 |
- Accountability
- Employee Engagement
- Professionalism
- Leadership Skills
- Multi-Generational Issues
Employee Development Systems, Inc.
The Personal Accountability Company
7308 South Alton Way, Suite 2J
Dry Creek Business Park
Centennial, Colorado 80112
Phone: 1-800.282.3374
employeedevelopmentsystems.com
info@edsiusa.com | |
|
|
| Featured Tool |
50 Activities for Achieving Change
This invaluable tool addresses the following topics:
-Change in the workplace
-Developing goals for change
-Change and self-development
-Accepting change
-Understanding change
$139.95 Click to learn more.
|
|
| |
|
Book Report: The Adversity Paradox
 The Adversity Paradox, an Unconventional Guide to Achieving Business Success, by J. Barry Griswell and Bob Jennings (St. Martin's Griffin, 2010), lays out what we all should know, but often don’t realize: you must experience adversity in order to accomplish (and enjoy) true success.
The authors posit that whether you are born to great wealth or you have been presented with various disadvantages and roadblocks, success only comes to those who overcome adversity.
This book has a casual, conversational style, and gives us a framework for how to utilize what we’ve learned from our own adversity for greater success in business and life.
Pick up a copy of the Adversity Paradox today, and you will have read it all by tomorrow—yes, it’s that great!
|
|
| |
|
|
News from Employee Development Systems
Editor’s Note: Does your organization face employee engagement problems, multi-generational workforce issues, or potential talent retention losses when the economy recovers? Increasing Personal Effectiveness®is the remedy used by over 330 of the Fortune 1000. Be proactive today |
|
 |
|
Your Ticket to the Change Train
 |
Implementing change on an organizational level can feel insurmountable. As a matter of fact, the more successful companies become, the more difficult it is for them to change.
Of course, the business ideologies that have driven organizations to success over time often contain specific ideas about organizational structure, performance measures, and hiring habits. It's the "that's the way we do things here" mentality.
So where is the problem? Why even try to implement change? Here is the challenge: if large, successful organizations were trains, then many of them are coming to a screeching halt between stations. Why? Because the way we do business is changing, but the leviathans of business are not.
So what can we do to embrace the changes we need, while preserving the core qualities of the organization? Consider these questions to get started:
1. What do we (the organization) consider good performance?
2. Do middle managers focus on change or the status quo?
3. Historically, what skills does the organization value?
And how can you instigate change and bring about transformation in your organization? Consider these tips, given in a recent Harvard Business Review article:
- Articulate the emerging competitive reality and its implications for the bottom line.
- Identify gaps in skills and fill them quickly.
- Change IT systems, because they usually represent old business models.
Remember, don't just pull the train off the tracks. Instead, give it a new schedule and route. Simply removing dysfunctional practices, behaviors and beliefs is almost impossible. However, replacing them with new ideas, behaviors and expectations is your ticket to organizational change success.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Motivate Employees to Learn
 |
During times of organizational flux, it can become increasingly difficult to engage employees in learning. Across the country and in a cross-section of industries, training budgets have become tighter than ever. In the midst of these challenges, training employees has become more critical, both to keep the company moving forward and to retain high potential employees.
So, with a chiseled-down budget and waning morale, what do you do to engage the team in the training that they need? Here are some broadly practical takeaways that you can use in your training programs (or even presentations and conferences!) today:
1. Continuously emphasize the most critical concepts. Re-introduce concepts using multiple media and engaging as many senses as possible.
2. Create visual keys for abstract concepts. Many of today’s learners are visual learners. A simple diagram can be more valuable than a thousand words.
3. Utilize in-class activities to reinforce newly presented material. After a new concept or subject has been presented via text reading, lecture, or class discussion, allow participants to put the concept into action by completing an in-class assignment. And, as a bonus - Attendance tends to improve in courses that have in-class assignments!
4. Create links between concepts and information. These overlaps build on information that has already been learned and helps learners acquire the new knowledge at the same time.
Each of these takeaways can help motivate even the most lethargic employee. Set the scene with an expectation of high performance and mutual respect, along with the takeaways above, to keep your employees performing at a higher level and growing their career, even in the face of challenging constraints.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Situation Room
Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace
It seems that no workplace is completely immune to the ill effects of gossip. Our situation this time is no different. Christine has not ever gotten along with her boss, and feels confident that she is smarter and more competent than him. When given the chance to work off-site at an industry conference, she was excited to get the ear of her boss's immediate superior.
Taking charge of this opportunity, she gave him a complete description of all that had gone wrong due to her boss's actions, starting with the facts, and injecting her outrage as she continued. You are the superior in whom she confided.
What would you do?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Author Interview: Leo Babauta
 For this issue, I met up with Leo Babauta, author of The Power of Less and the creator and blogger at www.zenhabits.net, a Top 100 blog with 80,000 subscribers — one of the top productivity and simplicity blogs on the Internet. Babauta is considered by many to be one of the leading experts on productivity and simplicity, and has also written the top-selling productivity e-book in history: Zen To Done: The Ultimate Simple Productivity System. It has sold thousands of copies and has reached tens of thousands of readers.
Babauta is a former journalist and freelance writer of 18 years, a husband and father of six children, and lives on the island of Guam where he leads a very simple life.
"Simplify" has certainly become a mantra for our times, and your life story (and writings) are great examples of that concept. Do you think the current economical climate has played a role in your success?
I started Zen Habits before the economic recession, and the message of simplicity that I wrote about then caught on pretty well. I think with the increasing complexity of our lives and the technological world around us, people are craving a message of simplicity, no matter what the economic climate. That said, in a time when people are being forced to scale back, there has undoubtedly been a surge in interest in my message.
With all of your interactions on a daily basis, do you see any microtrends or changes in the "simplicity" movement?
When I first started reading about the simplicity movement, it was more focused on frugality and doing things with the least impact on our environment. And while those are still important topics in the movement, there is definitely a trend toward finding ways to slow down and do less and avoid being overwhelmed by technology and information overload. There is also a trend towards finding ways to use simplicity to achieve your goals, which is something I've been able to do.
Of all the articles you have written (and now two books and various ancillary materials), what would you say has been the most impactful message for your readers? Does that change with the kind of reader (demographic)?
Every reader is looking for something different, but there seem to be two messages that seem to resonate most for the majority of my readers:
Focus on one thing at a time and clear away distractions to become more effective; and focus on what you're doing now so that you enjoy it more fully.
Both, of course, are related messages -- different sides of the same coin.
|
|
|
|
|
 |
This Month's Featured Tool |
 |
|
50 Activities for Achieving Change
Use this invaluable resource to:
- Outline the process of accepting change
- Demonstrate the need for change
- Reduce conflict
- Improve communication skills
Activities Cover
- Change in the workplace
- Developing goals for change
- Change and self-development
- Accepting change
- Understanding change
Training Methods
- 25 activities involve group discussions
- 13 questionnaires and instruments highlight current perceptions and identify resistance to change
- 6 role-play scenarios aid the transfer of learning from the workshop to the workplace
- 6 written exercises provide an opportunity to express personal thoughts, and reactions to change
$139.95 Click to learn more.
|
|
| |
|
