify critical issues and form strong teams. Teams with a sense of urgency feel the need to communicate relentlessly with other team members. Employees who feel the urgency will feel empowered to remove obstacles and find solutions. Some employees are urgency killers, and are more than just skeptics. Don’t waste time trying to win them over, but don’t ignore them. Instead, use peer pressure to immobilize them.



Source: A Sense Of Urgency.By John P. Kotter, 2008, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA, ISBN: 978-1-4221-5230-0.

Help Employees Avoid The Four Main Types Of Negative Perfectionist Behavior

Today’s best managers know that employee perfectionist behavior can be positive or negative for organizations. Negative perfectionism results in employee behaviors that are compulsive and excessive and lower organizational performance. There are four main types of negative perfectionism: 1) compulsive behavior—repeats behaviors over and over because the performance doesn’t meet excessive standards set by the employee, 2) narcissistic behavior—attempts to reach impossible goals set by others and looks for constant positive feedback from others, 3) imposters—despite lots of evidence don’t believe that they caused their own success and continually have to prove themselves, and 4) neurotics—adopt impossible goals set by others and hold themselves accountable when they can’t reach the impossible goals.

Source: Leonard, N. H., & Harvey, M. 2008. Negative perfectionism: Examining negative excessive behavior in the workplace. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38, 585-610.

Help Your Employees Feel Less Miserable About Their Job

Today’s best managers want their employees to be happy about their work. Unfortunately, many employees feel miserable on the job. Some of the main causes of employee misery are feeling anonymous, irrelevant, and as if their work can’t be measured. Typical managers don’t help employees because they: 1) keep employees at arm’s length and don’t get to know them, 2) worry about being too touchy-feely, so avoid human issues, and 3) stay too busy to take an interest and invest in helping their employees. Today’s best managers try not to make these mistakes and work hard to lessen the misery of their employees.

Source: Lencioni, P. 2008. Job anonymity: It’s a leading cause of misery. Leadership Excellence, 25, p.4.

Help Employees Recognize and Avoid Burnout Before It Sets In

Burnout means feeling exhausted, overextended, and depleted. Employees who feel burnt out tend to have low job satisfaction, low organizational commitment, high absenteeism, high intentions to leave, and are more likely to quit their job. Today’s best managers know the warning signs of burnout. When employees start feeling hostile and angry about unfair organizational practices, and begin to lack faith that the organization will solve their problems, then employee burnout can set in. Today’s best managers help stop burnout from happening before it takes hold of employees.

Source: Maslach, C., & Leiter, M. P. 2008. Early predictors of job burnout and engagement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 498-512.

The Three Most Important Questions That Managers Ask

Today’s best managers know the importance of not squandering company resources, such as time and money. They avoid squandering by asking three important questions. First, what are we talking about? Everyone should know exactly and clearly the issue at hand that must be solved. Second, what are the stakes and does anyone care? Everyone should know the relevancy and urgency of important issues. Third, what are we going to do? Everyone should know the plan of attack that we are taking to solve the issue. Today’s best managers also demand that every employee ask these three questions as well.

Source: Call, D. M. 2008. Effective leadership: Learn to ask and answer three questions. Leadership Excellence, 25/4, p. 8.

Today’s Multicommunicating Employees Commonly Have Multiple Conversations At Once

Managers used to want total and undivided attention when communicating with employees. Today’s best managers know that employees are increasingly multicommunicating, rather than having one communication at a time. Multicommunicating means to have multiple overlapping and competing communications at the same time. Employees today may be talking, texting, and emailing, or more, all at once. Today’s goals for productivity and efficiency encourage employees to multicommunicate. Today’s best managers expect employees to multicommunicate, and know that employees may have divided attention and delayed responses during communications. However, managers may want to limit some multicommunications, such as when communicating with customers.

Source: Reinsch, N. L., Jr., Turner, J. W., & Tinsley, C. H. 2008. Multicommunicating: A practice whose time has come? Academy of Management Review, 33, 391-403.

Having Tacit Knowledge Can Be The Difference Between Success and Failure

Knowledge is important for managerial success. There are two kinds of knowledge: tacit and explicit. Tacit knowledge is learned from experience and helps managers succeed with real-world problems. Tacit knowledge is believed to be more important for managerial results than is explicit knowledge. Even if managers have similar skills and abilities, they can have different levels of tacit knowledge. Today’s best managers can help employees build tacit knowledge by exposing employees to a wide range of learning situations that may be out of their regular norm for employees.

Source: Armstrong, S. J., & Mahmud, A. 2008. Experiential learning and the acquisition of managerial tacit knowledge. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 7, 189-208.

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else.

This book thoroughly examines why some people are world-class performers and the rest are not. The book refutes the idea that natural talent and hard work are required for people to be the best. The book offers the idea of deliberate practice as the way to become a world-class performer for any performance area. Deliberate performance requires a tremendous amount of repetitive practice to develop one’s skills and improve one’s technique. The best performers practice much, much more than lesser performers. The book continuously stresses how much hard work and lack of fun are involved in deliberate practice.

Source: Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers From Everybody Else.By Geoff Colvin, 2008, Penguin Books, London, ISBN: 978-1-59184-224-8.

Team Role Knowledge Helps Team Members Be More Effective

Today’s best managers understand that team role knowledge is an important component of effective team performance. Team role knowledge means that team members know the different roles that they need to play for their team to be effective, plus they know when and where to play those roles. For example, a team member might play the role of coordinator when a team first starts, but then the team member shifts over to critic once the team starts designing a new product. Today’s best managers help team members understand and play the right roles when needed.

Source: Mumford, T. V., Iddekinge, . H. V., Morgeson, F. P., & Campion, M. 2008. The team role test: Development and validation of a team role knowledge situational judgment test. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 250-267.

Positive Employees Tend To Have Positive Emotions That Increase Attitudes And Performance

Today’s best managers constantly look for ways to improve employee attitudes and performance. Positive employee emotions can influence employee attitudes and behaviors. Four traits help determine whether an employee is positive or not: hope, efficacy, optimism, and resilience. Hopeful employees find multiple pathways to success. Employees with efficacy believe in their abilities to get the job done. Optimistic employees expect good things to happen to them. Resilient employees can recover easily from adversities. Being positive can influence positive employee emotions, and that can increase employee attitudes and behaviors.

Source: Avey, J. B., Wernsing, T. S., & Luthans, F. 2008. Can positive employees help positive organizational change?: Impact of psychological capital and emotions on relevant attitudes and behaviors. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44, 48-70.

Simple Steps to Help Employees Cope With Organizational Changes

Today’s best managers know that they need to manage change so that employee attitudes and behaviors don’t suffer as a result of the change. Employees who believe that they have been involved in a change process and who feel that they have been included in decision-making will cope more effectively with change than will employees who don’t feel this way. Keeping employees informed and consulted during changes helps create social pressure among employees, and that influences employees to support each other. Giving employees accurate and timely information helps them have a sense of predictability, which gives them more control, and helps them feel more capable during changes.

Source: Jimmieson, N. L., Peach, M., & White, K. M. 2008. Utilizing the theory of planned behavior to inform change management: An investigation of employee intention to support organizational change. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44, 237-262.

Expressing Emotions In Constructive, Productive Ways Can Improve Employee Performance.

Organizations typically have unwritten rules about when, where, and how much employees can display their feelings and emotions. Some organizations specially require employees to suppress, hide, or manipulate their emotions at work, in order to maintain a machine-like atmosphere. Managers used to believe that emotions got in the way of rational, logical business thinking and behavior. Today’s best managers know that such strict workplace regulations can hurt employee attitudes and performance. Instead, they adopt healthy and supportive rules that help employees share how they feel with each other in constructive and productive ways.

Source: Coupland, C., Brown, A. D., Daniels, K., & Humphreys, M. 2008. Saying it with feeling: Analyzing speakable emotions. Human Relations, 61, 327-353.

