Showing posts with label energized. Show all posts
Showing posts with label energized. Show all posts
Friday, September 23, 2011
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Water-glasses with balls... a 'Real Sports' highlight!
This evening, my son and I treated ourselves to watching the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Buffalo Sabres pre-season hockey game on a flatscreen TV from the comfort of a booth at the wonderful new Real Sports Bar and Grill, located adjacent to the Air Canada Centre – a sensitively renovated Art Deco building, by the way!
As per my family's lunchtime visit a few weeks ago, the food was excellent, the staff friendly, the service attentive and the atmosphere lively due to the presence of many groups of sports fans. These are the necessities for success in their competitive business.
But Real Sports recognizes the need for extra little surprises that help create the truly memorable customer experience.
The interior design features eerily lit decorative chandeliers made from hundreds of fanned-out hockey-stick blades. Above one of the bars is a ceiling patterned on a giant basketball net, with tabletops featuring real parquet flooring from the ACC. And your side-order of French Fries comes in a little metal basket that's a miniature copy of a real french-fryer basket!
But what was the highlight for me was discovering that the bottoms of the water-glasses contained small recesses in the form of sports balls – baseballs, golf-balls, footballs and basketballs.
In my view, demonstrating such care for even the subtlest aspects of the customer experience is a sure-fire way to win the hearts of even the most demanding fans!
But Real Sports recognizes the need for extra little surprises that help create the truly memorable customer experience.
The interior design features eerily lit decorative chandeliers made from hundreds of fanned-out hockey-stick blades. Above one of the bars is a ceiling patterned on a giant basketball net, with tabletops featuring real parquet flooring from the ACC. And your side-order of French Fries comes in a little metal basket that's a miniature copy of a real french-fryer basket!
But what was the highlight for me was discovering that the bottoms of the water-glasses contained small recesses in the form of sports balls – baseballs, golf-balls, footballs and basketballs.
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| Side view of 'golf-ball' water-glass held up in front of our booth's TV screen showing Leafs game. |
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
'Engaged' employees aren't enough
Until yesterday, I thought that having 'engaged' employees was sufficient as the first step in making customers – and 'shareholders' – happy (i.e., enduring organizational success).
But then I began reading Hundred Percenters: Challenge your employees to give it their all, and they'll give you even more, by Mark Murphy.
In the book, he argues that the real goal of leaders is not simply to create a workplace where employees are happy or satisfied (i.e., engaged), but rather to make work "fulfilling and enriching and ultimately to position people to achieve great results."
Murphy, who is chairman and CEO of consulting company Leadership IQ, says the two differentiating factors that result in 100% Leadership are 'connection' and 'challenge.' Connection is the strength of the emotional connection that leaders build with their employees, while challenge is how far leaders push their people to achieve greatness.
If you construct a matrix of this factors, you get Avoider leaders (low emotional connection, low challenge); Intimidators (low connection, high challenge); Appeasers (high connection, low challenge); and 100% leaders (high connection, high challenge).
He suggests that Appeasers are satisfied with employee engagement, but that 100% leaders "...push us hard. But when they do, they teach us something about ourselves. They help us achieve extraordinary things. And they give us real opportunities for deep and lasting fulfillment."
To me, most employees indeed want to work in an organization where they can make a tangible contribution, and where they can feel excited and proud about this contribution.
So, I'm going to think about 'energized employees' instead of simply 'engaged employees' as the real objective, with 'being energized' meaning being personally connected to the challenge of achieving great things on the job.
In the book, he argues that the real goal of leaders is not simply to create a workplace where employees are happy or satisfied (i.e., engaged), but rather to make work "fulfilling and enriching and ultimately to position people to achieve great results."
Murphy, who is chairman and CEO of consulting company Leadership IQ, says the two differentiating factors that result in 100% Leadership are 'connection' and 'challenge.' Connection is the strength of the emotional connection that leaders build with their employees, while challenge is how far leaders push their people to achieve greatness.
If you construct a matrix of this factors, you get Avoider leaders (low emotional connection, low challenge); Intimidators (low connection, high challenge); Appeasers (high connection, low challenge); and 100% leaders (high connection, high challenge).
He suggests that Appeasers are satisfied with employee engagement, but that 100% leaders "...push us hard. But when they do, they teach us something about ourselves. They help us achieve extraordinary things. And they give us real opportunities for deep and lasting fulfillment."
To me, most employees indeed want to work in an organization where they can make a tangible contribution, and where they can feel excited and proud about this contribution.
So, I'm going to think about 'energized employees' instead of simply 'engaged employees' as the real objective, with 'being energized' meaning being personally connected to the challenge of achieving great things on the job.
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