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I am continually amazed by the huge increase in workplace team building, camaraderie, productivity, and ultimately profits that business leaders can enjoy Cheap Cialis by doing small, workplace culture-specific things for their employees. 

In an industry with historically among the highest turnover rates – hospitality – Winning Workplaces has reported on several restaurants that have grown competitive advantage largely by following this approach.  These include Emmett’s Tavern & Brewing Co. in Illinois and Union Square Hospitality Group in New York.

Without a doubt, Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Michigan fits this bill (pun not intended even though we’re talking about restaurants).  From when we wrote our Profile of Success on the collective enterprise back in 2003, to 2010, CEO Ari Weinzweig managed to grow his seven Ann Arbor-based businesses 185%.  (Paula Gardner details their milestones and notes their revenue last year of $37 million on AnnArbor.com.)

As we covered here on our blog, Inc. Magazine included some of the employee engagement best practices Weinzweig uses as part of its recommended "ultimate business tune-up" tips list in an early 2009 issue.  As is the case with the other above-mentioned firms, at the end of the day practices like these are effective not just because they show leadership respects employees’ commitment, but because they’re inclusive and indicative of a well-thought-out, strategic company vision.

As it happens, Weinzweig will be speaking on how creating a vision of the company you want makes good business sense as part of our Leadership Conference with Inc. in Dallas, Texas, June 15-17, 2011.  Attendees will find value in learning about, and adapting for their organizations, his step-by-step guide to imagining – and then creating – success.

Go here to see the current and evolving agenda for this event.  Register at the early bird rate through May 6.

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Cheap Cialis />In this new article in The Economist, the chief executive of the Centre for Development and Enterprise argues that results in the People and Planet areas of a triple bottom line focus (Profits, People, Planet) are hard to measure.  Therefore, while Ann Bernstein frames her case in an African continental context, she suggests that business leaders everywhere would be best served by just pursuing the classic bottom line of Profits.

But just because a goal is difficult to measure, does that mean it should be abandoned?  On the one hand there is something to be said for the Measurable attribute of SMART goals.  On the other, though, many of Winning Workplaces’ award-winning small firms have succeeded financially because they built People and Planet bottom lines into their business model, and created human capital strategies that align with their triple bottom line focus.

The table below shows not only Profit-oriented results for five of our Top Small Workplace award winners, but People and Planet outcomes as well.  In fact, the latter two bottom lines have helped these five organizations collectively bring in more than half a billion dollars in annual sales!

*As of the year of their award

My counterargument to Bernstein is that if a company is truly committed to all three bottom lines, it will find a way to measure with some degree of depth and certainty the People and Planet results, which both influence and are influenced by Profits.

Related: The CEO of one of the companies listed above, King Arthur Flour, will speak on employee leadership development at our conference that starts tomorrow in Denver.  Last chance to register!

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One small business advisor who shares my view is Lonnie Sciambi.  On his Entrepreneur’s Yoda blog yesterday, he wrote about how employee engagement, when done well, can lead to better, longer-term results from key stakeholders including:

• Employees – keeping them in the loop of how the business is doing and their role in that increases productivity.
• Customers or clients – "The more you know, engage and motivate your prospect … the more comfortable that prospect will feel [sic] about your company and the more successful you will be."
• Suppliers – Sciambi touches upon a small business trend: connecting with a supplier’s leadership like never before to incentivize both parties’ markets and reap collective returns.  How well each company’s workforce is engaged quickly becomes a factor for success.

Read his full post here.

Related: Sciambi writes from the point of view of leadership engaging employees, which echoes Winning Workplaces’ advice that the most effective engagement is shaped by the "tone at the top."  This post from Wally Bock, warning of a middle-management crisis when it comes to supervision of current employees and promotion from within to management posts, underscores even more why engagement should start with the CEO.

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Last week’s blog asked you the important question: How is your decision-making style impacting your organization’s results?  I asked you to think about your style and how it affects employee engagement, team building, and open communication in the workplace.  Buy Accutane As many of you know, these things have a direct impact on your business results.

Last time I reviewed two of the four main decision-making styles: Autocratic and Democratic.  Participative and Consensus are next.

The participative style of decision making is when the leader involves the other members of the organization in the process.  Participative decision making is a way of building engagement making people feel good about their involvement.  This style can foster open communication and positively impact the culture.  This style won’t improve the culture of ownership; that is because it still leaves the final decision in the hands of the leader.  How do you think this style would impact YOUR business results?  Do you see both right and wrong situations to engage this style?

The last decision-making style is consensus.  Here the leader gives up complete control of the decision; the full group is totally involved in the decision.  While this style would certainly help build a sense of ownership, I have to tell you that this is my least favorite style.  Not because I have a problem giving up control but, rather, because of the incredible amount of time it takes and secondarily the fact that many people may not have the knowledge or experience to "vote" on the decision.

Having said that, there are situations where a consensus approach makes sense.  The benefits can include building trust in the workplace, team building, increased employee engagement, and a more productive workplace because people feel so much ownership for the decision.

Clearly, no one style is right for all the situations leaders face in the workplace.  Have I gotten you thinking, though?  Are you wondering how your decision-making style is impacting your people?  Your business results?  I’d love to hear some of your stories.

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The goal of this Order Generic Cialis Online without Prescription week’s blog is to get you thinking about your decision-making style and, more importantly, what that style means to your workplace culture and workforce effectiveness.  Said another way, how is your decision making style impacting your organization’s results? 

As a leader, have you ever thought about the number and types of decisions you make every day?  Have you considered how you make those decisions?  What about the implications of your decision-making style on employee engagement, team building, and open communication in the workplace? 

Most of us probably remember this from Management 101: The most commonly used styles are Autocratic, Democratic, Participative, and Consensus.

"I’ll make the decision and you go get it done."  "No, I don’t need any input; I know everything I need to know to make the right decision."  "I’ll handle it; I always do and it turns out fine."  To be fair, the autocratic style is appropriate when a fast decision is required.  Otherwise, this approach ignores the importance of engaging employees and the possibility that "two heads are better than one."  It also has a dampening effect on building trust.  Do you think overusing this style might affect your business results? 

"Let’s vote on it; the majority rules."  "I know we are doing it, but I didn’t vote for it."  This democratic style has some advantages including building trust in the workplace and supporting open communication.  But who really "owns" the outcome?  It is easy for employees to claim, "I didn’t support that" or "I thought he was doing it because he voted for it."  That reaction to the democratic style eats away at a culture of ownership and hinders your effectiveness.  Do you think overusing this style might affect your business results? 

What decision-making style do you use and how is it affecting your bottom line?

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