Can Popcorn Improve the Bottom Line?

In business, when something is working or doing what it is supposed to do, we tend not to look at it. When it breaks, we will fix it. There are more pressing issues to focus on that requires our time and attention.

Take the self-service popcorn machine in the corner of the local pub. It’s been doing its job for many years; maybe decades. It makes popcorn. If the light bulb burns out or the stirring mechanism in the pot stops, you fix it. Although it may have seen better days, its working fine.

Let’s think about it as it is part of a business process.  

Outperform the Market with Purpose

I recently had a discussion with a business owner who challenged the necessity of identifying organizational purpose. From their perspective it was simple; to make money to survive. Business was a necessity to survive life, a means to the end and nothing more.

Making money is a result of doing good business. Purpose is why we are doing business. Organizational purpose is more than a goal that is completed and forgotten. It permeates and defines why we do, how we do, and what we do. When our focus – our purpose – is clear, the organization is aligned, engaged, and can thrive.

Science is increasingly validating what people have known about our individual selves: that purpose is a foundational core. Purpose dramatically affects our longevity and well-being, and it creates drive and passion. We change, our priorities and values shift; confidence grows, dissolves into doubt, returns; relationships evolve, form and reform; we have life milestones and events – all forming the complexity of life.  Our individual purpose is not discovered once and then we are done with it. It is reexamined and discovered at various points throughout life.

Organizational purpose is no different. The business changes, shifts, grows, and adapts; forming the complexity of business. Organizational purpose is the ability to have perspective, awareness, and be conscious of the opportunities and challenges and should be reexamined and evaluated at various points as well.

Propel Growth by Aligning Purpose

There is a renewed model of connection and leadership in business. Some folks do this naturally, and the rest of us require a little bit of practice. For those of us that require some practice, build a shared vision, a business PURPOSE that guides and propels progress. The most effective and remembered leaders of our time, and the most successful companies, will be builders of purpose, which inspire the people both inside and outside the organization.

Geoff McDonald, Global Vice President HR for marketing, communications, sustainability and talent at fast-moving consumer goods company Unilever, suggests that businesses with a clear purpose and that align leadership and infrastructure to realize and support that purpose will be able to create sustainability in the longer term.

Driving Growth or Rejecting Traditional Business

The Millennial generation has captivated academics and the media alike. They have helped shape the direction of technology, how we communicate, the care of the environment, and the popularity of social media. They have helped foster the change in how we educate, well, them and future generations. We have been hearing and reading about this generation for years and today, Deloitte’s third annual Millennial (Generation Y) Survey that explored what this generation wants from business, government, and the future workplace was published.

Besides the interesting tidbits of information that can be gleamed from surveys and reports, why should business leaders be paying close attention to the Millennials? The Millennial generation will have the greatest impact on our economy, and yet many business leaders may not fully understand why or how.

Can We Train Ourselves to Succeed in Relationships?

A theory emerged to describe the basic traits that serve as the building blocks of personality. The "Big Five" Personality Traits, as they are often referred to, are broad categories of personality traits that can be broken down into:

1. Extraversion: characteristics such as excitability, sociability, talkativeness, assertiveness and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.
2. Agreeableness: includes attributes such as trust, altruism, kindness, affection, and other pro-social behaviors.
3. Conscientiousness: include high levels of thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors. Those high in conscientiousness tend to be organized and mindful of details.
4. Neuroticism: Individuals high in this trait tend to experience emotional instability, anxiety, moodiness, irritability, and sadness.
5. Openness: This trait features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests.

The "Big Five" Personality Traits examines the individual differences in people. We can use these differences to identify how someone might perform in certain work environments or tasks.

Engaging Employees to Increase Performance

Dale Carnegie recently teamed with MSW Research to study the functional and emotional elements that affect employee engagement.  In their study, a national representative sample of 1,500 employees was surveyed, which revealed three key drivers:

 • Relationship with immediate supervisor

 • Belief in senior leadership

 • Pride in working for the company

This study and past research has shown, time and again, that employees who are engaged significantly outperform work groups that are not engaged. The study reinforces the idea that in order to create a competitive organization with superior performance, organizations should focus on their employees. It is the people who are in the company that can greatly impact the sustainability, profitability and the long term strength of the organization.