Mighty Good Work

GUEST: Dana Manciagli -- Global Career Expert: Speaker and Private Coach

www.DanaManciagli.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danamanciagli

Over decades, Dana Manciagli amassed skills and insights into good work and career wisdom while working at such companies as Avery, SeaLand, Kodak and Microsoft. Now, she gives others the benefit of that wisdom as an author, blogger, keynote speaker, career coach, and global career expert.

Earlier episodes of this podcast have focused on leadership's role in great work in our companies. Dana Manciagli is here to talk with your host Aaron Schmookler about what each of us can do to insure that we've got Mighty Good Work.Reboot yourself by changing jobs, by jumping division to division, location to location, or company to company.

Here are a few highlights from our conversation with Dana:

Make choices! Don't let your work happen to you. Be deliberate.

Figure out what you like, and pursue only what you like.

You can't be all things to all people. Make choices. Sometimes they're tough. You don't have to get it absolutely right. Make a call and take action on it.

"What are you waiting for? You have a vision. You know what you want to do next. Why aren't you doing it?"

Don't rely on your boss to make you happy.

Ask yourself, "What was this week like? Did I do my best? Treat my people well? Make good choices?" Take regular accounting of your own performance against your own standards of excellence. Expect greatness.

There's a lot of boss bashing out there. Stop bashing the boss. It only hurts your career.

Business revolves around relationships.

Rule #1: Build the relationship with your boss. There's a "we factor" and you're role in the relationship is equally important. It takes two.

YOU have tremendous power in yourself -- through your choices -- to have good work wherever you are.

Put in the work that it takes to enjoy work! Don't be stuck.Take action to get to joy at work!

If you need a private job search coach, contact Dana through her website or through LInkedIn.

http://DanaManciagli.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/danamanciagli

GUEST: Rapport Benefits Group Principal, Chris Free -- http://rapportbenefits.com/

Chris Free on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-free-b337714

A theme that runs through my conversation with Chris can be summed up with a Richard Branson quote: "Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they'll take care of the clients."

Rapport Benefits Group keeps winning "Top Place to Work" awards because Chris and his business partners take this wisdom to heart, and they run their buiness in support of their employees. I've talked to their employees. They love woking there. And the company keeps growing. Business is good.

Here are a few highlight points from our conversation.

Make sure employees are well respected and treated.

Your employees are the face of your company.

Take care of your employees and they will take care of your clients.

• Practice flexibility and compassion
• Time and space for the things that come up in life
• Look at output over time from a given employee. Some days are up, some are down. It's the aggregate that matters.

Longevity of employees leads to great client relationships

Loyal employees are engaged with their work. If your employee is worried about personal, at-home things, they're not productive. Let them address their life in the timing of life, and they'll produce.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often cited when looking at student productivity in school. It's just as relevant on the job. Basically, if you're hungry, or worried about your well being or that of your family, you're not going to be able to focus on matters higher up the hierarchy -- like writing a report or serving a client.

Chris told us, "We ask them about their goals. We help develop them to achieve their goals -- career and non-career goals." We want you to fulfill your life. As we do, you'll perform for our firm.

Create a place where people think, "Maybe I don't want to get out of bed and go to work today, but what if I miss something cool?"

You can foster great relationships with people whom you turn down for jobs -- by referring them to jobs that'd be a better fit.

If you help people promote themselves out of your employ, you'll have a brand ambassador for life.

Don't create the environment for work that you've been disappointed by in past workplaces.

Set clear and accurate expectations.

Look for outcomes, not features.

How do you stand apart? Get out of the office. Get involved with people. Be in the community.

Cultivate a qualitative over a quantitative focus.

Theme music by: Miguel Juarez

Midshow break music by : Allan Loucks www.TinEar.com

GUEST: HopeSparks CEO, Joe LeRoy -- www.hopesparks.org

Here's a distillation of some of the practices Joe told us that he and his team are using to ensure MIGHTY GOOD WORK at HopeSparks.

If there's one thing that really stands out as a theme woven through everything that Joe shared with us, it's this:

HopeSparks takes an intentional approach to everything they do, and to every decision they make. They take great pains to ensure that every action the organization and its people take doesn't just make sense in the moment, but is connected to the culture they aim to build and to the mission they exist to serve.

The theme of intentionality affects the flow of information:

• HopeSparks' people see the vision, and are included in the mission.
• They also are given the opportunity to see the results of their work. As a result, they are fulfilled and gratified to an extent they would not be if the benefits of their labor were only understood academically.

It affects hiring, firing and transitioning.

• HopeSparls Looks for (and allows their people to find) the right fit.
• • Fit employee to program
  • Change positions to allow for success if possible with a struggling employee
  • Slow hire
  • • Never hire after just one interview
    • Multiple interviews and interview formats
    • Better decisions, better fit, eliminating terminations for cause
    • Choose the pain of an empty desk over the pain of hiring a wrong fit.

• Commitment to excellence -- don't stop at mediocre
• Intentional focus on methods and outcome (evidence based treatment)
• Doing WITH clients, not TO clients
• GOOD TO GREAT, Jim Collins: "Hedgehog Concept"
• • What can you do that you can be better at doing than anyone else?
  • Do you love to do it?
  • Does it drive the economic engine?
• You're not going to do it, if you don't love it.
• • And your clients will feel it if you're checked out.
• People looking to you for service always is a vulnerable position to be in.
• • What's that vulnerability met with?
• Alert to recognize the issues attached to and impacting the hedgehog, and not avoiding those as "Not our department," and also not addressing them as separate matters.
• Recognizing when a program is outgrowing its seat, and pulling it out to expand it.
• Not chasing dollars
• • saying no to anything outside the hedgehog
  • Say yes and go all in.
  • Vetting all opportunities
  • • Do we have the resources?
    • We gotta figure out the resource because this is our mission and our hedgehog, so we've got to do it.
• Get a foot in the door before we try to change a system
• Finger on the pulse of what's coming, what are the systems, how are they changing, and how can we SOLVE?
• SUBTLE communication styles and vocabulary reflect about attitudes and culture fit, and they are indicative of the work ethic they will bring.
• There is information in EVERYTHING that people say and the way that they say it.
• LEADERSHIP by putting people into stretch goals and positions, allowing them to fail and learn
• • Creates engagement
  • Grows people to greater and greater capacity
  • Managing people toward their potential rather than simply where they're at.

Leadership is like being a drummer. You don't get the accolades. Most people hardly know how valuable your contribution is, but if you stop playing, it becomes clear how the music hangs on and is governed by the rhythm you set.

"It ignites me to see people succeed here in this organization as staff members or team members... That's what happened to me as a staff member."

-- Joe LeRoy

Theme music by Miguel Juarez. Midshow break music by Allan Loucks at TinEar.com.