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Greetings from Rising Sun Consultants
Happy Holidays and Welcome to the December issue of Rise & Shine
Your Leadership Solutions and Resource Newsletter!
Bright Lights (Tips/Solutions)
The 10 Keys of Effective Supervision™:
- Support Growth
- Unite With Your Team
- Praise Others
- Expect Excellence
- Require Accountability
- Verify Potential
- Instill Independence
- Share Continuously
- Optimize Ownership
- Reinforce Relationships
This month’s focus is on the fourth Key – Expect Excellence:
According to the Rising Sun model, “Expect Excellence” is defined as: “Setting high expectations for employees.”
At Rising Sun Consultants, we believe strongly that expecting excellence begins with recruiting and hiring the right employees. Once hired, employees should be provided with both a clear position description and a comprehensive new employee orientation in order to ensure clear understanding of the company’s mission, vision, values and goals. In addition, depending on the size and complexity of the organization, it may also be important to provide them with a clear and concise (not too cumbersome) policy manual as well.
Once on board, it is critical that the supervisor sit down with the employee and:
- Define clear goals and expectations.
- Gain a consensus/agreement on what excellence is.
- Provide models – What does excellence look like?
- Set standards that are company wide and not just individual.
Throughout the initial “honeymoon period,” as the employee becomes more comfortable and competent in their position, the supervisor should schedule regular feedback sessions with the employee to provide both training and encouragement. Find ways to identify excellence – even with the little things. Assume staff is striving for excellence. Lead by example. Act in a manner that's consistent with what you demand from your staff.
Shining Stars (Best Practices)
This month's Organization of Excellence is Country Meadows Retirement Communities. The home office in Hershey, Pennsylvania, oversees 10 retirement facilities throughout Pennsylvania and one in Maryland. Offering a variety of assisted and independent living options, this organization strives to create not just a place to live, but truly a home for the residents (called Customers). In fact, putting the Customers first is the focus of the vision of Country Meadows. The employees (called Co-Workers) are considered the key to the organization’s success. In fact, Country Meadows has won the Best Places to Work in PA award four times since the award’s inception in 2001, including 2006. How do they do it? Consider just a few of their strategies…
- Asking Customers for feedback about their service and making improvements based on that feedback.
- Job shadowing by external applicants prior to hire.
- Respecting the skills and capabilities of Co-Workers in an industry that often does not.
- Providing career paths and promoting from within (70% of current management has been promoted to those roles from within the organization).
- Developing creative educational opportunities that boost positions that are typically seen as stepping-stones into actual careers (i.e., Certified Nursing Assistants and Personal Care Assistants).
- Offering no interest loans to Co-Workers who need emergency monetary assistance.
- Family-style leadership and values and leaders who are accessible to anyone within the organization.
With the highest occupancy level within their profession, Country Meadows stands out as an exceptional organization as well as an extraordinary employer. In a nutshell, this is a caring, Customer-focused, nurturing culture enhanced by quality education and training. We thank Michael Leader (CEO and President), Ted Janaczek (Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer), and David Leader (Chief Operating Officer) for meeting with us to talk about their organization. More information about Country Meadows Retirement Communities can be found at their website, http://www.countrymeadows.com/.
World Views (In the News)
Mobile Manners – 10 Rules for Cell Phone Users
If you've ever suffered someone gabbing obnoxiously on a Treo or sending an e-mail during a meeting, it would be easy to blame Palm CEO Ed Colligan. As cellphones gave way to more sophisticated smartphones, you'd think users would have become smarter, too. Annoying ring tones still interrupt movies, men and women are e-mailing in the middle of meetings, and lunch companions continue to eye their in-boxes more often than they wipe their mouths. Colligan won't take the blame for all that bad behavior, but he did offer a few tips on mobile manners.
“To me, one of the big etiquette problems is when people go to a meeting, and they’re sitting in the meeting, and the whole time they are doing e-mail, not looking at people and not even listening to the content of the meeting. I think it’s incredibly rude, and in our company I basically say, “If you are going to be at the meeting, you need to be at the meeting and listen to the content. If you need to do your e-mail, then don’t come to the meeting.”