Conflict May Only Be Helpful Under Certain Organizational Conditions

Managers used to believe that conflict in the workplace would help employees make better decisions. It was thought that moderate conflict would help employees discuss options and not make decisions too quickly. Today’s best managers know that conflict is only helpful under a very narrow set of conditions. More specifically, the conflict is work-related, does not involve personal or political matters, should be moderate, and the team members feel safe and trust each other. In other types of situations, the benefits of conflict may not outweigh the negatives, so managers should lessen the level of conflict among employees.

Source: De Drue, C. K. W. 2008. The virtue and vice of workplace conflict: Food for (pessimistic) thought. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 5-18.

How To Delegate Effectively

Today’s best managers know how to delegate effectively to people who work for them. First, tell the employee exactly what it is that you would like them to do. Second, give them appropriate resources, guidelines, and expectations to get the job done. Third, tell employees exactly when the work must be finished. Fourth, if the due date is a long time away, then periodically follow up on the employee’s progress toward completing the assignment. Following up lets you see that work is being done correctly, and gives the employee opportunities to ask you questions.

Source: Berman, E. L. 2007, July/August. Know how to delegate. Industrial Management, 6-7.

The New Gold Standard: Five Leadership Principles For Creating A Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy Of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company.

This book explains the five main leadership principles successfully used by the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company. Employees should define and refine. Be sure that employees always smile and escort guests to locations rather than just point, and think safety first. Employees should empower through trust. They should create exceptional memories for customers. Employees should deliver a “WOW” for customers. Employees should also leave a lasting footprint. Customers might forget what an employee said, but they won’t forget how that employee made them feel.

Source: The New Gold Standard: Five Leadership Principles For Creating A Legendary Customer Experience Courtesy Of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. By Joseph A. Michelli, 2008, McGraw-Hill, NY, ISBN: 978-0-07-154833-5.

Positive Employee Moods in Groups Can Be Self-Reinforcing

When employees have positive moods and feelings (called positive affect) in the workplace, they tend to be better at helping others, solving-problems, and taking risks. When a group of employees has positive group affect, they tend to have more cooperation, less conflict, less absenteeism, and higher individual well-being than groups with low positive affect. Today’s best managers know that group positive affect can be contagious. Group members share their positive emotions and that leads other employees to feel more positive in return. Unfortunately, the positive mood can get much higher than it should, and that can hurt performance, so today’s best managers help employees keep a healthy level of positive affect.

Source: Walter, F., & Bruch, H. 2008. The positive group affect spiral: A dynamic model of the emergence of positive affective similarity in work groups. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 239-261.

Employees Who Help Others and Are Internally Motivated Tend To Have High Performance Levels

Managers want employees to be motivated to perform on the job. Today’s best managers know that some employees go above and beyond their typical job description and help others at work. Employees have higher levels of persistence, performance, and productivity when they desire to help others and when they have an internal drive to succeed. An internal desire to be successful can result in employees helping others more, and that enables higher performance in the organization. Today’s best managers can influence internal motivation levels by selecting applicants who have a passion for their line of work and a passion to work hard on the job.Grant,

Source: A. M. 2008. Does intrinsic motivation fuel the prosocial fire? Motivational synergy in predicting persistence, performance, and productivity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 48-58.

Reputations May Have A Weak Relationship To Actual Employee Behaviors

Managers know the importance of employee reputations. Reputations allow employees to find out about other employees’ performance, and help to reward good behavior and lessen bad behavior. However, today’s best managers know that there is often only a weak relationship between an employee’s reputation and his or her actual behavior. Reputations can be more accurate for employees who are more well-known and receive more social attention. However, reputations tend to be less accurate for less well-known individuals and those relatively unknown by others. Today’s best managers get to know employees personally rather than rely on possibly faulty reputation-based information.

Source: Anderson, C., Shirako, A. 2008. Are individuals’ reputations related to their history of behavior? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 320-333.

Employees Can Underestimate the Likelihood that Others Will Help, So Won’t Ask When Needed

Today’s best managers know that employees may be reluctant to ask others for help. This is because employees will estimate the likelihood that someone will help them before they ask that person for help. If the employees don’t believe that help will be given, then they never ask for help in the first place. Employees tend to underestimate how much others are willing to help them, sometimes by as much as 50%. Today’s best managers work to reverse this trend, and establish a trusting environment where everyone is comfortable asking for help when they need it, and providing help to others when they can.

Source: Flynn, F. J., & Lake, V. K. B. 2008. If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 128-143.

Watch Out For and Stop Corruption in Your Organization Before It Becomes Unstoppable

Corruption is an undesirable behavior where an employee willfully perverts rules, order, ideals, and trust in an organization. Today’s best managers keep an eye out for corrupt practices and stop them before they get out of hand. If corrupt behaviors are not stopped, then they can grow like a virus and can infect a workgroup, or even an entire organization. The result of unchecked corruption can be an organization with a culture of corruption that is deeply imbedded and transcends every process, and is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stop.

Source: Ashforth, B. E., Gioia, D. A., Robinson, S. L., & Trevino, L. K. 2008. Re-viewing organizational corruption. Academy of Management Review, 33, 670-684.

The Reasons Why So Many Newly Hired Executives Fail

Today’s best managers know that the failure rate of new executives is roughly 64%. Newly hired executives fail due to: expectations about the job don’t match reality, changes in the direction of the company caused by leaders who leave, dependence on old skills that were successful at their former job, failure to find out what is required in the new job, not finding out what the new company culture is all about, and not establishing relationships early on with key people in the new organization. To combat the failure rate, today’s best managers know that coaching new hires about the new company is vital.

Source: Butterfield, S. 2008. Onboard coaching: New leaders can contribute faster. Leadership Excellence, 25/3, p. 14.

The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask Your Organization.

This book explores five important questions to ask yourself if you want to transform your organization. A transformation means to move from where you are now to where you want to be. The five questions ask you to define your mission, customers, customer values, your results, and your plan. Your mission should be short enough to fit on a t-shirt. The mission should reflect your opportunities, competences, and commitment. Everyone in your organization should know your mission. The mission drives your goals, then your objectives, then your action steps, then your budget, then your appraisal process, which then drives your mission.

Source: The Five Most Important Questions You Will Ever Ask Your Organization. By Peter F. Drucker, Jim Collins, Philip Kotler, James Kouzes, Judith Rodin, V. Kasturi Rangan, and Frances Hesselbein, 2008, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA, ISBN: 978-0-470-22756-5.

Voluntary Following Of Ethics Policies Is Better Than Forcing Employees To Be Ethical

Managers used to believe that compliance officers were required to enforce strict fairness and ethics policies. Managers used to spend large amounts of money on surveillance and oversight mechanisms to ensure employee compliance. Today’s best managers know that voluntary employee compliance is a better strategy, and more cost-effective approach. The same processes that managers need to use to obtain voluntary employee compliance also tend to result in higher levels of employee extra-role behaviors and citizenship behaviors, which is good for the company.

Source: Tyler, T., Dienhart, J., & Thomas, T. 2008, Winter. The ethical commitment to compliance: Building values-based cultures. California Management Review, 50, 31-51.

Ways To Make Employee Performance Evaluations More Accurate

Today’s best managers know that there is a weak relationship between actual employee performance and performance evaluation scores. Managers have tried to improve performance ratings by creating better rating scales, helping raters avoid making evaluation errors (such as rating everyone harshly), training raters to be more accurate, and using 360-degree feedback approaches. Today’s best managers know that the best way to help make performance ratings more accurate is by creating an environment where raters are fair, accurate, and neutral evaluators of employee performance.

