High turnover?


Is your organizational performance not of a high standard?

Talented staff, but not sure how to inspire them?

The charted institute for personnel & development recently stated in their publication ‘Becoming an employee of choice’ that ‘70% of people leave their employer and not their job.’ When employees feel inspired and engaged by their manager they will contribute more, take fewer sick days and focus more on satisfying customers.

Engaged employees make a difference to your organizations performance both today and in the future. With our free seminar you can learn to deliver creative and powerful messages to those individuals who can help your organization the most. Develop inspiring ideas to engage your talent staff and engage those individuals in your business who can make a difference.

The Engaging Talent Seminar on Thursday 2nd August, 8:45am - 10:45am plans to be thee FREE seminar event of the year.

Join today, to guarantee your seat for the most engaging event you have been too. For more information please don’t hesitate to contact us on 02073794323

Employment means winning the hearts as well as the minds of employees.

Stand by your Principles

At the heart of everything we do as an organisation is Dale Carnegie’s thirty human relations principles. These principles have been with the organisation for many years and the Dale Carnegie itself is celebrating its Centenary in October of this year.

Below is a list of the first 9 principles which covers the foundations of becoming a friendlier person.

Don't criticize, condemn, or complain.
Give honest and sincere appreciation.
Arouse in the other person an eager want.
Become genuinely interested in other people.
Smile.
Remember that a person's name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
Talk in terms of the other person's interest.
Make the other person feel important – and do it sincerely.

At first glance you may think to yourself that these prinicples are common knowledge. This is true, however they are not common practice.

Look at the list and again and really ask yourself:

How many of these principles am I actually applying?
How often do I apply them?
Which ones do I find really challenging and why?

If these priniciples and questions resonate with you I would encourage you to attend the opening session of our Skills for Success course on the 8th May for free.

You can register for this event by getting in touch with any of our consultants on 0207 379 4323

Amar Garcha

Living for Today

A great weekend spent visiting friends in Jersey reminded me of how important it is to live in the present...... That might sound a strange thing to say as surely it's impossible to do anything but live in the present. That said it's amazing how often people focus all their energy on living in the past or only living for the future. Those of us with a disposition to living in the past will tell stories of what we did and 'how great it was back then' where as those of us with a disposition towards the future will say things like when I achieve 'X Y Z' I'll be happy.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't enjoy a little reminiscing about good times in the past or think about things we want to work for in the future! What I'm talking about is seeking to engage fully with what we do and the people we meet each day in order to get a greater sense of fulfilment and satisfaction. It took a walk along a cold and windy beach with my friends their kids and 8 month old black Labrador to remind me of something that I'd forgotten.

I learnt the importance of living in the present from a Dale Carnegie Master trainer back in 2003 he was explaining the importance of being 100% present as he described it when interacting with the people around us and to get the group to understand he wrote up on a flip chart the days of the week and asked us to think of each day of the week as representing 12 years of our lives (This assumes we live on average to 84). He asked the group to identify which day of the week they were physically living on; as I write this now it's pretty late on Wednesday night for me. The question he asked was did we focus our energy on where we physically were or was our mind filled with thoughts of past or present...... Where are you? & Where do you focus your Energy?

Whether we're spending time with friends and family, at work in a meeting, on the phone to a client, working on a project, playing sport or just relaxing. The way to get the best of that moment is to commit yourself 100% to where you are now, who you're with and what you're doing.

I consider myself lucky that I love what I do for a living and have a great team around me and friends and family I want to spend time with yet I know I have a tendency to live in the future and not in the NOW! A black Labrador reminded me of the importance of living for Today....... I hope this has encouraged you to do the same.

What's happening right now is LIFE ...... Make Sure You Give It Everything Today!

David Anderson
Managing Director
Dale Carnegie London

POT LUCK

I have just experienced my first Thanksgiving meal. This lunch time we partook in something called Pot Luck. If like me you are unfamiliar with this term, please let me explain… but just before I do I’ll give you a little back story as to how Thanksgiving found its way into our office in London. Recently a young lady (Stacey) joined the team. She hails from the good ole US of A and she suggested that for lunch everybody brings some food in and we all eat together.

That’s what pot luck is, it is as simple as that. I am lucky enough to belong to a team that are close and we share a common vision to ensure that each of us and the business as a whole is successful and yet our lunch seems to be a rather more private affair. Normally, everyone takes an each to their own approach when it comes to that midday meal.

