FOLLOW THIS PATH --- HOW THE WORLD'S GREATEST ORGANIZATIONS DRIVE GROWTH BY UNLEASHING HUMAN POTENTIAL by Curt Coffman and Gabriel Gonzalez-Molina. Warner Books, 2002
FORWARD (pix-xiii)
The "Path" to take --- Great organizations achieve sustainable growth and yield great customer services because they maximize the innate, individual talents of their employees to connect with customers!
Their leaders know that tapping the resources of humans is the only remaining area where significant improvements can --- and do --- lead to an unlimited source of competitive advantages: (p1-13)
[1] Now is he time for change (p1-3)
An "emotion driven economy" has infinite horizons. Once you see how smooth the "Path" is, you will want to follow it too!
[2] A new model (p3-4)
[3] An "emotion driven" economy (p4-5)
[4] The data are here (p5-12)
[5] The steps to follow (p12-13)
The amazing thing about the path is that it expands as it is traveled, allowing more employees to use it! And it leads to sustained growth of the organization and increased customer services!
A "map" and directions for leaders are included in this book. Enter the "Path" here:
[1] Identify strengths
Derivative Principles =
[2] The right fit
[3] Great managers
[4] Engaged employees
[5] Engaged customers
[6] Sustainable "sales/service" growth
[7] Real "customer services" increase
[8] Real quality work performance increases
(1) Real "customer services" increase DRIVES quality work performance
1) Welcome to the "Emotional Economy" (p15-28)
(2) Real sustainable "sales/service" growth DRIVES real customer services increase
(3) Engaged customers DRIVE sustainable sales/service growth
(4) Engaged employees CREATE engaged customers
(5) Great leaders TRANSFORM talented individual professional employees into engaged employees
(6) Roles fitting talent CREATE talented employees who are MOTIVATED TO ACHIEVE RESULTSalong the Path!
[1] One man's vision (p15-16)
2) Discover the talents of each employee (p29-61)
[2] A new world's old way to look at business (p17-18)
The "Anti-Emotional" belief system (p18-19)
[3] The unique pathway (p21-24)
[4] Reason and emotion --- It is a chemical reaction! (p24-26)
[5] Emotions are a terrific thing to value in EMPLOYEES! (p26-27)
By recognizing and unleashing the innate abilities of subordinate employees and matching their gifts to the positions that will best take advantage of them, thus making them even stronger, great organizations look inward in order to move forward!
Those organizations cherish the fluctuations in human behavior because they understand that these intellectual/emotional differences create a pathway as electric as any inside the brain: (p27)
(1) Employees who use their natural talents in their jobs produce significantly more than average workers.
The leaders of great organizations know that a "reason-driven" organizational economy can do only so much. The missing link is the "engagement" of deep-seated emotions as the driver of growth and successful customer services!
(2) Emotionally committed employees form teams that deliver exceptional outcomes.
(3) Customers recognize the passion and commitment employees feel toward them and cannot help but respond in an emotional way.
(4) This emotionally driven reaction builds a bridge between employees and customers that creates engagement.
(5) This engagement becomes the key factor that drives sustainable growth.
(6) Sustainable quality customer services is the route to increased professionalization and, ultimately, higher levels of outstanding customer services!
[6] Emotions drive "business" or customer service outcomes (p28)
If you want to open the gate to the pathways ("GATEWAYS") that lead to greater customer service success, you must CHANGE the way you view EMOTIONS in terms of your EMPLOYEES and your CUSTOMERS!
These employees and customers are a lot more complicated than what was assumed by leaders in the past.
If present leaders want to understand the incredibly powerful and far reaching role that emotions play in the behavior of their employees, they must understand the following three EMOTIONAL FACTS:
(1) Set the highest-level goals, including how hard a person works and how attached a person will stay to the mission (goals) of a learning organization or brand name!
(2) Take place outside the rational, willful awareness and constitute emotional memory!
(3) Drive decision making, the emotional state of conscious awareness!
BY ACKNOWLEDGING THE ROLE EMOTIONS PLAY IN DRIVING "BUSINESS" (ORGANIZATIONAL) OUTCOMES, YOU --- AS A LEADER --- HAVE TAKEN THE FIRST STEP ON THE GALLUP PATH!