Source: Murphy, K. R. 2008. Explaining the weak relationship between job performance and ratings of job performance. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1, 148-160

Only You Can Make Yourself A Success

Managers used to believe that their company or their managers would make them happy and successful. Today’s best managers know that they alone are responsible for their own career success. You start managing your own career by careful introspection that uncovers your passions, strengths, and weaknesses. Forget conventional wisdom and forget the path that everyone else is taking. Don’t worry about jumping hurdles that others have set. Instead, set up your own, unique hurdles for you to jump. Have faith in yourself, and have faith that your hard work will pay off.

Source: Kaplan, R. S. 2008, July-August. Reaching your potential. Harvard Business Review, 45-49.

Information From Personality Tests Found to Be A Valid and Reliable Employee Decision Tool

Some managers believe that employee decisions should not be based on personality measurements. These managers feel that personality tests can be faked, and don’t provide accurate, valid, or reliable information for managers to use. However, today’s best managers know that there is considerable evidence supporting the use of personality measurements for understanding, explaining and predicting employee work attitudes and organizational behaviors. Employee faking does not seem to ruin the validity of personality tests. In addition, today’s best managers use personality tests completed by employees and tests completed by observers of employees to get even better information.

Source: Ones, D. S., Dilchert, S., Viswesvaran, C., & Judge, T. A. 2008. In support of personality assessment in organizational settings. Personnel Psychology, 60, 995-1027.

Develop Your Employees Through Consciousness-Raising Experiences

Today’s best managers know that employees need to: develop their social awareness and interpersonal skills, work more effectively and sensitively with people of various backgrounds and ethnicities, and work more effectively in an ever-changing global environment. One way to help employees do these behaviors is through consciousness-raising activities. These activities raise employee consciousness of themselves, and deepen their understanding and awareness of others. Not all employees may be ready to have their consciousness levels raised as experiences are not what happen to employees, rather, they are what employees do as a result of what happens to them.

Source: Mirvis, P. 2008. Executive development through consciousness-raising experiences. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 7, 173-188.

Coach Employees To Help Improve Their Job Interview Performance

Today’s best managers are seen as individuals who want to help their employees succeed, such as by getting promoted. One way to help employees move up to better jobs is by coaching them to perform better in job interviews. Managers can help employees prepare for interviews, practice how to answer questions, and provide feedback about interview performance to further improve an employee’s chances for getting promoted. Coaching helps employees get better jobs and also helps the manager get better performance evaluations, which is a double-win situation.

Source: Maurer, T. J., Solamon, J. M., & Lippstreu, M. 2008. How does coaching interviewees affect the validity of a structured interview? Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 355-371.

It’s Our Ship: The No-Nonsense Guide To Leadership.

The author describes his approach to leadership from his many years of experience in the Navy. He offers many sound words of advice, such as the following. Train employees to go full speed ahead. Spend time in the sewer system and show every employee that no matter what job they do that they are vital. Be friendly, but don’t be a friend to your employees. Focus on what matters and ignore the rest. Sail close, and take the right risks. Disagree without disrespect. Love what you do, and be out front. Put your crew’s interests first. Hand out medals whenever you can.

Source: It’s Our Ship: The No-Nonsense Guide To Leadership. By Captain D. Michael Abrashoff, 2008, Business Plus, NY, ISBN: 978-0-446-1996-7.

Treat Employees Fairly To Help Improve Their Desirable Extra-Job Behaviors

An employee who is a good organizational citizen is one who does extra things beyond their job description to help the organization succeed. These extra behaviors include being courteous, being a good sportsman, and being conscientious on the job. Today’s best managers know that treating people fairly can increase good citizenship behaviors. Managers can improve feelings of fairness by treating employees with dignity and respect when interacting with them. Also, managers can use fair processes when allocating resources, such as pay decisions, to improve perceptions of fairness, and in turn help increase good organizational citizenship behaviors.

Source: Fassina, N.E., Jones, D. A., & Uggerslev, K. L. 2008, April. Relationship clean-up time: Using meta-analysis and path analysis to clarify relationships among job satisfaction, perceived fairness, and citizenship behaviors. Journal of Management, 34, 161-188.

Employees Who Are Loyal, Help Out, and Voice Their Views Often Get Higher Performance Ratings

An employee’s job performance should be related to that employee’s performance evaluation score. For example, the highest performing employees should receive the highest performance appraisal ratings. Today’s best managers know that items other than job performance can influence an employee’s performance evaluation. Employees who go beyond their regular job description to help out other employees may receive higher evaluations than employees who don’t help others. Employees who voice their views and offer good, constructive criticism, and who are loyal can also receive higher performance appraisals compared to employees who don’t voice their views, or who aren’t loyal. Today’s best managers use all of this information when evaluating their employees.

Source: Whiting, S. W., Podsakoff, P. M., & Pierce, J. R. 2008. Effects of task performance, helping, voice, and organizational loyalty on performance appraisal ratings. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 125-139.

Monitor and Reduce Subtle, Selective, Uncivil Behavior In Your Organization

Today’ best managers are aware that underlying biases and prejudices may still exist in organizations, and that employees may express these views more subtly nowadays. Employees may be selectively uncivil, which means to cut off others mid sentence, ignore or overlook others, categorize or stereotype others, expect lower behavior from some groups, and to hold other employees at lower levels of esteem or status than they deserve. Today’s best managers educate new employees about civil behavior to all employees, emphasize that unacceptable behaviors include both obvious and subtle actions, and set good examples of civil behavior for others to follow.

Source: Cortina, L. 2008. Unseen injustice: Incivility as modern discrimination in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 33, 55-75.

Help Employees Express Their Needs Then Help Them Fill Those Needs

Today’s best managers know that successful organizations meet the psychological needs of their employees. Companies that encourage their employees to express their needs and help them find ways to meet those needs will be more successful than companies that don’t. Examples of employee psychological needs include: feeling included, being appreciated and recognized, being challenged to achieve, feeling trusted, being able to grow, and having meaning and purpose. Help employees to express their needs and take responsibility for meeting their own needs. Specifically hire employees who are needs-intelligent, and celebrate when employees meet their psychological needs.

Source: Glaser, J. E., & Jones, C. 2008. Meeting people’s needs: You can create a needs-intelligent workplace. Leadership Excellence, 25/3, pp. 13-14.

Compensation Is Still Important For Motivating and Satisfying Employees

Today’s best managers know that compensation is important, but that money is not the most important motivator for employees. Financial security is also important to employees. Employees tend to care about: their base rate of pay, getting pay that is competitive in their local marketplace, having opportunities for variable pay based on performance and merit, and getting stock options to supplement their income. Interesting, variable pay is often seen as more enticing and motivating to younger employees with less seniority in their companies compared to older employees.

Source: HRfocus. 2008, August. What do employees value in compensation? Page 4.

Problem- And Emotion-Focused Coping Can Help Employees Lessen Job Demands

Today’s best managers know that having control over one’s job helps employees to buffer difficult demands of that job. Employees tend to cope with their job in two ways: problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. Problem-focused coping involves solving difficult job problems. Employees would be problem-focused coping if they had the power to rearrange a lunch breach in order to meet a strict deadline. Emotion-focused coping refers to regulating emotional distress and discomfort and seeking emotional support. Expressing emotions and feelings to others can lead to empathy and support, which can help employees cope with difficult job demands.

Source: Daniels, K., Beesley, N., Cheyne, A., & Wimalasiri, V. 2008. Coping processes linking the demands-control-support model, affect, and risky decisions at work. Human Relations, 61, 845-874.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations.

This book examines how people come together in an organized way without being in an organization. A trend of the age is for communication tools to bring people together and help determine who we are and what we do. Social tools allow many people to come together and communicate at a faster and faster rate, such as through “flash mobs” that occur, perform, and disband within minutes. Everyone can be a media outlet of information. Technology has lowered the cost of failure, so many people will try things that only a few people used to try.

Source: Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. By Clay Shirky, 2008, Penguin Press, NY, ISBN: 978-1-59420-153-0.

