New Data Shows That Leaders Overestimate How Much Their Employees Want To Change
The key to successful change management is getting people to let go of the status quo and reach for something bigger and better. If you ask top executives, this should be pretty easy because right now only 37% of them say that people generally like to remain in the status quo.
No one likes getting tough feedback from the boss, but it’s often necessary to grow and develop on the job. Your company doesn’t want to hire folks who can’t constructively receive constructive criticism. You want people who can bounce back in a positive manner.
Teamwork. It means something different in every organization, which means you need an interview question that effectively assesses whether or not a candidate is a fit for your unique definition of team.
Here’s one of the most important lessons about employee engagement: Everybody has shoves and tugs. Shoves are those issues that demotivate you, drain your energy, stop you from giving maximum effort, and make you want to quit—they “shove” you out the door. Tugs are those issues that motivate and fulfill you, make you want to give maximum effort, and keep you coming back every day—they “tug” at you to stay.
Has your company ever gone through a change effort where some employees got anxious while others stayed calm? Have you ever seen some employees freak out over a mistake they made, while others got right back on the horse?
Whatever you call them, performance appraisals (or employee evaluations or annual reviews) are painful. But our high performers aren’t making these events strenuous; it’s our low performers that make us dread these conversations.
There are different types of work that leaders can do. There’s work for which we feel passion and that propels us towards our big goals. There’s work that we don’t love doing but that still needs to get done. And then there’s what I call Red Light work; activities that bring no value and that are a colossal waste of time.
What differentiates CEOs from all the people who never make it to the c-suite? Is it brains? Ambition? Luck? The answer will vary from company to company, but there are some characteristics that appear across organizations. And one such characteristic is how people approach change.
About 50% of employees say their leader rarely or never takes an active role in helping them to grow and develop. Think about that: Why do we have leaders if not to help employees grow and develop? And yet, leader directed employee growth and development is rarely or never happening for half of our people.



