Subscribe to the Three Star Leadership Blog

The Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check Wally's Three Star Leadership Letter

Find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.

Find out more about Wally's coaching services.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an interview with Jim Harter of Gallup. The headline is: "How to Motivate Workers in Tough Times."

Let's be clear about the basics. No manager, no matter how good, tough times or not, motivates another human being.

The best you can do as a boss is to use what you say and do to influence the behavior and performance of people who work for you. But they still decide whether to give you discretionary effort, or not.

Beyond the obvious nonsense about motivation, this article was troubling on two counts. First, for the things it left out and second for the attitude it implied about people.

There's no mention here of talking to people about how the company is going to weather the downturn. There's a lot of talk about one-way communication, like setting expectations, but that's not enough.

People want to know if they're likely to lose their jobs. As long as they're worried about that, it will be what they think about and talk about.

There's also no mention of involving team members in coming up with solutions that might help the company survive the downturn and come out stronger. Surely by now we've learned that not all the brains in the company reside in the c-suite.

The article seems to assume that "workers" are interchangeable parts. But, in today's workplace people and their knowledge and their relationships are a prime source of competitive advantage.

This article talks about the people who work for you as if they're not much more than units of production that need to be manipulated. That's not only wrong. It's also bad business.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

Request your free copy of "Meeting the Challenges of the Boomer Brain Drain: An integrated approach."

Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.