"How many of you are completely comfortable with calling yourselves a leader?" It's the question Drew Dudley, founder of Nuance Leadership Development Services asks in his powerful TEDxToronto Talk below. Indeed, the subject of leadership raises many issues and questions—among them: What does it take to be a good leader? What the the key attributes of effective leaders? Are leaders born or made?

We're hosting a short survey on leadership in the workplace, and would love to hear your thoughts. It takes just about 10 min. and you'll be entered to win some excellent prizes.

First Prize: A complimentary seat in our upcoming leadership program ($1,250 value) and a copy of David Sibbet's latest book, Visual Leaders: New Tools for Visioning, Management, and Organization Change.

Second Prize: A complimentary, one-year individual membership ($120 value, includes 12 workshops) and a copy of Visual Leaders.

Third Prize: A Kindle Fire Tablet, 7" LCD Display, Wi-Fi (value $159), and a copy of Visual Leaders.

Fourth Prize: A copy of the Accomplishing More With Less Workbook and a copy of Visual Leaders.

Click here to take the survey now:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/leadership-today. And please feel free to share, email, and tweet it with your colleagues.

We'll be publishing the results of our survey and findings in the coming months, so stay tuned for further updates. The final prize drawing will take place when we reach 1,000 participants; winners will be announced at one of our upcoming free Lunch & Learn Webinars, and will also be notified via email.

By Jennifer Weland

It’s no secret that exercise is good for your health. Building a habit of regular exercise into your life is a key part of managing your weight and keeping your heart, lungs, and other bodily systems in tip-top shape. But it can also dramatically impact your life in so many ways, helping you perform better at your job and enjoy life more outside of work.

Moving more not only helps you accomplish more, here's why it’s also critical to being your best at work and in life: From making you more productive, to boosting energy and stamina, to spurring creative thinking, to elevating your mood and even helping you sleep better—moving more each day can dramatically help you live and work better. 

With all of these benefits, you’d think everyone would be exercising all the time, right? Unfortunately, no. We’re now more sedentary than ever.

• Less than 2 in 10 Americans gets even the bare minimum amount of activity each week recommended by the American Heart Association.

• Even worse, 40% of Americans say they never exercise.

• We’re awake about 16 hours each day. But according to the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sport, our muscles are inactive most of that time—even for those of us who exercise!

How is that even possible?

Take a second to think about your average day. After rushing out the door, you sit in the car or on mass transit on the way to work. At work, you sit at your desk. Or you sit in a series of endless meetings. On the way home, you sit some more. And when you get home? It’s couch time. Then you go to bed. It’s easy, then, to see how your muscles could be inactive for most of the day.

Plus, I’m betting exercise consistently slips down the priority list when you look at your packed schedule. The same is true for so many of us. Not only are we not getting all of the benefits of regular exercise, but we’re actually harming our health by sitting so much.

The good news is all is not lost. You can reverse the affects of “sitting disease.” And you can reap all of the benefits that regular exercise delivers. I’ll tell you how during my Move More to Accomplish More webinar. Here’s just some of what you’ll walk away with:

• How your body adapts to exercise

• The very real health benefits of exercise and other surprising benefits

• How much and what kind of exercise you need to reap the health and other benefits

• Tips to move more throughout the day and reverse the affects of sitting disease.

Check out my blog for more healthy tips, recipes, and workouts you can do anywhere.

Additional Resources

• Move More to Accomplish More

• Eat Well to Accomplish More

• Stress Management

Don't miss our free Lunch & Learn Webinar, The Power of Three—How to Distill Your Message to Its Essence with acclaimed author of Beyond Bullet Points, Cliff Atkinson, on Thursday, May 2 at noon PT. Register now for the complimentary webinar!