A New Definition of Employee Commitment to The Organization

Managers used to believe that employee commitment was defined as: a feeling of attachment to the organization, the perceived costs of leaving it, and a feeling of obligation to stay with the company. Today’s best managers know that commitment means that an employee is willing to go above and beyond their regular job and perform acts on behalf of the organization. Having organizational commitment means that an employee: 1) has an emotional attachment to the organization, 2) identifies with and agrees to organizational norms, goals, & values, and 3) is ready to serve the organization when called upon to do so.

Source: Solinger, O. N., Van Olffen, W., & Roe, R. A. 2008. Beyond the three component model of organizational commitment. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 70-83.

Employees May Believe That They Are More Objective Than They Actually Are

Organizations should make decisions that affect employees based on data and facts. However, managers know that sometimes employees can make employment decisions, such as hiring and firing, based on personal biases and prejudices, instead of on real information. Today’s best managers know that the problem is even worse than was thought. When employees believe that their biases and prejudices are factual, then those employees are more likely to act on their erroneous beliefs. This means that today’s best managers should help employees rely on facts and figures, and not trust that their own personal views are accurate when making employee decisions.

Source: Uhlmann, E. L., & Cohen, G. L. 2008. “I think it, therefore it’s true: Effects of self-perceived objectivity on hiring discrimination. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 104, 207-223.

Employees Who Are Passionate About Their Job Would Take A Pay Cut

Today’s best managers know that the best job performance comes from employees who are passionate about the work that they do. Most employees in the United States and around the world, about 80%, say that they would take a pay cut if they could pursue their dream job. More and more employees are willing to forego pay in order to have more fulfilling and meaningful careers, instead of getting higher pay. This is especially interesting in that even with a struggling economy, employees are willing to get paid less in order to have a job that they are really passionate about.

Source: Many workers would take pay cut for the ‘dream job’. HRfocus. 2008, July. Page 9.

Employee Monitoring Of Other Employees Can Result In Successful Performance

Managers usually monitor their employees and make assessments about their job performance. Monitoring can be merely observing employee behaviors, or it can be advisory, in which the monitor corrects poor performance. Today’s best managers know that employee monitoring of other employees can successfully influence employee job performance, but only when done correctly. When employees are paid in a traditional, individual performance-based way, then employee observation-style monitoring of other employees can result in improved productivity levels. When employees are paid in a group-based manner, then advisory-style monitoring can also result in improved performance.

Source: Welbourne, T. N., & Ferrante, C. J. 2008, April. To monitor or not to monitor. Group & Organization Management, 33, 139-162.

Work Helps Employees Maintain Their Health And Well-Being

Today’s best managers know that work is important and plays a big role in determining employees’ psychological health and well-being. When large numbers of employees lose jobs, the result is neighborhood decline, increased crime, and declines in family relationships, and even increases in substance abuse, violence, and apathy. Work helps employees: have access to resources that help ensure survival, have access to social support and personal relationships, and determine their own course and direction in life. Today’s best managers know that work is more than just a job. Work helps in the development, expression, and maintenance of employee health and well-being.

Source: Blustein, D. L. 2008, May-June. The role of work in psychological health and well-being. American Psychologist, 63, 228-240.

Improve Employee Social Environment To Help Increase Employee Psychological Health

Today’s best managers know that they should spend a significant amount of time improving the quality of the social environment for their employees. Managers who would like to help improve the psychological health of their employees should pay attention to the quality of interpersonal relationships between employees and their supervisors. Managers should also focus on actions that enhance the interaction of team members and foster team work, such as helping employees bond through activities like common work breaks and offsite meetings and retreats.

Source: Rousseau, V., Aube, C., Chiocchio, F., Boudrias, J.-S., & Morin, E. M. 2008. Social interactions at work and psychological health: The role of leader-member exchange and work group integration. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38, 1755-1777.

Tribes: Why You Need To Lead Us.

This book examines tribes and how they need leaders. A tribe is a group of people who are connected to each other, who are connected to a leader, and who are connected to an idea. Tribes are all about faith, and belief about an idea and about a community. Lots of tribes now exist because of communication technology that connects the members. Tribes need leaders, so why don’t you lead one? Leaders of tribes help move shared interest to passion, provide tools for communication, and leverage the tribe to help it grow and gain new members.

Source: Tribes: Why You Need To Lead Us. By Seth Godin, 2008, Portfolio, NY, ISBN: 978-1-59184-233-0.

Tell Stories to Help Improve Employee Commitment To the Organization

Today’s best managers know that telling stories is an important indicator of employee commitment to the organization. There are two primary purposes for telling stories in organizations: grounding and instruction. Employees tell stories to point out and clarify key values, called grounding. Employees tell stories about how things are done, called instruction. Organizational commitment means that employees have strong feelings about and identify with the goals and values of the organization. The more frequently that employees tell stories about the organization, the more strongly committed they tend to be about that organization, and the better able to withstand turbulence at work.

Source: McCarthy, J. F. 2008, April. Short stories at work: Storytelling as an indicator of organizational commitment. Group & Organization Management, 33, 163-193.

Sales Volume And Customer Loyalty Can Make Small Businesses Profitable

Today’s best managers know the secrets for making a profit even when you are a small business with limited resources. The key is doing whatever it takes to build a loyal customer base. Use technology whenever you can to help cut costs and reduce errors. Standardize your process and practices, cut costs where possible, and train extensively. Work hard to develop relationships with your customers by immersing yourself in the lives of your customers. If you develop enough sales volume, then you can be successful, even if you don’t make much per item sold.

Source: Akula, V. 2008, June. Business basics at the base of the pyramid. Harvard Business Review, 53-57.

Mentoring Relationships Can Have Strengths As Well As Weaknesses

A mentor can be a great teacher for a protégé. However, today’s best managers are aware of potential problems that can occur between mentors and protégés. Three main categories of mentor-protégé problems have been identified: protégé performance problems, interpersonal relationship problems, and destructive relationships. Protégés have reported that their mentors neglected them, sabotaged them, and competed with them. On the other hand, mentors have reported that their protégés were: unwilling to learn, deceitful, jealous, and competitive. Today’s best managers balance the potential benefits with the potential weaknesses of mentor-protégé relationships.

Source: Eby, L. T., Durley, J. R., Evans, S. C., & Ragins, B. R. 2008. Mentors’ perceptions of negative mentoring experiences: Scale development and nomological validation. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 358-373.

Motivation To Gather Information Results In Finding More and Better Information

Today’s best managers know the importance of information gathering for effective managerial performance. Managers who have access to more and better sources of information are better able to make sense of their environment, are more effective at spotting trends, and are more able to achieve higher levels of performance compared to managers without such information. The larger the social network, the more time managers spend looking for more information, and the more information they find. However, having a large social network is only helpful for managers who are motivated to take advantage of the information that is available from that network.

Source: Anderson, M. H. 2008. Social networks and the cognitive motivation to realize network opportunities: A study of managers’ information gathering behaviors. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 51-78.

Positively Coping With Change Can Lessen Employee Sick Time, Intentions to Quit, and Turnover

Today’s best managers know the importance of managing employees’ reactions to organizational changes. Sometimes employees view organizational changes as harmful and threatening. When employees have negative feelings about change, they can then have increased sick leave and higher intentions to quit, and can be more likely to leave organizations entirely. Today’s best managers discuss organizational changes with employees and that helps reduce uncertainty about change. They help employees to vent their feelings about the changes. They also show employees the positive side of changes, such as job security, and new opportunities for advancement, and that helps reduce negative employee reactions to change.

Source: Fugate, M., Kinicki, A. J., & Prussia, G. E. 2008. Employee coping with organizational change: An examination of alternative theoretical perspectives and models. Personnel Psychology, 61, 1-36.

