People-watching has long been one of my favorite hobbies. I enjoy watching people’s behavior, body language, and facial expressions, especially when they believe no one is watching. I enjoy making hypotheses about what the person will do next and imagine backstories for each person I encounter. While people-watching is a fun way to pass the time (and reduce time spent doom scrolling), building the skill of people watching, even online, can be particularly effective in the workplace.
What Dan Price Revealed About Employee Satisfaction
In early 2015, Dan Price (CEO of Gravity Payments) made headlines with his ground-breaking decision to cut his own wages from $1.1M down to $70,000 per year. At the same time, he instituted a new organization-wide minimum wage of $70,000 for all positions. The announcement was met with both praise and skepticism. Some analysts feared the decision would be detrimental to the organization’s profits. They speculated that the increased wages would create conflict between more skilled workers who were already making near $70,000 based on their career growth and unique skill-set. The decision to increase workers’ wages and take a … Read More
For Effective Communication, Ask 3 More Questions
From the archives —”The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge”—Thomas Berger In our fast-paced world of virtual meetings and overly packed calendars, communication for most managers involves an endless rut of “report and update” meetings. In these meetings, each party is responsible for reporting out updates on their progress, results, issues, etc. One by one, each person delivers prepared status updates that may or may not be the exact same updates they delivered a week ago. The meetings are usually so packed with updates (or the façade of new information) that, in the interest … Read More
20 Things to Ask Your Employees Today
Executives across the world are facing difficult decisions regarding the future of work. Many organizations are still operating with a 100% remote workforce, while others have chosen a hybrid model that allows a small percentage of workers back in the office. To plan for the next stage in the “return to normal,” organizations are engaging their employees for feedback. They’re asking individuals to share their preferences for working remotely full-time, working from the office full-time, or a hybrid model. While it’s important to gather data and plan the workspace strategically, there are much broader perspectives that should be captured immediately and … Read More
You Can’t Make Them Stay
From our archives: Employers are always seeking out ways to predict human behavior. Which candidate will excel? Which comp plan will improve retention and drive the biggest results? Which employees will remain engaged? Which employees will burn out? Which employees are high risk? Which employees are planning to leave? An HR technology vendor recently pitched their latest employee retention product to me. They believe they can predict (with alarming certainty) which of your employees are a flight risk. The algorithm they use to arrive at this conclusion is complex and expansive, but one key factor is the most predictive of … Read More
The Case for Book Clubs
The most successful leaders share a few common activities. They often report getting up earlier than most people (5am is a common start time), they exercise daily, and they read constantly. These habits are often shared as secret ingredients for their success. In particular, executives believe that reading frequently helps exercise their brain in unique ways while helping them broaden their perspective. Additionally, it helps support the creative thinking and problem-solving processes they need to address today’s complex, ambiguous problems. Essentially, if you’ve read enough books, then someone, somewhere has shared how they addressed the problem you’re currently trying to … Read More