The Art of Storytelling at a Glance:

1. Be authentic.

2. Know your audience. Be interested in them, rather than just focusing on being interesting

3. Have a clear goal.

4. Be interactive. Listen as a storyteller. Engage in a dialogue with your audience.

5. Create an emotional component along with the information in order to make it memorable.

What are your tips, strategies, and suggestions when writing your marketing and communications message? Do you use the art of storytelling in your presentations, sales copy, and other content?

Attend The Power of Three—How to Distill Your Message to Its Essence, our free Lunch & Learn Webinar on Thursday, May 2 from noon to 12:40 PT. Reserve your webinar seat now!

Additional Resources

• How To Write Attention-Grabbing Content

• Business Writing for Success

• Writing to Make a Difference

• Creativity and Innovation

Take advantage of our Wellness Webinars Special this June & July! Only $19.95 for 3 webinars--Movement, Nutrition, and Stress Management.

By Claire Cohn

Approximately 1 in 4 employees say their top work priority is just being present at work. These employees who admit that simply showing up is #1 are at high risk for job burnout. 

Why is this so?

Prolonged employee stress due to increasingly demanding workloads (with fewer new hires and limited career ladders) causes burnout and reduced productivity. One person is often doing the work of two and probably without support staff. The actual state of burnout isn’t just a bad day or a bad week—it’s when an employee is so consumed with symptoms (i.e. headaches, nausea, neck or back pain, anxiety) that they can’t function. It can sneak up on the best performers who might be workaholics also.  

In addition to accumulating workloads, employees may be unhappy or dissatisfied with their job. Perhaps the absence of a career ladder is demotivating for younger employees, and they are bored and stuck in a dead-end job.  

So how do wellness programs address the above burnout issues primarily related to workplace stress? Below are five steps to establish a healthier workplace and happier employees.  

Five Easy Action Steps 

1. Put Health First. Onsite wellness programs check vital metabolic signs and assess lifestyle behaviors that could be depleting job performance, for example:  abuse of alcohol or substances, poor eating habits, no exercise program, lack of social life.

2. Create Resilience. Exercise is the quickest way to feel better and build resilience. Building a resilient workforce will counter chronic illness such as migraines, back pain, and digestive problems. Many people suffer from sleep disorders or find it difficult to concentrate on work.

3. Apply the Mind and Body Connection to wellness. Wellness practices that build resilience also improve mental health. Employees who set goals for weight reduction, exercise or diet are taking control of their lives and creating a healthy worklife balance. Mind-Body tools such as relaxation skills, mindful meditation and Qi Gong movement also reduce mental stress. 

4. Provide Socializing Activities within employee groups and teams.  Games and playfulness in the workplace decreases feelings of isolation.  At Search Engine People, an Ontario company, the CEO said, “we need our people to be healthy, be happy—if you’re not happy, you won’t be able to take care of customers.” The CEO initiated ping-pong challenges in a game room useable any time of the day. The challenges break up the isolation, create camaraderie, and prevent sitting too long at computer stations—and are, not to mention, FUN.

5. Adopt Regular Alone Times. Individuals need to practice taking breaks to energize and rejuvenate during the workday. The time-out practice could be walking 20 minutes or taking 10 minutes of relaxation sitting outside and breathing fresh air.

What do you do to prevent burnout at work? Please share your comments below.

Claire Cohn, owner of On Your Feet Wellness, is a health and wellness expert with over 20 years of experience as an organization consultant, movement therapist, and health educator.

Additional Resources

• Stress Management

• Eat Well to Accomplish More

• Accomplishing More With Less

By Eve Porcello

Eve will be presenting at our complimentary Lunch & Learn Webinar, Getting Started with Office 2013 and 365, Thursday, April 4 at noon PT. Register now for the free webinar!

With the release of the new Windows 8 operating system and the nonstop commercials for the Microsoft Surface tablet, Microsoft is making an aggressive bid to remain relevant in the increasingly complicated landscape of personal computing. Part of this push is the release of Office 2013, the latest version of the familiar Microsoft Office Suite. Each of the applications included have been through a major design overhaul, and all include a variety of new features that make them especially compatible with touch-friendly Windows 8.

