7 Ways to Build a Loyal Team

It might sounds crazy to talk about worker loyalty at a time when big companies
routinely show longtime employees the door. But loyalty isn’t dead. Instead, it has
shifted, with few people nowadays feeling loyal to the company overall or even the
people running the business. “In the past, loyalty was vertical,” says Daniel Pink, author
of “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. “The organization was on top
and it provided security down to the individual.”

So, to use Pink’s language, today’s workers tend to feel horizontal loyalty — a
commitment to colleagues, former colleagues and particular projects. In short, put people
on a team, and loyalties develop.

As a manager, you need to understand this if you’re going to motivate people effectively.
No one tactic is going to forge the bonds of loyalty, of course, but there are lots of small
things you can (and should) do to build stronger and more productive relationships with
your employees.

1. Frequently take the pulse of your team.

We know this sounds pedestrian, but when was the last time you asked your team
members how they feel about their jobs? It’s a small thing, but do it.

Try a simple, anonymous questionnaire:

• Do you understand where the company is going and what you need to do every
morning?
• Do you see how you fit in?
• Do you care enough to take action?
• How loyal are you to your projects and your team?

Mary Ann Masarech, director of research and marketing at management consulting firm
BlessingWhite suggests combining these questions with others directed at personal
satisfaction:

• What are the aspects of your work that you like most?
• What would you like to learn?
• What are your aspirations?
• Which of your talents gives you the greatest satisfaction?

What’s a great job? Individual expectations naturally vary, but the 600 senior executives
and HR professionals surveyed for The Work Foundation’s 2009 “Good Jobs” report
agreed on several common factors for job satisfaction:
• Task variety
• Workplace friendships
• Fair procedures
• A balance between how much effort workers put it and the rewards they receive
• A certain level of autonomy and control for employees to work unsupervised.

The takeaway? Your team members want meaningful work that makes use of their talents
and interests, and that offers good compensation — not just financial rewards, but
recognition, authority, or leadership.

So know your employees’ personal goals and make sure that they have the tools to
achieve them. Set aside some time in annual reviews to collaborate on goal-setting. What
would they like to do more of? What would make their jobs more interesting? “The past
year has meant that [managers] cannot offer people promotions or new titles, so they just
avoid asking about goals or aspirations,” says Tom Barry, managing director of
BlessingWhite’s Europe office.

Every job has elements that are repetitive, but these can be leavened with personal
projects that give employees freedom to indulge an interest or acquire another skill that
can prove helpful to the business. Confectionary company Cadbury recently beefed up a
leadership program that gets high-potential senior managers involved in projects with
charities. “Those who’ve done the course have a hugely increased connection to the
company,” says James Longwell, Cadbury’s global learning and development director.
An added bonus: The program gives junior staff something to which they can aspire.

3. Create great careers.

Work with your direct reports to develop an extended career plan for them — even if that
plan means the individual must leave the business to achieve a certain professional goal.
The reality is that some of your key people will leave for a variety of reasons, no matter
how much they seem to like their jobs. Why not map a path that would welcome them
back into more senior roles after gaining other experience? So-called ‘boomerang’
employees can be great external advocates for your company. McKinsey and Microsoft
realized this benefit and created online alumni networks to keep in touch with departed
colleagues.

4. Rebalance the blame culture.

Most people don’t leave their company, they leave you — their boss, says entrepreneur
and author Jo Owen, author of “The Death of Modern Management.” “If you want

Source: http://www.bnet.com/2403-13059_23-384194.html?promo=713&tag=nl.e713 engagement, you must show that you care, delegating more than just the rubbish that you
don’t want to do.” A manager who is quick to apportion blame for mistakes is highly
corrosive. Delegating effectively means sharing credit and taking blame. Do that and, the
staff will take the risks that are required for success. They’ll do it with you and for you.

5. Make meetings optional.

Most people dislike meetings because often they don’t create results. Denmark-based
workplace happiness advocate Alexander Kjerulf’s advises against making meetings
compulsory. This is about treating people like adults, he says. “They can decide if their
time is best served by going to a meeting or working at their desks.”

That way, those who attend do so voluntarily, and with the expectation of adding
something valuable. “Make meetings shorter, more focused and get everyone who’s
attending to influence the agenda,” says Kjerulf. “And always start a meeting with
something positive. It sets the tone.”

6. Acknowledge individuals.

There are lots of ways to create a sense of respect among your team. “Some things are
really banal: saying good morning,” says Barry. “If you’re a manager, make sure you
make yourself available to people when they need to speak to you.” General team praise
is largely meaningless, but specific and personal thanks goes a long way. Move from
“Good job, team” to “Thanks, Jane, for staying late last night.”

7. Put employees into the bigger picture.

This should be something every manager thinks about from recruitment onwards.
Employees look to team leaders to remind them why their work is important in the big
picture, and to create excitement about what the company is doing.

There’s no quick way to achieve this. It’s your job to align business values and goals for
employees. Focus on results, says Kjerulf. Find ways to make people feel like their work
has an impact on the overall business, such as keeping them in the loop on what happens
next for a project they’ve completed or acknowledging when their work has generated
more customers or revenue.

Final tip: Be realistic about what you can offer as an employer. You can’t make people
happy and you’re going to see some turnover. But some churn is healthy, says Owen. It’s
infinitely better than an office filled with loyal, but “useless time-servers,” he says.

Dilemma of life

Taking a decision about career is one of the biggest issues of our life.
In my life, after completing MBA, I had an issue that I should go for entrepreneurship or job?
After a long two months contemplation I decided to go for job first then entrepreneurship.
Now some new questions are arising such as
Weather to go in a big company or for a small company?
Weather to work in a metro city or work at hometown? In which job I will get more chances of growth? And so on so forth ……..

