Musketeers, Baby Steps and Employee Motivation

Over the last week, I’ve published some guest articles I’d like to bring to your attention, out of the daily additions I do to the Superperformance.com site:

In “Winning at Working: The Musketeer Approach,” you learn why it is necessary to build a support network of trusted colleagues to get you through the hard times at work.  This is a different consideration from a career-building network, although the networks may overlap.  And how important it is for all in the group to “be there” for one another.  It’s not enough to acquire casual friends in the workplace.  You need folks who can really back you up.

“Behold — The Mighty Baby Step!” is a reminder of how powerful you become when you step out of “overwhelm” by breaking down big jobs into easier-to-handle pieces (or smaller chunks of time) and then persisting at the small stuff until it’s done.

“Motivating Employees: You’re Kidding, Right” is one coach’s response to the idea of employee motivation.  Much depends upon what you mean by “motivating,” but more often than not, when management wants motivation, they mean a system or set of practical techniques that will apply in general.  The consideration of individual differences in motivation makes generalizations very difficult.  While there are some “universal” motivators, it is challenging to make practical tools and methods from them that apply to any particular workplace.  The best that psychologists,  coaches and consultants can really do is teach the principles of motivation and self-motivation, give some typical examples, and let folks try to figure out for themselves what applies to each individual worker.  If it were easy to break down motivations into techniques, I’d be making millions using “motivation” to get customers to buy whatever I wanted to market.

Over the last week, I’ve published some guest articles I’d like to bring to your attention, out of the daily additions I do to the Superperformance.com site:
In “Winning at Working: The Musketeer Approach,” you learn why it is necessary to build a support network of trusted colleagues to get you through the hard times at [...]

Get A Job With The Largest Employer In The USA

In my article Get A Job With The Largest Employer In The USA, I go over the latest, most relevant statistics for the largest employer group — small business — and why it’s the best resource for jobs or creating your own job. With the state of today’s employment picture and the recent trend of “jobless economic recovery” we’ve seen in the ups and downs over the last twenty years or more, it has become obvious that big business and government don’t help the unemployed get back to work.

Massive layoffs are not recent trends. Widespread underemployment and permanent unemployment (people over 40 get laid off and never find another job) have been highly visible problems for a least a couple of decades. Much of it is not from the current economic crisis but from the long term effects of job obsolescence (e.g. typesetters for newspapers) and outsourcing of jobs to other countries. Add that to the reluctance of business to provide on the job training and the constant downsizing in public education and training and you get lots of folks with no jobs.

If you’ve got a skill or set of skills that are valuable and sales worthy, it’s time to think of going into business for yourself or finding a job with a small business that needs you. Small businesses represent 99.7 percent of private sector employers. They need trained or trainable employees who will start small with them and grow. Go get a job in the small business sector, or create your own job by employing yourself. Don’t wait for big business or government to help you. It’s not happening.

In my article Get A Job With The Largest Employer In The USA, I go over the latest, most relevant statistics for the largest employer group — small business — and why it’s the best resource for jobs or creating your own job. With the state of today’s employment picture and the recent trend [...]

Best Sites For Submitting Informational, Instructional And How-To Videos

Savvy internet marketers have been using videos for a while now to get traffic to come to their sites. And content publishers have also discovered the popularity of videos to attract attention and keep their sites “sticky.”

If you’ve joined the multimedia revolution and you have “serious” content that needs a better targeted audience than YouTube and others catering to an impossibly large variety of tastes, you need to check out the venues in my article Best Sites For Submitting Informational, Instructional And How-To Videos.

It’s more than a list of sites to which you can submit your media; it’s got descriptions of each site that help you select the best fit for you. Saves you a bunch of time looking for who does what. There are more sites than I list, but I spent hours exploring most of them and finding the ones of highest quality.

Savvy internet marketers have been using videos for a while now to get traffic to come to their sites. And content publishers have also discovered the popularity of videos to attract attention and keep their sites “sticky.”
If you’ve joined the multimedia revolution and you have “serious” content that needs a better targeted audience than [...]