But even with all of these changes, is it really worth it to upgrade to Office 2013? Below we’ll take a look at the key features that make an upgrade a compelling idea.

Cloud Compatibility

With Office 2013, Microsoft has made it possible to store and sync all of your documents across all of your Windows devices, so they can be accessed from anywhere.  All you need to do is save documents to your SkyDrive, and you can open and edit these from any of your Microsoft devices. Never again will you have to email yourself a document or risk having your work stuck on a faraway computer. Office 2013 is designed to cater more toward our connected world.

Rich Media Features

Throughout the suite of Microsoft Office 2013 products, there are a variety of new rich media options to make your documents, presentations, and other files more interactive and engaging. For example in PowerPoint, you can find and add photos from albums on Flickr, Facebook, and other online services without saving to your computer.

PDF to Word Doc Capabilities

Have you ever had to type out an entire PDF document because you needed to be able to edit it in Microsoft Word? In Office 2013, you’ll never have to suffer through this again. Word now does a great job of converting PDF files to Word format.

Flexible Pricing and Delivery

As is the case with most software nowadays, installing the software is as easy as a download. All versions of the new Microsoft Office are available via download instead of with clunky software installation disks. Versions include Office Home and Student ($139.99), Office Home and Business ($219.99), and Office Professional ($399.99).

In addition, Microsoft has offered Office 365 as a productivity and word processing option. Office 365 provides all of the Office Suite as apps and is purchased as a subscription of $99.99 a year. This option includes all of the Office apps and comes with 60 minutes of Skype calls per month.

What do you think about the upgrade? Share your thoughts below!

If you’d like more information on the features of Microsoft Office 2013 and 365 before you take the plunge, join us for our free Lunch & Learn Webinar on April 4 from noon to 12:40 PT. Reserve your webinar seat now!

Additional Resources

• Microsoft Office 365/2013 Crash Course

• Microsoft Office 2010 Tips & Tricks Crash Course, PC and Mac

By Melissa Sweat, Online Community Manager

Change. Why is it so hard? How can we make effective, lasting changes in our organizations, lives, and communities when change itself seems so overwhelming and monumental? How do you even start? In the New York Times bestselling book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, authors Chip Heath and Dan Heath provide refreshingly new perspectives on change in a vivid and practical narrative, while deconstructing the various barriers and how to surmount them.

I’ve summarized the first chapter to help illuminate the authors’ change-inspiring findings and jumpstart your “switch”:

The first surprise about change? “What looks like a people problem is often a situation problem.” As an example, the authors cite a study where people at a movie theater ate more popcorn out of bigger containers than smaller ones. People vs. Situation. If you want to get people to make a healthier choice with their popcorn eating, then the answer is simple:  provide smaller containers. Identifying where changes can be made situationally can create profound and effective results.

In order to adopt change, we also need to understand, guide, influence, and attend to our hearts and minds. This can be difficult when head and heart so often disagree. To further explain this dichotomy, the authors refer to a book called The Happiness Hypothesis in which our emotional side is described as an Elephant and our rational side as the Rider. The Rider is the leader and has some ability to control and guide, but the Elephant is far stronger and, if provoked, tired, worn out, or scared, is always going to overpower the Rider.

Both Elephant and Rider have their strengths and weaknesses. The Elephant seeks short-term payoff, while the Rider can see goals for the long-term. The Elephant, meanwhile, has the power of emotions: love, compassion, loyalty, sympathy, ferocity—aspects that are going to commit and motivate ourselves toward lasting change. These are furthermore the things that connect us with other people and can make a compelling case for ourselves, company, brand, point-of-view etc. To drive change, you need the work, energy, and heart of the Elephant.

While the Rider is a decision-maker and a good guide, she can also overanalyze, which can be a paralyzing hindrance to change, as well. So you have to appeal to both and have Rider and Elephant move together. As the authors say, “A reluctant Elephant and a wheel-spinning Rider can both ensure that nothing changes.”