The Six Characteristics of Great Executers

Today’s best managers know the six traits shared by people who are great at getting things done: 1) they carefully consider matters that come to them and make a decision, rather than avoid making decisions about difficult things, 2) they stay realistic about what they can and can’t accomplish with the time and money they have, 3) they set clear and accurate goals, 4) they reward people who perform well and don’t reward poor performers, 5) they coach and guide their employees, and 6) they know themselves well, such as what they can and can’t do.

Source: Bossidy, L. 2008. Executive orientation: Cultivate six characteristics. Leadership Excellence, 25/3, p. 9.

Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters.

This book explains how to create relevant brands and make your product matter. Relevance and success will come to those who listen more than talk, and who deliver more than just advertise their product. The author states that profit should not be your primary goal. Instead, make a relevant product and profit happens when you do everything else right. The book explains about relevant solutions, which are: insights, innovations, investment, design, experience, and value. The book describes how to control the conversation with customers, and provides an incredible amount of company examples.

Source: Relevance: Making Stuff That Matters. By Tim Manners, 2008, Portfolio, NY, ISBN: 978-1-59184-220-0.

Fair Processes and Focus on Others Can Motivate Employees to Take Charge at Work

Taking charge means to go beyond one’s job description and help bring about new and innovative change to an organization. Today’s best managers understand that employees who are more self-centered and strive to achieve tend not to take charge compared to employees who are less self-centered and less interested in striving to achieve. Also, when employees have a high sense of duty to help others, then they are more likely to take charge compared to employees with a low sense of duty. Employees may be more likely to take charge when they believe their organization uses fair processes to make employee decisions.

Source: Moon, H., Kamdar, D., Mayer, D. M., & Takeuchi, R. 2008. Me or we? The role of personality and justice as other-centered antecedents to innovative citizenship behaviors within organizations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 84-94.

Improving Perceived Customer Value Is The Key To Innovation

Managers used to believe that improving product value was the key to innovation. Today’s best managers know that altering value as defined by the customer is the new key to innovation. For example, recognize that when customers buy new software, they are taking home a CD, but what they are really getting is a new way to perform a desired task. Today’s best managers focus on improving customer value of performing the task and not on improving the value of the CD itself. Find new ways to identify and co-solve customer problems. Customer value is realized, or brought out, in the use of the product.

Source: Michel, S., Brown, S. W., & Gallan, A. S. 2008, Spring. Service-logic innovations: How to innovate customers, not products. California Management Review, 50, 49-64.

Employees Process Positive Information Faster Than Negative Information

Today’s best managers know that employees can process information at varying speeds. For example, employees will process, or think through and make conclusions about, information that is positive faster than they will process negative information. This happens because employees have much more positive information about themselves stored in their brains than they do negative information. When employees hear positive information, then this new positive information quickly matches up with the positive information that is already there. This employee tendency helps explain why employees rapidly absorb positive feedback, but then take more time to process negative feedback.

Source: Unkelbach, C., Fiedler, K., Bayer, M., Stegmueller, M., & Danner, D. 2008. Why positive information is processed faster: The density hypotheis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 36-49.

Sharing Expectations About Communication Can Improve Employee Satisfaction

Today’s best managers know that effective communication is important for employee satisfaction. When employees have similar expectations about the communication process, then they tend to have higher levels of satisfaction. For example, when employees understand how polite and how efficient communication should be, then they tend to be more satisfied on the job. Polite communication refers to being considerate and respectful of one’s co-workers. Efficient communication refers to how truthful, clear, and relevant someone is when they communicate.

Source: Park, H. S. 2008, February. Communication Research, 35, 88-108.

Establish a Plan That Measures Employee Performance

Today’s best managers understand the need for a plan that measures employee performance. The plan should help communicate the vision, mission, strategy and goals to employees. The plan should help define desired performance, motivate employees to perform, and help employees achieve their performance goals. An effective plan should: 1) identify and explain the performance criteria, 2) accurately measure actual employee performance, 3) be continually re-evaluated and updated, and 4) clearly let employees know what is expected of them.

Source: McCoy, J. 2008, July. Align performance with your strategy: Choosing the right team matters. Leadership Excellence, 25, p. 17.

Focusing On Implementation Activities Can Help Employees Make Sense Out Of Change

Today’s best managers want employees to react positively to organizational changes. One way to help make that happen is to involve employees in the change process. Letting employees participate in the change can help them make sense out of the chaos that can happen during large-scale changes. Having employees help create actions plans can get employees involved. However, limit the number of tasks to a few, such as helping with implementation activities, to keep employees focused, and to avoid creating even more chaos. Employee participation in plans that involve trial and error can be even more effective in helping employees make sense out of organizational changes.

Source: Stensaker, I., Falkenberg, J., & Gronhaug, K. 2008. Implementation activities and organizational sensemaking. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 44, 162-185.

Creating Magic: Ten Common Sense Leadership Strategies From A Life At Disney.

This book examines the leadership strategies that made Disney great. According to the author, creative leadership leads to employee excellence, which leads to customer satisfaction, which leads to a strong business. The book offers many excellent Disney strategies, such as RAVE, which stands for respect, appreciate, and value everyone. Managers should treat their employees as they want them to treat customers. Managers should live their values, make their people their brand, eliminate hassles, learn the truth from their employees, create magic through training, and stay ahead of the pack.

Source: Creating Magic: Ten Common Sense Leadership Strategies From A Life At Disney. By Lee Cockerell, 2008, Doubleday, NY, ISBN: 978-0385523868.

Build Teams That Can Better Withstand Downsizing

Unfortunately, in organizations today layoffs and downsizing are often everyday events. For example, team leaders may be laid off and teams are left to fend for themselves. Today’s best managers know that some teams can cope better than others when team leaders are let go. Teams that are emotionally stable where team members are typically calm and even-tempered will perform better after a team downsizing. Also, teams where members have positive interaction, exchange information, and cooperate with each other will survive a leader layoff better than teams that don’t behave. In other words, create teams that are emotionally stable and extroverted and they may better withstand the loss of a team leader.

Source: DeRue, D. S., Hollenbeck, J. R., Johnson, M. D., Ilgen, D. R., & Jundt, D.K. 2008. How different team downsizing approaches influence team-level adaptation and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 182-196.

Problems Caused By Employee Generational Differences May Be More Hype Than Reality

Managers tend to believe that employees may have different views, values, and/or differences in behavior due to their generational differences. Today’s best managers know that employees of all ages have more in common than they do differences. For example, some managers believe that older employees tend to work harder, be more loyal, and are more willing to pay their dues to the company than are younger employees. However, employees of all ages tend to agree that working hard is how people get ahead in companies today. Also, employees of all generations tend to agree about what they want, think, and believe in the workplace.

Source: Renn, M. T. 2008, March/April. Debunking generational differences. Leader In Action, 28, 23-24.

Knowing Who Your Employees Are And What They Do Can Increase Desirable Job Behaviors.

Some employees feel that they have no identity at work. This means they believe that nobody at work really knows who they are and what they do. Today’s best managers know that knowing the identity of your employees can help increase their performance, their creativity, their satisfaction, and lower their absenteeism on the job. Getting to know an employee’s identity means knowing things like their ethnic background, where they grew up, and what they do when they are away from work, such as serve on the Parent Teacher Association at their child’s school.

Source: Thatcher, S. M. B., & Greer, L. L. 2008, February. Does it really matter if you recognize who I am? The implications of identity comprehension for individuals in work teams. Journal of Management, 34, 5-24.

Turn Your Posers and Paupers Into Performing Employees

Today’s best managers know the importance of having the right people in their organization. There may be many great employees out there, but they may not have the right knowledge, skills, and abilities for your organization. There tend to be three types of employees: 1) performers are employees who love their job, have the right skills, and are effective and engaged in their work, 2) posers are mediocre employees, but they are very skilled at looking like the employee that different managers want them to be, and 3) paupers are neglected employees who feel alienated, cynical, and rejected.