However, today we managed to fashion a smorgasbord of epic proportions. Needless to say the pot luck approach went down really well with the whole team. We had a really great time, eating, talking laughing and listening to Jose’s (Our Special One), let’s just say eclectic mix of music.

We didn't manage to get through all the food but we were efficient in cleaning up and getting back to work. The rest of the day seemed to fly by and everyone seemed a little bit chirpier.

It did make me reflect that something so simple can create such a great atmosphere in the office.

Someone senior in the organization told me when I first started in the company that people support a world they help create. Well, today through the guidance of Stace we created a Thanksgiving feast and were all better for it.

Regardless of your position within your organisation, why don’t you try something to see if you can also increase the level of engagement of your colleagues?

I am really looking forward to the festive period as it approaches and am really excited about Christmas. Maybe if I’m lucky enough the team will rally around and soon we will be having POT LUCK PART DEUX.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Amar Garcha

Purpose

John Fisher's transition curve is an excellent analysis of how individuals deal with personal change.

Fisher explains the different emotional stages that a person faces behind a change, with the following order:

1.Anxiety. Can I cope?
2.Happiness. At last something’s going to change!
3.Fear. What impact will this have? How will it affect me?
4.Threat. This is bigger than I thought!
5.Guilt. Did I really do that?
6.Depression. Who am I?
7.Hostility. I will make this work if it kills me!
8.Gradual acceptance. I can see myself in the future.
9.Moving forward. This can work and be good.

If we notice how people think and feel depending on their situation when their environment is changing, we can anticipate their behaviour and take actions.
People’s feelings can provoke them to give up just before a task is achieved.

How do great leaders engage their people when everything seems to be going wrong?
In relation to the above emotional stages, leaders have the power to remind their teams why they are there and give them a purpose.

Most people spend the majority of their time at work, why not give them a purpose for being there everyday? A purpose is what will fill people with the energy and enthusiasm to come to work with the desire to succeed and achieve the impossible.

One of the reasons why Dale Carnegie programmes have been so successful for the last 98 years is because we are focused on changing behaviours by giving people a purpose and a vision. Every participant is encouraged to take risks and try new things that stretch them out of their comfort zone. With this new mindset and courage, people will love their jobs.

People love doing business with people who love their business!

Jose Bort

Sales Consultant

www.London.Dalecarnegie.com

People support the world they help create!

People will support a world they helped create! A simple statement to comprehend, yet we see so many organisations getting it badly wrong when it comes to creating work environments that are conducive to collaboration and working towards a common goal.

With the current economic climate that we find ourselves in, it has never been more important for organisations to have the individual goals of their employees aligned to the company’s goals, and to treat their employees as partners rather than as commodities.

So let’s consider why employee engagement during times of turbulence is so important. According to Lockwood (2007), employees with the highest level of commitment perform 20% better and are 87% less likely to leave the organisation.

This shows a clear link between employee engagement and performance. In fact, two of the earlier studies on employee engagement conducted by Watson Wyatt found that “high commitment” organisations (those with loyal and dedicated employees) out-performed “low commitment” organisations by 47% in one study and 200% in another study.

Not only have highly engaged employees been linked to higher levels of performance, they have also been linked to delivering more innovative solutions to situations and solving problems more effectively, Scarlett (2008). Finding ways to create an engaging environment for your employees during the financial crisis can yield positive results for everyone in the short term and the long term.

Therefore what changes might you look to implement when trying to increase your employee’s engagement you may ask?

Regular interaction with your employees gives them the mental support to speak out about any issue concerning them. The first lesson is that workers model their leaders’ behaviour. If leaders are not fully engaged, workers will not be either.

So what can leaders do at an organisational level to engage employees? They must create an engaging environment—one that lends itself to providing the tools and elements employees need to build a sense of commitment. Rather than point their fingers at workers alone, the leaders must lead rather than manage. What managers do and how they behave sets the tone for employee engagement therefore managers must model the level of engagement they seek. HR’s role in this regard is to serve as coach to managers when they do otherwise.

In the long term, education and training of personnel is key, not only in their own personal growth but that of the organisation. Employees are engaged because they have a sense of connectivity, and because they have the drive and desire to be a part of the organisation.

Therefore let’s make sure that we as individuals help create a world that our people support.

Dale Carnegie’s next Free Inspirational Leadership for Managers workshop is on the 8th March or 6th April. Click here for more details.

Mark de Stadler
Peformance Consultant

www.London.dalecarnegie.com