The second surprise about change: “Change is hard because people wear themselves out.”

Again, you can avoid wearing yourself, team members, or employees out by appealing to Rider and Elephant. You do this by providing crystal clear direction to both—which is the third surprise about change.

Here, in short, is the authors’ three-part framework for accomplishing change:
1.    Direct the Rider.
2.    Motivate the Elephant.
3.    Shape and Direct (Clearly) the Path/Situation/Environment/Strategy.

What are some of the challenges you've experienced when trying to make change? What are some effective strategies you've discovered? Share your thoughts below.

For more helpful articles and tips, join our Accomplishing More With Less groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. Follow People-OnTheGo Founder Pierre Khawand on Twitter.

Additional Resources

• The Accomplishing More With Less Workbook

• Accomplishing More With Less Workshop & Webinars

We know you have some strong opinions about leadership in the workplace—so share them with us! Our super-straightforward Leadership Survey takes just about 10 minutes to complete, and for participating, you could win some truly great prizes. Check them out below! The drawing date will be announced in mid-May 2013.

First Prize: A complimentary seat in our upcoming leadership program ($1,250 value) and a copy of David Sibbet's latest book, Visual Leaders: New Tools for Visioning, Management, and Organization Change.

Second Prize: A complimentary, one-year individual membership ($120 value, includes 12 workshops) and a copy of VisualLeaders.

Third Prize: A Kindle Fire Tablet, 7" LCD Display, Wi-Fi (value $159), and a copy of Visual Leaders.

Fourth Prize: A copy of the Accomplishing More With Less Workbook and a copy of Visual Leaders.

Here again is the survey link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/leadership-today.

By Pi Wen Looi, Ph.D.

Dr. Pi Wen Looi and Dr. James Ware will be presenting at our complimentary Lunch & Learn Webinar, Leveraging Mobile Work to Engage Your Employees, Thursday, March 7 at noon PT. Register now for this free information session on the latest remote work findings. 

The recent Yahoo internal memo that requests employees to work in their offices has stirred up quite a lot of discussion on the Internet. And it’s no wonder—most knowledge workers and Gen Y employees are accustomed to the flexibility of working from home sometimes. People are increasingly working on-the-go. The boundaries of office, workspace, home, and third-places are increasingly blurred. Enabled by the latest mobile devices, tablets, and easy access to the Internet, work is more about what you do or accomplish, not where you get it done.

Numerous studies have shown that people working away from their offices are more productive because they are less likely to be interrupted by coworkers who drop by their cubicles, take fewer sick days, and save time on their long commute. These positive results extend to call center employees, as well. People who telecommute are also more satisfied with their work/life balance as they are better able to control their workflow during the day.

So why is Yahoo requiring their employees to return to work in offices?

It is hard to say what’s the ultimate goal of the new policy. Based on discussions on the Internet and blogosphere, it seems that some Yahoo employees have taken advantage of their telecommuting policy and are not performing at their jobs. The memo points to the benefits of having better communication and collaboration when people work side-by-side, and increased insights, speed, and quality when employees work in the same physical locations.

Regardless of the tone of the memo and how it’s communicated with Yahoo employees, let’s take a look at the key issues Yahoo raised:  productivity, communication, and collaboration.

Productivity. By now, many studies have shown that doing work remotely or telecommuting does, in fact, increase workers’ productivity. The issue at Yahoo seems like a performance issue, not a telecommuting issue. If Yahoo employees abuse their telecommuting policy, it’s imperative that managers/leaders take action to hold employees accountable, recognize their performance, and follow-up with employees who do not perform. Perhaps this new policy is the first step Yahoo leaders are taking to hold employees accountable for their performance.

Communication. While it is true that the serendipity that happens at cafeterias, hallways, or water-coolers can lead to great insights, there are many technologies that facilitate effective communications, from smart-phone to online meeting tools. Regardless of whether you work in the office or in a remote location, there are ways to communicate with coworkers. The key is to ensure that access to the company intranet, relevant technology, and the speed of connection are not barriers to remote workers.