Source: Lakhani, A., & Gazzara, K. 2008. People alignment: Throw the seats off the bus. Leadership Excellence, 25/3, p. 8.

Backing-Up Behavior on Teams Can Sometimes Help and Sometimes Hurt Team Performance

Many teams have someone who backs up or assists another team member when they need help to accomplish their tasks. Today’s best managers know that backing up another member of your team could be helpful or hurtful to the team’s effectiveness. When team members have uneven workloads, then the costs of backing up a team member when needed are not high. However, when team members have even workloads, then the costs of backing up a team member are high. So, be careful when assigning a backup for tasks where the workload is roughly equal for team members, as this may actually hurt, instead of help, team performance.

Source: Barnes, C. M., Hollenbeck, J. R., Wagner, D. R., DeRue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., & Schwind, K. M. 2008. Harmful help: The costs of backing-up behavior in teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 1299-1319.

Create Anti-Corruption Entrepreneurs In Your Company To Find and Destroy Corrupt Behavior

Managers know that most attempts to curb organizational corruption begin with enthusiasm and end with cynicism. Today’s best managers know that fighting corruption begins by getting rid of employees who guard the status quo to prevent change to the old corrupt way of life. Create anticorruption entrepreneurs in your company to help curb corruption. Give the entrepreneurs support and resources to help them create a new culture that seeks out and destroys corrupt employee behavior. Help entrepreneurs use economic, cultural, social, and symbolic resources to help change current corrupt employee mindsets.

Source: Misangyi, V. F., Weaver, G. R., & Elms, H. 2008. Ending corruption: The interplay among institutional logics, resources, and institutional entrepreneurs. Academy of Management Review, 33, 750-770.

The Encore Effect: How To Achieve Remarkable Performance In Everything You Do.

This book examines moving from routine performance to remarkable performance. Remarkable performance can result in money, influence, opportunity, recognition and exposure. Employees should work on becoming both a remarkable person as well as a remarkable performer, as they can’t do one without the other. Every remarkable performance results in other employees moving in positive ways to better places than they were before. The book describes the steps in the Pyramid of Possibility: potential, purpose, passion, principles, persistence, and personalization. Personalization is the highest expression of being remarkable. Employees should be the performance and connect with their audience if they want to perform remarkably.

Source: The Encore Effect: How To Achieve Remarkable Performance In Everything You Do. By Mark Sanborn, 2008, Doubleday, NY, ISBN: 978-0-385-51905-2.

Self Versus Team Assessments Of Employees Can Improve Diverse Team Performance

Today’s best managers know that managing diverse teams can be especially problematic. Traditional team-building activities tend not to work for diverse teams because they don’t handle the unique qualities and differences among diverse team members. Today’s best managers know that 360-degree feedback can help diverse teams improve. Compare team members’ assessments of themselves with the teams’ assessments of them. When using this approach be sure that teams have coaching available to help them. Without someone to guide and counsel team members, this approach can uncover old team wounds, and that could hurt, rather than help, team performance.

Source: Polzer, J. T. 2008, July-August. Making diverse teams click. Harvard Business Review, 20.

Seek Out New Methods and Take Advantage of Current Competencies to Be The Most Successful

Managers used to believe that companies could only be successful if they followed one of two learning activities. The first is called exploitation, which means to take advantage of abilities that the organization already has. The second is called exploration, which means to be adaptive to change and to seek out and discover new methods for the organization. Today’s best managers know that the most successful organizations follow both approaches, which means that they follow an ambidextrous approach to organizational learning.

Source: Raisch, S., & Birkinshaw, J. 2008, June. Organizational ambidexterity: Antecedents, outcomes, and moderators. Journal of Management, 34, 375-409.

Monitor and Address Complaints Quickly To Keep Employees From Quitting

Today’s best managers know how to avoid a stampede of employees leaving the company. A mass exodus can happen when two or more individuals make a complaint to their manager. The manager then does not adequately address or resolve the complaint. Then, the problem escalates as employees continue to discuss the complaint with each other, and the problem becomes more serious than it was at first. As a result, a large number of employees then leave the organization. Today’s best managers know to monitor and address employee complaints quickly and thoroughly, so that things don’t get out of hand, which helps keep large groups of employees from quitting the company.

Source: Bartunek, J. M., Huang, Z., & Walsh, I. J. 2008. The development of a process model of collective turnover. Human Relations, 61, 5-38.

Pay Satisfaction Can Be Low For Employees Who Compare Themselves to the Highest Paid Employees

Employees tend to compare their pay levels to other individuals in order to decide whether they are satisfied with their pay or not. Employees tend to be dissatisfied when they are paid less than the highest paid individuals in their same field with the same level of skill and experience. Interestingly, employees also tend to be dissatisfied when they are paid more than the lowest paid individuals in their same line of work who have similar skills and experience. However, the level of pay dissatisfaction was much lower when compared to the lowest paid employees versus comparison to the highest paid employees.

Source: Harris, M. M., & Anseel, F., & Lievens, F. 2008. Keeping up with the Joneses: A field study of the relationships among upward, lateral, and downward comparisons and pay level satisfaction. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 665-673.

Mutual Contributions To Team Success Can Result in Team Members Contributing Even More

More and more organizations are requiring employees to work together in teams. Team success often depends on how well team members cooperate with each other. Today’s best managers know that some team members may not contribute, but instead may ride on the efforts of other team members. To decrease this problem, managers can help create a feeling of reciprocity, meaning that team members see how much everyone is contributing and benefitting in return. When team members perceive a reciprocal relationship, then they contribute even more and overall team performance will continue to rise.

Source: Biele, G., Rieskamp, J., & Czienskowski, U. 2008. Explaining cooperation in groups: Testing models of reciprocity and learning. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 106, 89-105.

Employees Can Fake Emotional Intelligence So Use Additional Measures When Making Decisions

Today’s best managers know the importance of being able: 1) to recognize one’s own emotions, 2) to manage those emotions, 3) to recognize the emotions that others are experiencing, and 4) to manage our relationships with others based on those emotions. The ability to do these four behaviors is called emotional intelligence or EI. Today’s best managers don’t hire, fire, or promote an employee solely based on emotional intelligence because it is possible to fake being emotionally intelligent. For example, employees may work extra hard to make a good impression when they are being evaluated, but then may not act this way normally on the job.

Source: Day, A. L., & Carroll, S. A. 2008. Faking emotional intelligence (EI): Comparing response distortion on ability and trait-based EI measures. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 761-784.

Ahead Of The Curve: Two Years At Harvard Business School

This book examines the author’s two-year experience as a student at the Harvard Business School. He is happy that he went to Harvard, but is critical of the experience. He says that HBS is about making money, not about changing the world. The two main foci of the curriculum were to make money and to give back. He wonders why his classmates pushed so hard to get jobs after they graduated where they knew they would be miserable. He wonders how he can succeed financially without losing his soul in the business world. In sum, he says that Harvard Business School should produce more problem-solvers and fewer wind bags.

Source: Ahead Of The Curve: Two Years At Harvard Business School. By Philip Delves Broughton, 2008, Penguin Press, ISBN: 978-1-59420-175-2.

The Need to Change Organizations Can Decrease Over Time

Mangers used to believe that organizations changed more and more often over time. It was thought that change was like a snowball rolling down a hill that got bigger and bigger. The amount of organizational change increased as managers improved their skills at making effective changes and saw change as an effective way to improve their organization. However, today’s best managers know that successful organizational changes can lead to less and less need for more change. The more that you successfully help change an organization, then the less likely that you may have to help change that organization again in the future.

Source: Beck, N., Bruederl, J. & Woywode, M. 2008. Momentum or deceleration? Theoretical and methodological reflections on the analysis of organizational change. Academy of Management Journal, 51: 413-435.