[1] The blooming rose and the fault line (p29-32)
3) The route that never goes astray (p62-72)
[2] Phoning it in (p32-33)
[3] Great performance cannot be taught (p33-35)
(1) Define the behavioral practices (discernible objective job descriptions for each position): (p34)
[4] Talent is where you find it (p38-40))
(2) The wrong way to go (p35)
1. The first misstep is in the selection process
2. The second misstep is evaluation, a circular process that, like the parade in Alice in Wonderland, ends up going nowhere!
3. The third misstep is training --- two points = indiscriminate focused on minimum common-denomenator performance and standardized minimum information produces "acceptable" performance outcomes but does not deal with "excellent' outcomes!
4. The fourth misstep is role allocation
[5] Thirty-four routes to "superior performance" (p40-57)
[6] The symphony conductor and the NBA player (p57-59)
[7] Thirty-four ways to discover great employees (p60)
[8] The right talent is in your organization right now! (p60-61)
BY ACKNOWLEDGING THAT ALL YOUR EMPLOYEES POSSESS INNATE TALENTS THAT CAN BE EMOTIONALLY ENGAGED, YOU --- AS A LEADER --- HAVE TAKEN THE 2ND STEP ON THE GALLUP PATH!
[1] The resource waiting to be used (p62-63)
4) Steering toward engagement (p72-95)
[2] Talents and profits --- the inseparable duo --- the two differences between top performers and everybody else = (p63-65)
(1) No matter what occupation they are in or what role they play, top performers ALWAYS define their work in terms of how much they can accomplish and how well they cn do it!
[3] The gift that keeps on giving --- Knowledge and skills are important, but only talent holds the potential for to performance. (p65-68)
(2) Top performers tap into their natural talents and use them to perform their jobs extremely well!
Knowledge and skills are important, but only TALENT holds the potential for top performance! (p68)
[4] Other work, other talents (p69-71)
[5] Follow the talent route (p71)
[1] Find out what makes top performers passionate about their work. It is the clue that leads to everything that follows.
5) Directions for enhancing and managing employee engagement (p96-124)
[2] Pay a lot of attention to them to see how they build relationships.
[3] Keep track of their impact on others --- great performers spur others to better work.
[4] Ask them how they process information as well as form their opinions about the work and the workplace. (p97-99)
[1] The link forgers (p96-98)
6) Emotional Economics --- PART 1 --- The "metrics" of employee and customer engagement (p125-146)
[2] The FOUR "KEYS" of great managers --- Great managers use just FOUR PRINCIPLES to meet their goals: (p99)
(1) When selecting an employee, they opt for "talent," not simply experience, intelligence, or determination.
[3] Managing the Q/12 (p99-122)
(2) When setting "expectations," they understand the importance of defining the right outcomes, not the steps to get there.
(3) When motivating an employee, they focus on the person's strengths, not their weaknesses.
(4) When "developing" an employee, they help find the "right fit" between talent and role!
(1) Define the right outcomes.
[4] The Q/12 works (p123)
(2) Provide the necessary tools
(3) Select for talent
1. Are work roles defined properly? (p99-100)
(4) Focus on each employee's strengths (p105-107)
GREAT MANAGERS TRY TO GO FROM THE PLAYERS TO THE PLAYS, RATHER THAN SQUEEZING EVERYONE INTO THE SAME STANDARD ROLE!
2. Are there too many policies and procedures attached to the role? (p100-103)
SUPERIOR MANAGERS SYMBOLICALLY HOLD UP A MIRROR IN FRONT OF EMPLOYEES AND PROVIDE CONTINUOUS FEEDBACK ON PERFORMANCE AND TEAM IMPACT. PARADOXICALLY, NATURAL STRENGTHS ARE OFTEN INVISIBLE TO THE HOLDER.
3. Does a role need to be clarified? (p1-3-105)
IT IS THROUGH THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE MANAGER THAT AN EMPLOYEE CAN GAIN CONFIDENCE!
(5) Caring counts --- A productive workplace is one in which employees feel safe enough to experiment, to make mistakes, to challenge, to share information, and to support each other. (p107-109)
A genuinely productive workplace does not happen --- if the employees do not feel cared about! Relationships are the "glue" that holds all great workplaces together! The leader just sets the tone.
Great leaders do not use "steps" to build relationships. They understand that relationships cannot be forced. There are, however, some things they do to form the right climate for trusting relationships.
1. Do not fake it! Do not just pretend that you care about your employees!
(6) Find the right fit! (p109-110)
2. Tell them you care about their success!
3. Individualize since an employee's feeling understood is a very powerful nurturing emotion! Ask your employees some basic questions about their strengths, expectations, the kind of recognition they like, and how often the like to get together with you to discuss progress.