Collaboration. Similar to communication, there are many online collaboration tools that enable employees to work together while they are physically apart. Work is increasingly distributed. For companies that have dispersed geographical locations, it is impossible to require a team of employees to always work side-by-side in a conference room. There are stages of collaboration. Sometimes your team will need to work together to ideate, confirm objectives and strategies. Other times your team members will need to go off to do solo work or have quiet time to think before they get together and collaborate on ideas. Solo work and thinking may best be accomplished while working from home or in a space without constant interruptions.

The bottom line:  remote work is here to stay. It’s the employees’ responsibility to earn trust from their managers, be accountable for their performance, and accomplish what they set out to do. It’s the management’s responsibility to have relevant people practices that facilitate remote work, hold employees accountable, and have clear consequences when employees do not perform. Last but not least, employees should have easy access to the information and resources they need, either in the cloud or on company servers, to enable productive work from anywhere.

What do you think? Is remote work a peril to productivity? How would you address the issues highlighted by the Yahoo memo? Please share your thoughts and comments below.

Join Dr. Looi and Dr. Ware at our free Lunch & Learn Webinar, Thursday, March 7 at noon PT:  Leveraging Mobile Work to Engage Your Employees. Space is limited. Reserve your webinar seat now!

Pi Wen Looi, Ph.D., is the founder and principal of Novacrea Research Consulting. For more information, please visit www.NovacreaResearch.com.

By Melissa Sweat, Online Community Manager

Among the world’s most productive people, Benjamin Franklin still stands as tough competition for the top. This uncannily-industrious Founding Father was not only a politician, but an inventor, musician, printer, postmaster, scientist, author, and—not surprisingly—a chronic journal writer. “What good shall I do this day?” wrote Franklin in the wee morning hours of his “scheme,” where he charted his daily goals and schedule. And at day’s end, he posed another question of reconciliation: “What good have I done today?”

One of the reasons why Franklin was so productive is that he held himself accountable to his goals and ambitions—and his chief method for doing so was the daily journal. Let’s explore four reasons why using a paper journal—yes, paper!—can help accelerate your accomplishments and make you more productive in the digital world.

1. The Power of Paper. “It takes just a few seconds, literally 5 to 10 seconds, to capture an important note in the paper journal,” writes People-OnTheGo Founder Pierre Khawand in his Accomplishing More With Less Workbook. “In the electronic world, it may take that much time, and usually much more, just to get to the application where we capture the information.” A paper journal, in this case, is actually faster and more efficient than an electronic device; it’s quieter, easily portable, and requires no batteries or charge, so it’s always going to be there and ready to use. The paper journal can be inspiring, too, like these handmade, recycled journals from Recover Your Thoughts, and a good change of pace from our digitally-dominated world.

2. Reflecting & Reconciling. Like Ben Franklin’s good example, reflecting on what we intend to accomplish at the start of the day and reconciling what changes have occurred at the end of the day—seeing if goals were met, what needs to followed up on, etc. helps “put a stake in the ground," as Pierre says. This way we cannot avoid or escape our goals and ambitions; the journal holds us accountable on a daily basis.

3. Write it, then let it rest. If we have a sudden burst of inspiration, an idea or strategy to jot down, or some item relating to our daily tasks that needs to be attended to later, the journal allows us to write it down quickly, then get back to the job at hand. Instead of analyzing the importance of that information in the moment, the journal enables us to quickly capture it and gives us the distance to process it at a later time—instead of interrupting our focus.

4. Intend. Affirm. Act. So many times in life and at work, we beging a project only to lose our intention and commitment to follow through with action. Just as we hold ourselves and our goals accountable in a journal on a daily basis, journaling in the long-term helps us keep on the path of our greater mission. If we want to make a change in our lives, journaling about it daily for a week or two can also help bring clarity to the change, and we may find our commitment level increases, as well. We may even discover more insight surrounding this intention than we would have simply by letting our thoughts wander.