Sometimes I feel that I will be happy after taking this decision but every time it requires a new decision where you have to limit your choices as well as you have to be bold enough.

If you take more time in taking decision then opportunity gets lost and if you don’t think about it more you feel an unknown fear that what will happen?

I don’t know what is the right approach of handling this type of situations??

I believe that everybody faces this type of situations………. I welcome your valuable comments and your understanding of this issue………………..

Whose benefit from recession:

A rational person is always takes benefit from the situation. Recently I attended a job fair in my college. I observed that now companies are taking benefit of recessionary situation. The logic is simple; all companies have reduced their pay scales as well as the requirement of staff. Now they have a fundamental reason for not to hiring in the recession. In this situation what one should do?
Many of my friends are highly qualified such as engineers, work experienced but they are going for a job of fresher.

These are the golden years of our life, one should not go for whatever coming in our way, off course this is the symbol of adaptability. But, how much it is right to sacrifice our wishes on the coming opportunities?

After watching ‘3 idiots’ I believe that you all have understood the importance of passion and the happiness after achieving it.

I believe that everyone of have a strong passion in our respective fields of interest. Please don’t let it go waste just for a job of nominal amount of money.

The most important is to live with your passion fully without caring about money. Everyone of has a capability to survive in least amount of money also.

So guys think………………….
Now it’s upon you to choose your destiny. You wanna give benefit or take benefit of recession?

Balancing the family and family business

“Our work provide meaning to our existence and family provides meaning to our lives”

Nowadays younger generation is seeking for more independence and youngsters are taking up careers of their own choice, individuality is becoming an important issue.
Before few days I was very confused between two things. Weather to go for family business or self startup?

Youngsters who want to get into entrepreneurship are always confused that weather they should go jump into family business or they should go for a new startup?

Nowadays I am reading a book ‘Chains that Liberate’ Governance of Family Firms, a must read for all business people. Very beautifully analyzed summery of Indian family business firms and its dynamics.

Here are some inputs from this book:
Family:
• Divide the cake equally
• Don’t judge your children’
• Follow the tradition’ (roots)
• Father says respect me
• Lifelong membership
Business:
• Give the most competent one the largest piece
• Evaluate performance
• Embrace change (wings)
• Son says ‘I am your colleague’ consult with me
• Hire and fire

Above mention comparison between family and business tells us in a very simple way that family and business can not be run on the same governance structure. Both demands very different managing philosophy and structure.

Why family business is good:
• Families provide capital support
• They provide free and loyal labour and free advice
• Family members are available round the clock
• Families inculcate necessary values
• Family provide moral and psychological support
• They provide physical and emotional security
• Presence of family in the life of a person makes him more committed and focused

After reading this book my mindset has changed, now I am planning to jump in to my family business.
I suggest you all to read this book and I hope everybody will benefit from it and take your decision of your own.

The dilemma of achievement

Two situations:
No. 1.
If you want something by heart, working very hard to achieve it, but at the end, result is not in your favor?
No. 2.
If you want something by heart, working very hard to achieve it, and at the end, result comes in your favor?

Both the situations happen in our life very often.
Talking about the prior to result, we talk very positive about that thing, but when we get negative result about it we start finding out weaknesses about it.

My point is why we can’t live in the same situation.

It happened with me in the interview process of a company. I was very happy when I was putting the efforts of preparing for the interview. I was talking very positively about the company although it was a small company. Due to some reasons I was not able to crack that interview then I started talking negative about that company, that it was not a professionally managed company and bla bla.

Have you ever faced any situation like this?
What is the reason behind this dilemma??
How can we come out of this type of situation???

Yours comments are invited

Entrepreneurs: The Maker of world

Entrepreneurs usually considered destructors. I agree to some extent.
Now imagine a world where everybody is ready to do a job, but nobody is ready to become an entrepreneur then who will provide the job to these aspirants of job?
Ultimately these job seekers will end up with doing nothing. Entrepreneurs are the person who takes the risk/ pain of creating something new and because of his venture somebody earn livelihood (salary). There are plenty of examples where it can be proven that growth of a nation is also depends on the entrepreneurs of the nation. The ‘Invisible hand’ concept of Adam Smith says that knowingly or unknowingly entrepreneurs helps society to improve it overall level by providing them jobs, livelihood, new technology etc..
The paradox here is, in India are not being respected from last few years.
There may be many reasons:
1. Handsome salary packages from so called business school has changed the expectations of parents
2. Emergence of big companies in India has increased the chances of getting jobs easily

Cost of doing business in India

Any start up venture which requires a little bit govt. approval (intervention) becomes very hard for a person who tries to follows his or her value system. In India, one side we talk about liberalization and on the other hand everywhere you will find bureaucracy in the system. When one such person tries to do something then he or she requires having a sufficient approach towards so called netas .
Recently I had a chance to handle a similar project for my family business. It was about preparing an application for getting a gas (LPG) agency. Almost ten documents were related to tehsil (Taluka), and getting these ten documents was really a painful task. Please mind, still we are only in the process of putting an application.
Whenever a big plan comes in to my mind, I first contemplate on this issue that how much efforts it will take to get work done from govt. departments. Ironically, this is the real challenge for entrepreneurs in India.
Especially in rural India govt. officials are more corrupted (It’s my personal experience). But, what can be done this is the part of business. I don’t know how TATA’S are doing business in India?
May be the biggest reason for the high growth of the Reliance Group is having a proper alignment with government officials.
My concern is about those who are just planning to move towards entrepreneurship. What will happen to their dream? When even after bribing an official they will not find the answer that why this work is not happening?
But any way, mistakes are our biggest lesson for learning.
Admi thoker kha kha kar ke hi sikhta he!!