People often say "Make a wish" on one's birthday. Well, today's my day and I'll use the opportunity to make a wish for you.
I wish you happiness at work and at play. And I hope the two intersect. I hope you find such joy in your work that it often feels like play -- and certainly pleasure. I'm smiling in this photo, which was taken earlier this year at a seminar for new managers, because it reflects the joy I feel in working with leaders.
The workplace can be joyful. It happens when leaders believe in employee engagement and in building positive work environments. It takes values, skill and commitment. I know it's possible and I wish it for you as a leader and as an employee!
September 2, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "What great bosses know", "Work Happy: What Gret Bosses Know", leadership, management, poynter
I'm looking forward to
September 17, when I visit Barbados. The Cave Hill School of Business at the University of the West Indies is holding this leadership event for women, aptly titled:
SUCCESS!
I'll be sharing
"What Great Female Bosses Know" -- and will draw upon my own personal experience as a woman in management, as well as my current leadership teaching. I'll share what research tells us about women's approaches, successes and challenges in leadership -- and what we can do to support all aspiring leaders, but especially those who have been underrepresented in the past.
Of course, I'll also draw on the lessons of
"Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know" and will sign books. Events like these are a wonderful opportunity for women to learn together, share advice and experiences, and do the networking that helps them succeed.
Here's
a link to the Facebook page of Cave Hill, just in case you'd like to know more -- and join us!
August 27, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "work happy: what great bosses know", Barbados, Cave Hill School of Business, leadership
You are looking at the Portuguese edition of "Work Happy: What Great Bosses Know," which will be released next week in Brazil. Translated, the new title of the book is "How to Be a Great Boss." It's direct and straightforward, isn't it?
The cover copy says: "How to get the best from your team and create and productive and happy work environment."
I like the idea of making a direct promise like that, because I know the book will truly help managers learn how to work their way to a higher level of performance, one that helps their teams do their best work.
I will be doing some interviews with Brazilian media about the book. Should be interesting! Over the years, I've heard from Brazilian managers who listened to my "What Great Bosses Know" podcasts. But those are in English. Now the advice is available in their native tongue. Just wish I could speak it, too!
August 14, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "Work Happy: What Gret Bosses Know", Brazil, Portuguese
The media world was abuzz today at the announcement that Jeff Bezos, found of Amazon is
purchasing the Washington Post. My faculty colleague Butch Ward (seen here with me in a seminar session) and I teach the topic of change management, and we both emphasize the importance of the leader's communication in times of change.
It shouldn't have surprised us, then, to discover that we both reacted in the same way when we read the memo Bezos sent to the Post staff about the historic news. We were so impressed that we wrote about it for our Institute's website, Poynter.org. Our editor combined them into one column that looks at the effectiveness of Bezos' words and why they are so much better than many management memos.
I wrote:
When I’m teaching about leadership and change, one of the key change “accelerators” I invoke is communication. It’s a skill that many managers — even those in media — take for granted. At a time when emotions and uncertainty are high, when people are learning new things and letting go of the old, when people on the outside are questioning and the people on the inside want to believe they know the right answers — they turn to their leaders.
Too often, they get management-speak that’s aimed at boardrooms, not boiler rooms, and certainly not to newsrooms filled with people who write for a living and know fluff when they read it.
Butch wrote:
I don’t know what lies in store for The Washington Post. Maybe one day journalists will be quoting this memo for stories about failed strategies. But for today, it stands as an example of what to say when you want a room filled with nervous employees to believe.
To see the Bezos memo -- and my paragraph by paragraph critique,
just click on this link.
August 5, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "work happy: what great bosses know", "work happy", communication, Jeff Bezos, leadership, Washington Post
It's always a delight to see this on iTunes U. Once again this week, the "What Great Bosses Know" podcasts are ranked #1 among the many wonderful educational collections on the site.
We began posting the podcasts in 2010. It was the popularity of these brief, practical audio lessons that led to the book contract for "WORK HAPPY: WHAT GREAT BOSSES KNOW."
As of today, there are 129 different topics in the collection. According to the statistics provided by the site, most people use their phones or iPads to download them. When I wrote the book, I tried to use the same tone I bring to the podcasts. Leadership shouldn't be a lecture when it can be a conversation.
If you'd like to download the "What Great Bosses Know" podcasts, just click on this link.
And if you have topics you'd like me to cover in future podcasts, feel free to send your ideas my way!
June 30, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "top collection", "What great bosses know", "work happy: what great bosses know", iTunes U, podcast
One of the most important and underutilized management tools is feedback. That's why I devote several chapters of "WORK HAPPY: WHAT GREAT BOSSES KNOW" to feedback of all varieties and how to deliver it.
I define feedback as:
Information with Intent to Influence
Just think about all the things feedback can influence: productivity, quality, motivation, morale, team-building, relationships, and risk-taking. When you consider that, it's a shame employees say time and again that they're hungry for feedback but fail to get it.
