Whether work is a blessing or a curse depends on what you are working on and your attitude about it. James Matthew Barrie, the Scottish novelist said, “Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.”
Tag Archive for 'employee'
Ever wonder why some people are effective in their work while others aren’t? The answer may be found in their consciousness. But it’s about being aware, not just awake.
Take a look at the four levels of performance consciousness.
1. Unconscious Incompetent
The Unconscious Incompetent doesn’t know that he doesn’t know. He’s also called a DK2, which is short for, “don’t know, squared.” He’s not only incapable but actually clueless about his inability.
In truth everyone is a DK2 from time to time. The challenge is to not live our lives as one because DK2 is a terminal professional condition. But if you’re thinking, “Oh, Great One! Please, stop me before I DK2 again,” don’t fret; we’ll get to that.
Don’t envy the Unconscious Competent because not knowing how you got where you are is one of the definitions of lost. Any resulting success is also likely to be temporary.
3. Conscious Incompetent
This person is incapable and knows it. There’s no ego about what he thinks he knows and no resistance to your methods and practices. A Conscious Incompetent is an amorphous block of disciple clay waiting to be molded by you, the sculptor.
Be careful. Sometimes this person wallows in his condition as an excuse for non-performance. Conscious Incompetence should be a temporary condition on the way to the ultimate level of consciousness.
4. Conscious Competent
This person gets the job done and knows why. She can identify what causes success while being fully aware—and taking ownership—of failures.
How do you become a Conscious Competent? Through a practice called self-analysis.
Self-analysis allows us to see what we do well and capitalize on it, as well as recognize and evaluate what we don’t do well and improve or minimize it. It’s not easy because it requires control of our egos.
Ego obstructs self-analysis by telling us that any success we have is because we’re so smart, while assuring us that any failures we experience couldn’t be our fault. Successful self-analysis is part of a conscious plan for professional improvement.
By practicing self-analysis, Conscious Competents discover the enduring benefits of being honest with themselves about their own performance.
Write this on a rock… If professional excellence were a mountain, Conscious Competence would be its peak.
One of the usual topics of concern and discussion during a slow economy, especially a serious recession, is asset management; watching inventory levels and keeping close tabs on cash are two prime examples. In fact, as you may know, I’ve been talking and writing a lot about this subject recently. But there is another kind of asset that must also be monitored very closely, and alas, often gets overlooked, especially when a tough economy raises frustration and pressure. I’m talking about our employees.
We small business owners get so wrapped up in growing, or saving, our baby – this business we’ve nursed from start up – that we take for granted that our employees love what we do as much as we do. After all, they show up everyday just like we do, right? So when economic times are scary, we think they have the same ability to rise above the fear and push on, just like we do. Well, it isn’t necessarily so.
As the Alpha Member of our company, we have information our employees usually don’t have, including the long-term vision, financial condition and access to capital, for example. And we know one more thing they cannot know: how committed we are to not giving up.
Whether we know it or not, during a recession, when layoffs are so much a part of the news, our employees have a level of concern – somewhere from manageable to hysterical – that we need to allow them to talk about with us and the entire team.
Recently, on my small business radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, I talked about owners and managers proactively getting employee concerns about the economy out in the open before they get out of hand. I think you’ll find the few minutes it takes to listen to be time well spent. And be sure to leave a comment, if you have one.
For the past year or so I’ve reported on my radio program, The Small Business Advocate Show, the results of several national employee engagement surveys that have been conducted by highly credentialed organizations. The news has not been good.
In every survey, with respondents partitioned into three groups – not engaged, somewhat engaged and very engaged – the survey with the most favorable numbers indicated that each of the groups represented one third of the respondents. The other surveys indicated worse numbers, as bad as 20-60-20. So, at best, these surveys indicated that two-thirds of employees are either not engaged or only somewhat engaged. Pretty scary,huh?
Clearly, something’s wrong. And if you think about it, we didn’t need a survey to confirm what we see everyday when we’re being served in the marketplace – more disengagement than engagement.
So is the problem bad management? Bad hiring practices? Employees with bad attitudes? Probably a combination of all of these, but one thing is for sure: it’s up to management to fix this mess.
This week, on my radio show, I interviewed engagement expert and Brain Trust member, Joyce Weiss- author of “Full Speed Ahead”- about this. She offered several tips and best practices that I think will help you maximize the engagement of your employees. Take a few minutes to listen to this archive of The Small Business Advocate Show, and leave your comments, too.