Mastermind groups, Staying Motivated and Business Owner Success

My three favorite guest articles from the past week are:

•How to Start and Run Your Own Mastermind Group by Stephanie Chandler. The introduction of the Mastermind Group concept has long been attributed to Napoleon Hill from his book, “Think and Grow Rich.” But brainstorming groups have been known for centuries and the concept of the Mastermind Group is only a bit more focused. Nevertheless, Ms. Chandler does an excellent job of describing the who, what, where, when, how and why of these very useful meetings in a succinct fashion. It’s a guidebook in less than two printed pages. Print out a copy for yourself. Handy tool.

•In 3 Ways To Stay Motivated When Life Gets In The Way Of Your Career Change, Annemarie Segaric explains how to deal when Murphy’s Law inevitably throws obstacles in the way of your plans to do some serious good for your career.

•The Four Secrets of a Successful Business Owner by Peter McLean offers tried and true advice on the underpinnings of a workable, high-performing small business. Another article worth printing out as a reminder of why you want to be in business.

Remember than I post a new article — my own or a guest article — daily to superperformance.com. Go to the home page for a list and descriptions of all articles posted during the last 30 days. Or visit the articles directory page for a list of over 1300 articles published on superperformance.com

My three favorite guest articles from the past week are:
•How to Start and Run Your Own Mastermind Group by Stephanie Chandler. The introduction of the Mastermind Group concept has long been attributed to Napoleon Hill from his book, “Think and Grow Rich.” But brainstorming groups have been known for centuries and the concept [...]

Small business marketing

The last three days, I’ve published some helpful guest articles for small business online marketing.  If you want your marketing efforts to produce more and better results, count on these basics to help.
How to Use Facebook for Business: Social Networking 101 for Entrepreneurs, Authors and Speakers covers the reasons why you want to be involved in social marketing and how to make it work on Facebook in particular.  Stephanie Chandler manages to tell you everything you really need to know, but makes it brief and to the point.  An excellent starter for those of you who haven’t yet taken advantage of Facebook for business.

In Get Your Marketing Mojo Working For You, Laura West explains the importance of “moving” or creating an emotional spark in your “audience.”  If you give people a reason to care and you approach them with the messages and in the media most compatible with your own style, you’ve got a formula that attracts attention.

Top 10 Ways To Get More Subscribers To Your Ezine reminds you that the old basics of building a contact list are stay relevant and workable.  Jim Allen wrote this in 2001 and it’s still fresh.  It still works.  And you still need to know it and do it.

The last three days, I’ve published some helpful guest articles for small business online marketing.  If you want your marketing efforts to produce more and better results, count on these basics to help.
How to Use Facebook for Business: Social Networking 101 for Entrepreneurs, Authors and Speakers covers the reasons why you want to be involved [...]

Happiness at Work Video

As a follow-up to my article on being happy at work, I thought I’d share the following video with you that I found on videojug.com:

Finding Happiness:
How To Be Happy At Work

As a follow-up to my article on being happy at work, I thought I’d share the following video with you that I found on videojug.com:
Finding Happiness: How To Be Happy At Work

Dealing with fear of job loss

I just published a guest article about how workplace attitudes and behaviors change under the pressure of downsizing and layoffs. In an era when job loss is a widespread as today, the need to manage the resulting fear and paranoia is urgent. See the article “When the Watering Hole Shrinks, the Animals Look at Each Other Differently” by Rhoberta Shaler, PhD.

I just published a guest article about how workplace attitudes and behaviors change under the pressure of downsizing and layoffs. In an era when job loss is a widespread as today, the need to manage the resulting fear and paranoia is urgent. See the article “When the Watering Hole Shrinks, the Animals Look at [...]

Happiness At Work, The I in Team and an articles update

Today, I used a crossover concept from my positive psychology blog, Everydaydelight.com and wrote a bit about what makes us happy at work.  Read the article here.

Yesterday, I had something to say about the admonition “There’s no “I” in Team.”  I was going to have a bit of rant about it here, but decided that something more calm and educational was in order.  Personally I think there are plenty of “I’s” in a good team.  Read the article here.

And below is a list of the articles I published on superperformance.com over the past week.  Just in case you follow the updates here instead of visiting the site for the daily article publication.

Today, I used a crossover concept from my positive psychology blog, Everydaydelight.com and wrote a bit about what makes us happy at work.  Read the article here.
Yesterday, I had something to say about the admonition “There’s no “I” in Team.”  I was going to have a bit of rant about it here, but decided that [...]