Giving Employees A Voice When Giving Them Negative Feedback Can Bring Benefits

Managers say that giving negative feedback to their employees is one of their least favorite activities. As a result, they tend to avoid or delay doing it. Today’s best managers know the best way to give negative feedback to employees. The most effective way is to: 1) give employees the opportunity to rate their own performance, 2) give employees some positive feedback along with the negative feedback, and 3) allow employees to respond to your negative feedback of them. Using all three of these feedback methods may be difficult to do, but can be more effective and less risky than not using them.

Source: Lizzio, A., Wilson, K., & MacKay, L. 2008. Managers’ and subordinates’ evaluations of feedback strategies: The critical contribution of voice. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38, 919-946.

Overall Performance Ratings Can Incorrectly Label Employees

Performance evaluations usually end with employees receiving a single overall performance rating, such as “below expectations” or “exceeds expectations”, etc. Today’s best managers know that overall performance scores can incorrectly “label” an employee and can overlook employee strengths and weaknesses. An overall performance label can hurt employee self-esteem and lower motivation. To help solve this problem, some companies are avoiding overall ratings, and giving employees only scores for specific job performance skills that could be improved or changed. This approach can lead to higher job performance and higher employee self perceptions.

Source: King, J. F. 2008. How managers think: Why the mediated model makes sense. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1, 180-182.

Team Conflict Should Be Managed Rather Than Ignored

Today’s best managers know that conflict can escalate as employees become members of teams with increasingly diverse individuals. Some employees may try to avoid or ignore conflict on their teams, but that strategy won’t be effective. Today’s best managers need to show employees how to cool off when they get into heated team conflicts, then how to slow down and focus on solving conflict problems. Managers need to show employees how to solve the two main types of conflict: task conflict and relationship conflict. Relationship conflict is more likely the cause of conflict that leads to poor team productivity compared to task conflict.

Source: Flanagan, T. A., & Runde, C. E. 2008, May/June. Hidden potential: Embracing conflict can pay off for teams. Leader In Action, 28, 8-12.

How You Present Tasks To Employees May Increase Their Choice To Get Work Done

Today’s best managers know that employees are often faced with the choice of getting work done versus goofing off and doing other things on the web. Which activity employees choose to do can depend on how the items are presented. When a work activity and a fun activity are presented together, then people tend to choose doing some of both, work some and play some. However, when the two activities are presented to people separately, people more often tend to do the right thing, and get the work done, and forego playing around.

Source: Fishbach, A., & Zhang, Y. 2008. Together or apart: When goals and temptations complement versus compete. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94, 547-559.

Not Meeting Employee Expectations May Not Be As Bad For Organizations As Was Thought

Managers know that unmet employee expectations on the job can negatively affect: organizational commitment, job performance, absenteeism, motivation, job satisfaction, and turnover. However, today’s best managers know that the influence of unmet employee expectations on job attitudes and behaviors may be less powerful than was once thought. Instead, actual experiences may play a more important role than meeting or not meeting employees’ expectations. Although meeting employee expectations is still important, today’s best managers can worry less about the negative results that doing so might have on employees’ behaviors and attitudes on the job.

Source: Brown, S. A., Venkatesh, V., Kuruzovich, J., Massey, A. P. 2008. Expectation confirmation: An examination of three competing models. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 105, 52-66.

Simple Principles: To Think Big And Achieve Success.

Success is different for everyone. What you define as success should be what you aspire to have and to become for your life. The book stresses that individuals should become people of increasing value. The book offers 200 simple principles for achieving success, and is written around three main areas: increased productivity, importance of networking, and taking the initiative and making things happen. Simple principles include: identify the skills that you have, then put them to use, never eat alone, write your own blog, be sure not to burn bridges, don’t wait to be told, make your voice heard, and don’t be afraid to break the mold.

Simple Principles: To Think Big And Achieve Success. By Alex A. Lluch and Helen Eckman, 2008, WS Publishing Group, San Diego, CA, ISBN: 978-1-934386-07-1.

Employees Assess Fairness By Looking at Both the Decision Maker and the Overall Organization

Managers would like employees to believe that organizational processes and outcomes are fair. Today’s best managers know that employees assess the fairness of both people making decisions and the fairness of the organization as a whole. Employees can have higher perceptions of fairness when they trust a decision-maker compared to when they don’t trust that person. Employees may have higher levels of commitment to the organization and may be more likely to be a good citizen when they believe that the overall organization is fair. Improving employee fairness perceptions of the organization doesn’t happen quickly, and must be developed over time.

Source: Choi, J. 2008. Event justice perceptions and employees’ reactions: Perceptions of social entity justice as a moderator. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 513-528.

Agreeable, Conscientious, and Emotionally Stable Employees May Quit Less Frequently

Today’s best managers know that most organizations use job applicant information to predict future job performance. However, they also know that personality information, measured during the application process, may also be important for improving job satisfaction and lowering turnover. Employees who are more conscientious and agreeable are more likely not to quit. An agreeable employee is warm, likeable, and caring. A conscientious employee is dependable, prepared, and detail oriented. Employees who are less emotionally stable may be more likely to quit. Employees who are low in emotional stability tend to be unsure about their ability to perform their job. Using personality information in your hiring process may help lower employee turnover.

Source: Zimmerman, R. D. 2008. Understanding the impact of personality traits on individuals’ turnover decisions: A meta-analytic path model. Personnel Psychology, 61, 309-348.

Pay Arrangements Tend To Influence Employee Productivity

Today’s best managers know that how employees are paid can influence their productivity levels. Employees in payment arrangements where pay is a function of worker productivity tend to earn more and be more productive than when employees are not in such arrangements. An example of this is a piece rate system where employees make more money when they produce more pieces of product. Unfortunately, this trend tends not to hold for executives or for profit-sharing plans. In general, employees paid on a piece rate basis tend to make more money than those on a fixed rate pay plan.

Source: Pekkarinen, T., & Riddell, C. 2008, April. Performance pay and earnings: Evidence from personnel records. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 61, 297-319.

Macho Behaviors Can Prevent Men From Being Successful

Managers used to believe that male employees where successful when they were mean, macho, roughnecks. Today’s best managers know that jettisoning unnecessary macho behaviors can be more beneficial to an organization than will stereotypical masculine behaviors. Male employees have been found to be successful when they admit mistakes, publicly appreciate their fellow male employees, and talk about the stresses that they face on the job. The characteristics that make male employees successful today include: being open to new information, challenging their assumptions about how things should be done, and admitting when they are wrong.

Source: Ely, R. J., & Meyerson, D. 2008, July-August. Unmasking manly men. Harvard Business Review, 20-21.

Small Behaviors Can Hurt The Company In Big Ways

Today’s best managers avoid doing small things that can undermine organizational success in big ways. Many managers gripe constantly about the horrible state of affairs in their organization. Today’s best managers try to stay positive and up-beat at all times about the company. Many managers hold an “us versus them” view of the organization. For example, saying that you wanted to give an employee a raise, but human resources rejected it. Managers often give low-performing employees passing grades to avoid confronting bad performers. Today’s best managers don’t avoid problems. Instead, they confront and deal with them.

Source: Studer, Q. 2008, July. Accidental saboteur: Smalls sins undermine in a big way. Leadership Excellence, p. 8.

Personality May Influence How Employees Cope With Workplace Stress

Employees can react to workplace stress in different ways. Today’s best managers understand that some employees cope with stress by avoiding stressful situations, but some employees cope by engaging in stressful activities to get them out of the way. How employees react to stress may be related to their personality. For example, out-going employees may be more likely to restructure problems when faced with stresses. Today’s best managers get to know their employees and help them uncover the best ways to cope with stress that will work for their own unique personalities.

Source: Conner-Smith, J. K., & Flachsbart, C. 2008. Relations between personality and coping: A meta-analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 93, 1080-1107.