In short:  Capture your intentions. Hold yourself accountable. “Dare to journal!” as Pierre encourages. “The results can be beyond your imagination.”

Join our Accomplishing More With Less groups on LinkedIn and Facebook. Follow People-OnTheGo Founder Pierre Khawand on Twitter.

Additional Resources

• The Accomplishing More With Less Workbook

• Accomplishing More With Less Workshop & Webinars
  
  

By Eugene Dilan, Psy.D.

The verdict around employee engagement is in, and there is widespread agreement that an engaged workforce leads to higher retention, higher productivity, better customer satisfaction and yes, better overall sales and profitability. Consequently, there are many ideas about how to best create, optimize, and leverage engagement. These hypotheses range from the simplicity of Paul Marciano’s “RESPECT model” to Sirota’s “3-Factor Theory,” the work of Cathleen Benko in “The Corporate Lattice,” which focuses on the customization of how we build careers, do the actual work, and communicate—and let’s not forget Gallup’s “12 Elements of Great Managing,” among many others. So the critical question is, when it comes to developing powerful employee engagement, which model is the real McCoy?

Unfortunately, there is no be-all and end-all model for optimizing engagement, and part of the reason for this is that individual employees, managers, executives, and organizations are not all alike. The strategies or levers that work with one person or place may simply not work with others. That said, if you look at a cross section of the research and working models, you might notice that some factors appear across all models—though the words used to describe them are all quite different.

I’ve made sense of the top engagement strategies across various models, and have provided them in the list below. The bottom line, however, is that true employee engagement interventions cannot be bought off the shelf and instead require time to assess and understand the specific and unique requirements for success within a specific sector, business, or individual.  We need to move away from thinking of engagement strategies as simplistic tools that once implemented can be forgotten, and instead work to intervene in a more holistic fashion. Here are the 12 key values that will get your organization on the right track to creating a powerful, engaged culture:

1. Engaged leaders and managers. You cannot have engaged employees if your leaders are not engaged.
2. Trust in leadership. Do what you say you are going to do. Make critical decisions based on what’s best for all stakeholders (internal and external).
3. Timely, honest, and consistent two-way communications.
4. Personable relationships with immediate supervisors. Research shows that knowing your immediate supervisor on a more personal level improves engagement.
5. Respectful and collegial relationships with colleagues who are committed to doing great work.
6. Fairness (compensation, workload, during conflicts, etc.)
7. Pride in an organization’s mission, products, or accomplishments.
8. Opportunities for professional/career development (within and across functions) that are appropriately developmentally challenging.
9. Reward/recognition for progress or a job well done—however small. If you do not water the plants they won’t grow.
10. Ability to influence or have some level of self-determination.
11. Flexibility (when, where, and/or how the work gets done).
12. Some level of accommodation to address personal needs as they arise.

To say it more directly, employee engagement is about culture. Culture is about values, leadership capabilities, policies, practices, and behaviors. How does one create a strategic culture? That is a very complicated question that is far beyond the scope of this blog post. However, we can begin by working to assess and understand whether the values and behaviors of our current culture are in fact delivering the performance levels we seek. If not, engaging other stakeholders to explore how the factors listed above can be optimized in the context of your strategy and culture will help.

Remember, Rome was not built in a day and that you need to employ all of the tools in your war chest. Values, leadership capabilities, policies, procedures, communication tools, learning and development, and performance management (including incentives) are all but a few of the many levers that, together, can help you create a coherent and powerful intervention that will move your organization from being mediocre or good to being best in class.

Eugene Dilan, Psy.D., is the founder and president of Dilan Consulting, Inc., and has over 25 years of experience providing direct clinical care and organizational consulting from the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan to healthcare facilities, the aerospace industry, IT, and many more. More information at www.dilanconsulting.com, or contact eugene@dilanconsulting.com.