Posts Tagged ‘Improved Results’

Know Where and How to Improve Results

Monday, August 16th, 2010

Recently, I had the opportunity to hear Rudolph Giuliani speak about his experience as the Mayor of New York City during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 and what he has been doing since that time.  I particularly enjoyed hearing about his experience as a mayor and the lessons he learned and now applies them in his life.

Mr. Giuliani spoke about how he was able to reduce the crime rate in New York City.  Mr. Giuliani said, “Tracking and finding the areas that need improvement is the first step.”  He implemented a system for tracking where, what time, and what type of crimes were occurring in the city.  Using this data he was able to identify the areas where more law enforcement was needed and know what time of the day demanded the largest number of law enforcement personnel in the city.    Through having the right number of law enforcement personnel in the right areas, at the right time, he was able to reduce the crime rate in New York City by 60-70%.  New York City is now considered to be one of the safest large cities in the United States.

Mr. Giuliani then spoke about how he was able to decrease the number of people in NYC on welfare.   He began by looking at how the case workers were being compensated for their work.  He found the case workers for many years were being paid according to the number of welfare clients they had.  Therefore, it was more lucrative for the case workers to have people remain on welfare.  He decided to make a change and pay based on the number of jobs the case worker helped find for their welfare clients.  Through this change, in a span of 4 years, the number of people on welfare decreased from 1.1 million to 550,000.  A decrease of 50%!   This improvement in saving the tax payers tens of millions of dollars.

City_New_York_16662218_XSMany times businesses “leave” money on the table because they are working ineffectively, like the New York City was with law enforcement, by not knowing where their people should be and when they should be there.  Often they are scared to make some of the simple changes because they have been working the same way for so long, just like the case workers in NYC who were being paid and incentivized to keep their clients on welfare.   What if your employees tracked the information that made them successful?  What if they not only tracked the information, but understood and used the information as feedback to identify what they could change to be more successful?  What if your employees were compensated, motivated, and/or driven to do those things that would add to the bottom line profits of the business?  What would be the increase in profits?  What would be the decrease in costs and spending?

Bottom Line Leadership is specifically designed to address these questions.  It is created to have immediate and long-term positive influence on the bottom line profits of your business.  It will increase motivation in your employees by helping them answer the question, “What is it that I do, what do I get paid for?”  It will offer the leadership in your organization a better understanding and utilization of key fundamental leadership skills to drive the changes.  This program is a “game changing” business solution and for some companies an overall intervention.  It has been so successful in providing a Return on Investment that it is guaranteed to pay for itself by the time the program is done.  You truly have nothing to lose!

Making A Game Out Of Work

Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

sports scoreboard

Over the past few months, I have been serving as an assistant coach for my son’s Little League Football team.  It has been a lot of work to teach the boys the techniques of the sport; blocking, tackling, and running.  I have found that the best way to teach children is to have fun while learning.  The other coaches and I use many different games and exercises that force the boys on the team to use their new found skills and the techniques.  Aside from just skill practice, these games and exercises allow us, the coaching staff, to measure their progress.

Many people struggle in the work environment because what they do no longer seems enjoyable, and learning or development just means more work.  When this happens, we become stagnant.  Our personal satisfaction and happiness decreases and, in turn, our success and quality of work falters.  From my perspective, not enough people are making a game out of work.  Consider this quote from the world renowned physicist, Albert Einstein.

“How many people are trapped in their everyday habits, part numb, part frightened, part indifferent?  To have a better life we must keep choosing how we are living.”

While this quote could have many applications, I would like to discuss how it applies to our daily work. If someone is feeling numb, frightened, or indifferent toward their everyday work activity, leaders or coaches can expect this person to also feel unaccountable to results and lacking desire to achieve greater levels of success.

scorecard_xxsSince it appears that many people in the working world are feeling numb, frightened, or indifferent toward their daily work, I propose that organizations strive harder to make a game out of work by challenging their employees to compete to win. Like the way I coach the football team, leaders can make work more fun and find ways to use metrics and scorecards to measure progress.  With a little fun, leaders can create a winning team that really adds to bottom line results.  Leaders themselves must also have a bottom line mentality as they go about setting exciting and stretch goals for themselves, their departments, and for their team members.  This inner game of work can make a huge impact on what people accomplish.

So, whether you are coaching 20 eight and nine year old boys on a Little League Football team or leading a tenured staff of employees, the concept I’m suggesting is the same.  Make a game out of work; make it fun, rewarding and competitive.  I guarantee you will see improved results.