The Power of Story: Change Your Story, Change Your Destiny In Business And In Life.

This book examines the power that stories have to change your destiny and change your life. Everything that a manager says is a story. Find the right stories that reflect your ultimate mission and your purpose in life. Get rid of false purposes for your life. Are you really living your story or are you living someone else’s story for you? The three main rules of storytelling are: purpose or what you are living for, truth or your honest and authentic self, and action or what you should start and stop doing in your life. Tap into your four sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, and you’ll tell great stories.

Source: The Power of Story: Change Your Story, Change Your Destiny In Business And In Life. By Jim Loehr, 2008, Free Press, NY, ISBN: 978-0-7432-9468-3.

Be A Safe Haven To Help Employees Improve Negative Emotions At Work

One of the most common sources of negative emotions at work is the relationship between employees and their boss. Feeling badly about work for a long period of time can lead to burnout, lower job satisfaction, decreased motivation, and increased turnover. Today’s best managers know that one way to help improve employee emotions at work is to become a dependable base of security. Employees may improve their attitudes toward work if they can temporarily go to their manager for support in times of need. Today’s best managers provide employees with a safe haven where they can securely discuss and work through their emotions.

Source: Game, A. M. 2008. Negative emotions in supervisory relationships: The role of relational models. Human Relations, 61, 355-393.

Nine Steps For Building A Great Relationship With A Mentor

Today’s best managers know the nine steps for developing a great relationship with a mentor: 1) set clear learning goals for yourself, 2) determine what performance obstacles you have to achieving your goals, 3) identify what knowledge, skills, abilities, and other things that you believe you will need to be successful, 4) seek out the most skilled and successful people in your field, 5) join organizations where successful people are members, 6) continually study and learn about your industry and field, 7) meet with potential mentors and express your interest in working with them, 8) keep your mentor informed of your progress, and 9) meet with your mentor monthly for continued help.

Source: Tracy, B. 2008. Value of mentors: Be open to their influence. Leadership Excellence, 25/1, p. 4.

Be Benevolent To Help Lessen The Impact of Broken Promises Made To Employees

In these changing times, sometimes organizations are not able to deliver on everything that they have promised employees, such as not being able to provide training, promotions, or pay raises. When these promises are broken employees may not be as committed to the organization, my not help out others when needed, and may work less hard. Today’s best managers know that they can help reduce these undesirable employee behaviors by being more benevolent. A benevolent manager is one who personally cares about employees, who shows concern for them as a whole person, and treats employees like a member of the family.

Source: Chen, Z. X., Tsui, A. S., & Zhong, L. 2008. Reactions to psychological contract breach: A dual perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 527-548.

Agreeable And Conscientious Employees Are Often Great Performers On The Job

Today’s best managers know that personality can influence performance on the job. Two aspects of personality have been shown to be related to successful job performance. Employees who are agreeable are often good performers. Agreeable employees are sympathetic to others, think about the needs of others, are eager to help others, and are generous and fair. Employees who are conscientious are also usually good performers. Conscientious employees have a high desire to get ahead, are hardworking, determined, and self-disciplined. Look for agreeable and conscientious employees when you are hiring or promoting employees in your organization.

Source: Blickle, G., Meurs, J. A., Zettler, I., Solga, J., Noethen, D., Kramer, J., & Ferris, G. R. 2008. Personality, political skill, and job performance. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72, 377-387.

Close The Gap Between Actual Performance And The Vision and Mission Statements

Today’s best managers know that companies frequently have a wide gap between their vision and mission statements and the actual actions of employees. Work with a team to identify areas that are not in alignment with the vision and mission of the company. Set goals and strategies for reducing the gaps between actual performance and ideal results. Get employees involved in the process by encouraging them to identify and share problems with you. Be sure that employees are rewarded, and not punished, for pointing out things that need to be changed to help accomplish the vision and mission of the organization.

Source: Lepsinger, R. 2008, May/June. Starting an execution revolution. Industrial Management, 27-30.

Support Individuals To Lessen Bad Group Behaviors From Influencing Individual Team Members

The behavior of members of a group can influence the behavior of other individuals in that group. For example, when some members of a work group are tardy, this behavior may cause other group members to start being tardy as well. Today’s best managers know that they can lessen these group influences by being supportive of individual group members. Examples of supportive behavior include treating employees fairly, providing supervisor support, giving favorable job rewards, and having favorable job conditions. Providing support to employees can even help prevent further bad group behaviors from rubbing off on other individuals in the work group.

Source: Eder, P., & Eisenberger, R. 2008, February. Perceived organizational support: Reducing the negative influence of coworker withdrawal behavior. Journal of Management, 34, 55-68.

Presentations: Proven Techniques For Creating Presentations That Get Results

This book offers a wealth of information for improving your presentation skills. The book builds upon the foundation of purpose, audience, and topic when developing an effective presentation. The main challenges to overcome when presenting are: keeping your sense of humor, dealing with late arrivers, handling early departures, audience interruptions, inattentive and argumentative audience members, saboteuring attendees, and audience members who steal the show from your presentation. Listen to yourself speak, such as by recording yourself, and you’ll get a wealth of useful feedback to help you improve.

Source: Presentations: Proven Techniques For Creating Presentations That Get Results. By Gary McClain, 2007, Adams Media, Avon, MA, ISBN: 978-1598691535.

Catering Only To Niche Markets Can Lower Potential Sales

Managers used to believe that success only came from selling a huge number of a few products, or having blockbuster sellers. Today’s best managers know that it is also possible to be successful by selling only a few of a huge number of different products. The web enables a tremendous amount of products to be displayed and sold at very low costs. However, companies may still want to cater to the tastes of the biggest customers with their biggest selling products. Completely going after a smaller, niche market may not be the best course of action. A combination of the two approaches can result in the greatest number of overall sales.


Source: Elberse, A. 2008, July-August. Should you invest in the long tail? Harvard Business Review, 88-96.

Specifically State Your Feelings In Electronic Messages To Improve Message Accuracy

Employees are increasingly communicating to each other via email or text messages. Today’s best managers know that email and text messages typically don’t accurately portray the emotions of the person sending the message. Because of the lack of cues (facial expressions, eye contact, etc.) in electronic messages, receivers tend to believe that the message is more negative and/or more neutral in tone than was intended. To help message receivers accurately understand your emotions in electronic messages, specifically state your feelings in writing. For example, write that you are happy that the employee liked your idea.

Source: Byron, K. 2008. Carrying too heavy a load? The communication and miscommunication of email. Academy of Management Review, 33, 309-327.

Help Employees Make Sense Of Uncertainties During Difficult Organizational Changes

Today’s best managers know how to help employees make sense during chaotic organizational changes. First, discuss with employees how they can get started. Next, help employees clearly define the problems that need to be solved. Then, help employees identify places where the organization is stuck, and areas that seem impossible to solve. Next, help employees critique and link existing options that may help the company reach solutions. Then, help employees experiment with ways to solve problems, and challenge and motivate employees to try new solutions. Finally, help employees reach a workable, but not absolute, certainty in which everyone can all work successfully.

Source: Luscher, L. S., & Lewis, M. W. 2008. Organizational change and managerial sensemaking: Working through paradox. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 221-240.

Employees Who Can Manage Their Emotions Can Increase Customer Satisfaction

Today’s best managers know the importance of managing one’s emotions in the workplace. Employees who can manage their emotions will have more positive feelings when interacting with customers. As a result, customers will also have more positive feelings from the encounter with the employee and the company. In response, customers will then have higher levels of customer satisfaction, which could result in more sales for the company. Today’s best managers know that helping employees to manage their emotions and recognize the emotions of customers can be a win-win situation for both employees and customers.

Source: Giardini, A., & Frese, M. 2008. Linking service employees’ emotional competence to customer satisfaction: A multilevel approach. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 155-170.