"In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time - none, zero.  You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads - and at how much I read.  My children laugh at me.  They think I’m a book with a couple legs sticking out."

From Poor Charlie’s Almanack (2005), a compilation of the wit and wisdom of Charles T. Munger, long-time partner of Warren Buffet.

In The Source of Leadership, I suggest::

In The Source of Leadership, I suggest::

Dr. Jim Loehr, author of the excellent book The Power of Full Engagement,  offers the following tips for encouraging job satisfaction, based on findings from inventory data:



1. Build employees’ competence and self-confidence through training, feedback and recognition. “There is a very close relationship between high job satisfaction and feelings of effectiveness on the job,” says Dr. Loehr. “Encouragement of genuine self-confidence is probably the number one way to achieve higher job satisfaction.”



2. Communicate the value of the organization’s products and services, and the role the organization plays in the marketplaces where it operates. “People with high job satisfaction also report an extraordinarily high sense of mission, vision and passion for their work,” says Loehr. “They feel their work is consistent with their values. They couldn’t achieve that feeling if their employers didn’t enable them to get meaningful insight about the value they provide to customers,” says Loehr.



3. Encourage and reward thoughtful risk-taking. “People with high job satisfaction also score high on the desire to try novel approaches, face challenges and perform problem-solving both individually and in groups,” says Loehr. “They appear to have an appetite for mission-driven change. They also rate themselves very high on perseverance.”



4. Encourage positive workplace relations. “People who are highly satisfied in their jobs report good feelings about their bosses, peers and coworkers,” says Loehr. “Their feelings of opportunity are elevated, and they perceive a low hassle-factor.”



5. Encourage meaningful rest breaks and light diversion. “High job satisfaction correlates strongly with the feeling of having fun at work,” says Dr. Loehr. “Highly satisfied individuals also report that they find it easy to wake in the morning, and that their sleep is deep and restful.” He adds, “This is consistent with our thirty years of research on world-class athletes. Top performers in every field know how to enhance performance through rest and recovery.”

As life-long employment fades and the workforce becomes increasingly mobile, many companies look to hire skilled, experienced workers to improve productivity quickly. Those workers, however, often bring baggage from prior jobs that can negate the benefits of their prior experience, according to new Wharton research.

Companies might be better off investing in training fresh recruits with little experience in an industry so the companies can have more control over how the new workers adapt to their new employer’s corporate strategy and culture. The research found that training may be more productive than paying a premium to hire experienced workers who might come from a different sort of corporate environment.

In his masterpiece, The Tao of Leadership, John Heider says:

"Too much force will backfire. Constant interven­tions and instigations will not make a good group. They will spoil a group. The best group process is delicate. It cannot be pushed around. It cannot be argued over or won in a fight.  The leader who tries to control the group through force does not understand group process. Force will cost you the support of the members. Leaders who push think that they are facilitating pro­cess, when in fact they are blocking process. They think that they are building a good group field, when in fact they are destroying its coherence and creat­ing factions. They think that their constant interventions are a mea­sure of ability, when in fact such interventions are crude and inappropriate. They think that their leadership position gives them absolute authority, when in fact their behavior dimin­ishes respect. The wise leader stays centered and grounded and uses the least force required to act effectively.  The leader avoids egocentricity and emphasizes being rather than doing."

I have a number of clients who struggle with employees in the Gen X (born between 1965 and about 1980) and Gen Y (born between about 1980 and the early 1990s) generations. My advice: learn everything you can about them, empathize with them, learn how to appreciate them, and learn how to access their generous qualities. They come from a completely different mindset from those of us in the Baby Boomer generation. It is nonsensical to judge them. They are neither worse nor better than us; they are simply different. And it is even more nonsensical to dismiss them.   Like them or not, they are part of our world, indeed part of us. Where to start? Wikipedia is always a good place nowadays (Gen X and Gen Y).

(By the way, I also have a number of clients who will take Gen X’ers and Gen Y’ers over ’Boomers all day long, and are doing quite well.  Without exception, they are the ones who took the time to get to know them.)   

In an August 25, 2008 Business Week article, Robert Sutton, professor of management at Stanford and author of The No Asshole Rule, cites the scientifically proven phenomenon that leaders are prone to becoming jerks. Specifically, three things happen when people are put into positions of power: (1) they focus more on satisfying their own needs; (2) they focus less on the needs of underlings; and (3) they act like the rules others are expected to follow don’t apply to them. How do you protect against this? Make sure you have a network of mentors or advisors who will tell you the unvarnished truth about yourself. It helps to have a couple teenage kids, also!