Vicki Anderson

The holidays are a great time to role model what you say you believe. If your organization says it is about serving others or valuing people, take a look at what you are doing to actually live those principles. What are you doing to serve your employees, your customers, and your community? If you say you value people, how are you treating them this holiday? Are you being Mr. Scrooge or Bob Cratchett?

Being a leader who believes in the power and value of people doesn’t get measured in the size of the bonus you give at Christmas. It is measured in the way people are treated every day, but at this time of year people tend to take stock in how you behave. Hopefully you have been living most every day of this year in a way that it is unnecessary for the three ghosts to visit you on Christmas Eve. Here are a few tips for being a generous leader:

1. Share power where it is needed. If you give someone a task to do, make sure they have the authority to get it done.
2. Give credit where credit is due. Encourage people to contribrute ideas by giving them credit when they do. You will ultimately look good for having such bright employees.
3. Empower people to put ideas to work. When people see what needs to be done and you give them permission to do it, they tend to look for more.
4. Build self-esteem of others by identifying what they do right so they can do more of it. Put them in positions where they can succeed. You will be rewarded many times over with employees who are motivated to do more.

Be generous with praise and a miser with criticism, but make sure both are specific and timely about what the person is doing right or wrong. Be generous in management by walking around. Your biggest job is helping people be successful. If they are successful, you will be successful. Here’s hoping your new year will bring you success as a leader.

Do you ever think of something you “should” learn but you never really get around to doing it? Isn’t it easy to think things are impossible when it’s really just uncomfortable?

I can’t tell you how many times I have heard in the last few months that someone would like to know more about social networking because they just don’t understand it. Is that you? It’s me! Well, I have tried to stick my toes into the water little by little with the help of my daughter and a few friends, but I’m not convinced I do it very well. So, I have attended a couple webinars recently and I signed up for a comprehensive, hands-on social networking course offered by the Broken Arrow Chamber of Commerce. Hopefully, I might find I’m doing some things right as well as learning what else I should do.

It is so hard to keep up with the latest as the world is changing so fast. Therefore, it’s important to use the tools we have efficiently. I don’t have time to do everything, so I have to figure out what will give me the most results for the least effort.

Whatever it is you need to learn, get started right away. You don’t want to be one of those “old people” who don’t understand what this world is coming to. Be part of the change now and it will be easier down the road.

I have been doing training for the last sixteen years and I have encountered all kinds of participants. Trainers are always charged with making the training practical and helping the organization get a return on investment. However, I have seen sessions that worked for some people and didn’t work at all for others. I have seen people walk away from a session that I thought was weak, but they got a lot out of it.

I truly believe that in the business of learning, it’s what you do with it that counts. It doesn’t matter whether you have fancy handouts, multimedia slide shows, games or quizzes. What matters is whether the participants engage with the learning and decide to put it to use.

I have seen very bright people who glossed over the material and barely did any of the assignments at work. I have also seen people who seemed average at first, but really decided to put some effort into their practice and started to blossom over time.

Leadership, like any other skill can be taught and learned. Over my years of working with leaders I have seen many people grow in their leadership ability and I have seen others who think they are already there and have better things to do with their time. It’s been my experience that those who have put effort into consciously and continuously improving their leadership skills have reaped the benefits of having employees who respect them more and are eager to work for them to produce whatever it is they do.

I believe the old adage that it’s not what you’ve got that’s important, it’s what you do with it.

I attended a luncheon yesterday where the keynote speaker was Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way. He has recently published two additional books called, Toyota Culture and Toyota Talent. He discussed how Toyota has two value streams, their product value stream and their people value stream. They put as much effort into development of the right people processes as they do their product processes. This includes selection, job training, development, and culture engagement.

I think this is one of the things that sets Toyota apart from the average company. Few companies invest so much effort into the people systems, yet we hear that “people are our most important asset.” Because they invest so heavily into selecting the right people and making sure they get engaged in the culture, the employees are able to also get engaged in the product systems and the philosophy of continuous improvement, thereby keeping Toyota at the top of the heap in customer satisfaction.

The biggest difference I heard Mr. Liker say was that they hire someone with the idea that they have taken them into the company for life. Therefore, it is worth their investment to develop them. I think this is very different from the average company and therefore the average employee who see each other as expendable. It is the rare company that takes the time and effort to really engage their employees so they will want to stay and then provide them development opportunities so they can grow to be the best employee possible. Partly because of this, it is the rare employee who sees a company as a partnership for life where they can grow, contribute, and take pride in ownership of its success.