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Did you know that it was Google engineers and not the auto industry that started the race to produce a self-driving car? While the concept of an autonomous car dates back to at least the 1920s, it was Google engineers that matched a well-documented human pain: driver error causes millions of traffic deaths, with the building blocks to a solution: Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View. 
It’s nice to conduct an employee engagement survey, but is your survey actually delivering the results you want? There’s new research that suggests most surveys are falling far short.
More than 3,000 HR executives have taken the online quiz “How Good Is Your Employee Engagement Survey?”
The antidote to the excuse mentality is accountability where people take ownership, fix problems and bring solutions. Mentally and emotionally, accountability is where every leader wants their people to be. But accountability is not an either/or kind of phenomenon. Denial, blame, excuses and anxiety are all stages leading up to accountability that are part of the excuse mentality.
The majority of organizations like to consider themselves at least somewhat collaborative (most CEOs don’t raise their hands when you ask them if they want to create a cutthroat or dictatorial organization). Because of this, when we ask leaders how they like to make decisions, a large portion say they like to reach consensus.
A few days ago, American Airlines announced that it was going to raise the pay of pilots and flight attendants to keep pace with competitors Delta and United. Currently, American’s pilots are paid about 8% less than Delta and United while flight attendants are paid about 4% less. In the words of American’s CEO, this is about “doing the right thing.”
Go to any relevant review site, type in Caesars Palace, and you’ll bring up a stream of reviews like these:
“The staff in all parts of the casino were attentive and over the top helpful. I will be returning to Caesars again and again!”
“From the moment you arrive and the valet and bellman greet you the excellent service welcomes you and you know you are on vacation and will have a wonderful experience.”
Mistakes. We all make them, but some of us respond more constructively than others when they happen. You don’t want to wait until someone is on your payroll to find out what they’ll do when they blunder. 
It’s not always easy being the technological expert on the team. You’re valued for your knowledge and skills, but those same two factors can make you appear superior, sarcastic or uncaring to others who are less technology savvy. 
We discovered that people who work from home (i.e., telecommuting) are almost twice as likely to love their jobs than employees who work in traditional co-located work-sites (like office buildings). And mobile workers (i.e., using multiple workspaces, in and out of the office) were about 58% more likely to love their job than their office-based peers.
First we asked people where they usually work (in an office, mobile or telecommute). And then we asked people to rate how they felt about their job (love, like, tolerate, dislike or hate). Here’s what we found.
Deep and meaningful conversations are a hallmark of successful managers of remote employees. But while a lot of managers are talking to their remote employees, they’re not learning anything important during those conversations. A good litmus test of how productive your conversations with remote employees are is to ask yourself if your remote people are sharing with you their problems, bad news, struggles, challenges and all the other things you need to know to keep your people accountable and aligned.