4. Be consistent! Since each employee has a different style with a wide range of needs, you do not have to treat each employee the same way. But you must be consistent in evaluating employees on performance and helping set each employee up for success!
You must follow up on your COMMITMENTS because CONSISTENCY leads to TRUST, and trust is the foundation of CARING!
(7) Let people be heard! Nothing is more DEMORALIZING to employees than being excluded from being able to EXPRESS OPINIONS about MAJOR DECISIONS that directly affect their work! (p111-112)
GREAT LEADERS KNOW THAT THE QUICKEST WAY TO SPUR FEELINGS OF IRRELEVANCE AND INSIGNIFICANCE IS TO HAND DOWN DECISIONS THAT AFFECT EMPLOYEES WITHOUT GETTING THEIR INPUT FIRST.
(8) Help each employee find meaning (p112-114)
(9) We are all in this together --- Great leaders clarify the definition of "quality" and make sure that employees and customers share the same VISION of what that means! (p114-115)
GREAT LEADERS IDENTIFY THE AFFILIATION OF THEIR TEAM MEMBERS TO QUALITY, REGARDLESS OF THE OPERATIONAL DEFINITION. ONE PROBLEM THAT AFFECTS THIS COMMITMENT IS THE QUESTION OF WHETHER OR NOT EVERY INDIVIDUAL PLAYS THE RIGHT ROLES WITHIN THE TEAM!
(10) "You will be there when I need you!" (p116-120)
(11) Look at how far you have come. (p119-121)
1. Holding regular one-on-one meetings. Feedback is predominantly focused on individual progress and a review of personal strengths! (p119)
(12) Organizations learn through their employees (p121-122)
2. Recording each employee's successes. Great leaders share these "personal successes" among team members as a combination of feedback and recognition. (p119)
3. Asking employees to track their own learning. Outstanding leaders urge and expect all team members to record their learning experiences and accomplishments.
This can be as simple as a blank sheet of paper or as formal as an official printed "Performance Journal," whichever best fits a leader's management style or organizational culture.
4. Starting the year with a "discovery review! (p120)
[5] Do what the great managers do (p123-124)
[1] The proof is here (p127-128)
7) The open highway (p147-169)
[2] The Engagement Index (p128-137)
(1) The "engaged" (p129-130)
[3] The index mirror (p135-137)
(2) The "not-engaged" (p130-132)
(3) The "actively disengaged" (p133-135)
[4] Employee engagement --- the national index (p137-139)
[5] The engagement ratios (p139-141)
[6] Turn over a new policy (p142-144)
[7] The new road (p144)
[8] The disengagement warnings you must heed (p145-146)
[1] (p82-85)
8) The four emotional states that drive customer engagement (p170-184)
[2] (p85-91)
[3] (p91-97)
[4] (p97-99)
[5] (p100-107)
[6] (p107-110)
[7] (p110-117)
[8] (p117-119)
[9] (p107-110)
[10] (p110-117)
[11] (p117-119)
[1] (p82-85)
9) Directions for enhancing and managing customer engagement (p185-207)
[2] (p85-91)
[3] (p91-97)
[4] (p97-99)
[1] (p82-85)
10) Emotional economics --- PART 2 (p208-221)
[2] (p85-91)
[3] (p91-97)
[4] (p97-99)
[5] (p100-107)
[6] (p107-110)
[7] (p110-117)
[8] (p117-119)
[9] (p107-110)
[10] (p110-117)
[1] (p82-85)
11) Managing the emotional economy (p222-229)
[2] (p85-91)
[3] (p91-97)
[4] (p97-99)
[5] (p100-107)
[6] (p107-110)
[7] (p110-117)
[8] (p117-119)
[9] (p107-110)
[1] (p82-85)
EPILOGUE --- A new vision for a new century (p230-231)
[2] (p85-91)
[3] (p91-97)
To keep up with Gallup's latest discoveries in managing engaged employees and customers, visit:
ENDNOTES (p233-246)
www.gallupjournal.com
which is the home page of the "Gallup Management Journal"
APPENDIX A --- Managerial talent, employee engagement, and business unit performance (p247-263)
APPENDIX B --- Employee engagement, satisfaction, and business unit-level outcomes --- a meta-analysis (p264-282)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (p283-284)
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