In addition, forbes.com offers the following “Ten Etiquette Rules For A Mobile, Connected World”:
- Say "excuse me" - There's nothing worse than running a meeting and watching half the participants fiddle with their PDAs. Perk up and pay attention, particularly if your boss is leading the meeting. If your e-mail is more important, then send your apologies and skip the meeting entirely.
- During a meeting, set your e-mail aside - There's nothing worse than running a meeting and watching half the participants fiddle with their PDAs. Perk up and pay attention, particularly if your boss is leading the meeting. If your e-mail is more important, then send your apologies and skip the meeting entirely.
- Learn to use the silent button - Surprisingly enough, some cellphone users still don't get it. Movie theaters aren't the only venue where rings are unwelcome. Sure, you paid $2.99 for that ring tone, but the woman in the adjoining cubicle really doesn't care about your passion for Britney
- Keep your eyes on the road - We're confident that someone of your intelligence level can figure out how to use a headset for cellphone calls while driving. But you may have to wait to get to the office before checking your e-mail. Think of it as a mini-vacation.
- Keep your voice down - You may be standing by a busy street, barely able to hear the thoughts in your own head, but your business partner in Florida can hear you just fine. No one's impressed by your use of big business words and acronyms, so remember to use your 12-inch voice.
- Watch where you're going - You walk down the sidewalk, thumbs blazing, when WHAM! you ram into someone's grandmother. Surely your thumb-typing skills are fast enough that you can afford to step aside for ten seconds and stand in one place while you're sending an e-mail.
- Save the camera for special occasions - It's amazing what they can do with those cellphone cameras nowadays. But save your awe for your friends and family. Many people don't like having their pictures taken, and whipping out a camera can just create an awkward situation.
- Obey your flight attendant - It's an annoying rule, but we all obey it. Turn off your mobile device once the plane readies for takeoff. If you force the flight attendant to remind you, it wastes everyone's time.
- Respect other people's time - You may be tied to your cellphone and your mobile e-mail device, but that doesn't mean everyone else is. Keep in mind that other people may be busy, so you might not get an immediate reply to your e-mail. And if your colleagues are reluctant to use their cellphones for work purposes, respect their preference.
- Waiting in line? Tough luck - Don't get on your cellphone or BlackBerry every time you have to wait in line for more than ten seconds. The captive audience around you won't appreciate it. And if you're still on the phone when you pay for your soda, you're slowing down the line.
(Adapted from Hannah Clark, Forbes.com, August 22, 2006)
Rays of Hope (Stories/Parables)
Apache Seasons
(Author Unknown)
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There was once a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look at a pear tree that was a great distance away.
The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in summer, and the youngest son in the fall. When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe what they had seen.
The first son said “the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.” The second son said “no, it was covered with green buds and full of promise.” The third son disagreed; he said “it was laden with blossoms that smelled so sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing I have ever seen.” The last son disagreed with all of them; he said “it was ripe and drooping with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.”
The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they had each seen but only one season in the tree's life. He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season, and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up. “If you give up when it's winter, you will miss the promise of your spring, the beauty of your summer, the fulfillment of your fall.”
Moral:
Don't let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest. Don't judge an individual by one difficult season. Expect the best of others, persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come. |
New Horizons (Meetings/Events)
“Leading Your Team to the ProductivityZone™”
This complimentary two-hour seminar is designed exclusively for organizational Presidents/CEOs/Top Executives and is limited to 10 participants only. The purpose of this seminar is to provide you with an opportunity to develop your staff into a highly motivated group of employees, an effective way to train your supervisory staff, and an opportunity to increase your bottom line profitability.
December 4, 2006
8:00 am – 10:00 pm
Harrisburg, PA
Homewood Suites Boardroom
Complimentary
December 14, 2006
8:00 am – 10:00 pm
Harrisburg, PA
Homewood Suites Boardroom
Complimentary
To register, contact Lynn Lehman @ 717-512-7531
Thank You
On behalf of all of us at Rising Sun Consultants, we want to thank you for reviewing the December edition of our Rise & Shine Newsletter and we want to wish you all …
A JOYOUS HOLIDAY SEASON & A HEALTHY AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
As always, we invite you to visit our website (http://www.risingsunconsultants.com/) and to enjoy our latest book review and white paper.
Until next month: Always Keep Your Eyes on the New Horizon! |