In a column and podcast today for Poynter.org, I share advice on how to close the feedback gap. Just click on this link -- and feel free to send me YOUR feedback! -- Jill
June 24, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "work happy: what great bosses know", feedback, leadership, management, managers, poynter
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel just published a
special section focused on strong and healthy workplaces in southeastern Wisconsin. There are clear distinguishing qualities that set the best apart.
To help identify and illustrate the leadership aspects of great workplaces, the editors asked me to take part in a Q & A, based on many of the lessons in "WORK HAPPY: WHAT GREAT BOSSES KNOW." Since it's my hometown paper, you can imagine how happy I was to oblige:
The interviewer asks:
Q: In your book, you talk of the five "symptoms" of a healthy workplace culture. What are they, and what makes them healthy?
A: In a healthy workplace culture:
Employees know it's not a democracy, but their voices matter. When employees feel they can offer ideas and be heard, they are happier at work - even if they don't get to make all the final decisions.
For the the rest of the symptoms and many more tips, here's a
link to the "Top Workplaces" special section.
May 17, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "Milwaukee Journal Sentinel", "What great bosses know", "work happy: what great bosses know", workplaces
I'm in Washington, DC this week, teaching workshops at NPR. Folks here have just moved into a beautiful new building. It's not just a state-of-the-art workspace. It's also designed to bring many creative people together for better opportunities to think and collaborate.
That's important here, for sure, because public radio is built on ideas. But every good organization wants to capture and cultivate good proposals, plans, thoughts, suggestions. It works best when leaders understand how to cultivate great ideas. How to make it easy and effective to pitch, catch and coach them.
In preparation for the teaching, I immersed myself in a good amount of literature about brainstorming, collaboration and innovation. I turned that into a column and podcast for Poynter.org, titled "
Don't Be an Idea Killer: Ten Tips for Cultivating Good Ideas."
Here's how I begin:
Some of our best ideas come when we’re taking a break from concentration. At least, that’s what recent research says. Since the concept for this column coalesced while I was sweating my way through a Zumba class, I’m prepared to believe it.
I’d been doing a lot of reading about the cultivation of ideas — especially the leader’s role in brainstorming, creativity and innovation. I collected insights and advice from all sorts of experts to use in my teaching. I wanted to craft a column, too, but kept debating with myself about the framing.
Not surprisingly, my breakthrough came when I stopped fretting and shifted my focus to enjoying some music and keeping pace with the class leader.
And here's a link to the full column and all ten tips.
May 15, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "What great bosses know", "work happy: what great bosses know", brainstorming, ideas, leadership, management, success, teams
This website has a newer, cleaner look. Hope you like it. I'm in great debt to this little fellow for the updated style and format:
Future online marketing genius at work - 1994.
That's actually a 1994 photo of my youngest son, Mac. We don't recall why he chose that particular outfit, but it's quite memorable, isn't it? (So memorable, in fact, that the
photo went viral when he recently posted it on the web.)
He dresses better now and is about to complete his international MBA at the University of Denver.
Mac also happens to specialize in online marketing. He persuaded me that it was time to update the look of the site. Then he set about doing it!
Mac also spent time teaching me the nuances of the new site so I can easily feature more photos, videos, even podcasts. Always nice when the teacher becomes a learner!
April 28, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "What great bosses know", "work happy: what great bosses know", leadership, management
Welcome to the Aarhus studios and offices of DR - Danish Broadcasting.
On a Friday morning in April, I spent the day there to teach about leadership and success. To say I was welcomed would be an understatement. Take a look at the front door! That poster, announcing my morning talk to the full staff, was not only there, but everywhere around the building.
I had been asked to talk to DR employees about a successful, creative and competitive workplace, with both the joys and the demands it places on people. In fact, the talk was titled "Surviving Success." The shot below is from the back of the gathering. I'm that tiny spot in the front right corner.
Fortunately, English is a second (or third or fourth!) language for many Danes, because my Danish is quite limited. It's so limited, I told the group, that I knew only a few Danish words: "tusen takk" -- which means "thank you very much" and "velkommen," which is "welcome." But for this day, I had learned a new and very powerful Danish word. Here it is:
Arbejdsglæde
It is the Danish word for "happiness at work." Isn't it interesting that there's no one-word equivalent for it in English? We talk about motivation, or job satisfaction, but arbejdsglæde means more than that. It means the workplace is a great place and people look forward to coming to work. Great bosses guiding great employees create that culture of arbejdsglæde.
The DR staff applauded my attempt to pronounce the word. (Sounds like "ah-BITES-glay-the") Later that day, I applauded their managers for their focus on leadership, during our daylong workshop.
These are the top leaders of various aspects of DR's news and information programming. We talked about their values and how values lead to the choices they make every day as leaders. We focused on communication, collaboration and the development of successful and happy staff.
As you can tell from the extra care DR took to emphasize the positive, right down to putting an image of "WORK HAPPY: WHAT GREAT BOSSES KNOW" on the manager's name cards, the word "arbejdsglæde" might have been new to me, but it's in the leadership lexicon of this team.
April 28, 2013
"Jill Geisler", "What great bosses know", "work happy: what great bosses know", "work happy", Denmark, leadership, management, success, teams
