Corporate Culture - All Posts - Ze'ev Ronen - Business Excellence

My young daughters, who will soon turn ten, often use a phone app called music.ly, filming themselves in a clip with a song in the background. When I asked them one day how they synchronize separate clips of each person onto the same screen, they looked at me in disdain – a look reserved for someone who is generations behind the technological times…

I often hear the claim that salary is the key to employee motivation. Every time, I ask whoever said it - what makes their work interesting? Why do they stay long hours after work even though they aren't getting paid for extra time? The answers are usually in the range of "my responsibility", "I'm significant", or "people listen to me". "And where is it expressed in your salary?" I ask. Here is where the conversation usually ends. I'm under no illusion that I've convinced my companion, although perhaps sometimes I have. Let's talk about the real factors that generate motivation and interest in work for everyone.

Last spring, we found a tiny, abandoned kitten and named him Richard. Our dog adopted him as her own and the children plied him with milk from a small bottle. Richard the kitten grew quickly and ate whatever he wanted, and to this day, he's the only cat who comes into the house to find food always at hand.

You know that saying that a lot of CEO's repeat, "My door is always open to my employees" ? When I was a CEO, I, too, thought my door was always open to my employees, but was that really true? Not necessarily.

This is the first chapter from my new book: Manage! Best Value Practices for Effective Management. The purpose of this book is to provide a fresh look on how you can improve business results by making your company matter to your employees.

Many CEO's have attained their management positions without any training or preparation. Almost all the direct managers of employees that I have met (work managers, department managers, line managers, etc.) were promoted to their positions because they were good employees.

Once I came to a small company whose employee turnover was extremely high. Few employees would stay for more than a few weeks before leaving. The CEO would shout at his employees for any minor transgression. I asked him why, and he said they needed to learn (usually they learned that it would be best for them to leave).

Every morning, my dog, Merry, takes me for a walk. No, I'm not confused – Merry likes to go for a walk by herself as well, but in the morning, before I go to work, she likes us to go out together. She waits by the door until I attach each of us to one end of the leash and then, when we go out, she decides on the route and the amount of time.

Sometimes it seems to me that CEO's are afraid to confront management members who are not maintaining objectives. Instead of demanding a plan of action to attain the objective, the CEO herself explains to herself why they haven't attained their sales, production or other objectives.

In a discussion that I held with 30 managers at one of the companies, the subject of motivation arose, as always. I asked the participants what affects motivation. At this stage, people usually say "money, salary".
This time, perhaps because of the group's heterogeneity, or the participation of the CEO, all was quiet. After a few moments, Ortal quietly said, "Appreciation."

I will now dare to make an unpopular statement, and move some of the responsibility for low salaries onto the shoulders of women themselves. The reason for this is that it takes two to tango. It isn't enough that the systems that are mostly controlled by men will offer less, but you also need someone who is willing to accept this lesser sum and make do.

More than a few companies have begun to implement the 5S method on a high scale, even attaining excellent results, and after a certain amount of time, the excitement fades, we stop maintaining and promoting the improvement and the achievements disappear.

Many companies wish to improve their performance and seek strategic advice as well as marketing or organizational development strategies, and when they receive advice, opposition emerges throughout the organization and ultimately this advice remains untouched in a book.

In one of the plants where I worked, when employees would approach the Team Manager with new ideas he'd say: "You be quiet, they brought me here to think and you to work".  This statement, which is definitely extreme, has resurfaced, turning up in various guises in many different places.

The purpose of this study was to examine the degree to which work-related factors may account for the variance in employee substance abuse in a typical, Israeli manufacturing firm.

Thirteen important management principles to build a growing company and generate profit: A lecture in Prof. Dov Zohar’s seminar for MBA course at The Technion, Israel Institute of Technology.