Fun, Games and ESOP Challenges: What’s up with that?
Attend an employee-ownership conference and you’re bound to run into the ESOP zealots who want you to take part in a game or group activity. Even in this era of required social distancing, you may get roped into an interactive Teams event or a Zoom contest. What’s up with this? Click here to read the full article.
Make the Most of ESOP Month
October’s Employee-Ownership Month presents you with a great opportunity to make the most of your most valuable assets: employee owners. Because the coronavirus has made it difficult to hold in-person meetings, this is the time to utilize our virtual services to train employees about your ESOP’s benefits, build your ownership culture and communicate the value of employee ownership. Click here to read the full article.
ESOP Communications: Carpe Diem!
The coronavirus has disrupted American society, business operations and everyone’s personal lives in unimagined ways. This is when you need to seize the day and utilize the power of employee ownership to strengthen your company culture to engage employees as owners -- taking on new challenges with passion and a long-term perspective on business success. Here are five carpe diem keys. Click here to read the full article.
Practicing Employee-Owner Resilience
If you’re experiencing the equivalent of organizational trauma or even just a bit of discomfort change, you may have come face to face with the fact that business resilience does not come automatically with employee ownership. “Like building a muscle, increasing resilience takes time and intentionality.” Click here to read the full article.
2019 ESOP Statements: What Do I Say … and How?
Think about how you distributed ESOP statements last year. Perhaps you held a meeting, sent them by mail, or personally delivered them with high fives and hearty handshakes. Although the face-to-face options may not be possible this year, the need for connection is so much greater now. This is the right time to strengthen your messages about employee ownership and develop different communication approaches for your “new normal.” Click here to read the full article.
Communicating your ESOP in difficult times
Public markets are taking a wild ride and employee owners are curious how the COVID-19 crisis might impact ESOP value. Of course, company leaders don't really know exactly what's on the other side of the next hill. Believe it or not, this "rollercoaster of uncertainty" creates an opportunity to focus employee owners on their business. If you are committed to building a workplace where employees can think and act like owners, you know that apathy can rule.Click here to read the full article.
Feedback On Feedback
“My negative feedback experience happened in high school basketball,” said a leadership coaching session participant. “Our best player got injured and the coach told us that we couldn’t win without her. My friend and I proved him right by deliberately fouling out in the game’s first five minutes.” Destructive criticism like this can lead to “foul outs” in the workplace, too. Most of us have had similar experiences where the wrong words at the wrong time disempowered, deflated and defeated us. Try these more constructive ways to deliver feedback that coaches, engages and empowers employees as ESOP owners to “stay in the game and win.” Click here to read the full article.
Sing Your Ownership Song
Avoid a cultural swan song, grab the “ownership microphone” and sing along with these bands to develop your company’s culture, define employees’ roles as owners [...]
Practical Tips to Engage Employees as Owners
Increase employees’ engagement as owners, drive company success and grow ESOP stock value by adopting these practical communication tips shared during Jim Bado's keynote at the 5th Annual Great Lakes ESOP Conference at Kalahari Resort in Sandusky. 1) Get to the point, stick to the point. Click here to read the full article.
Don’t Let Your Lizard Brain Rule Retirement Planning
Did you know our human brains have the same limbic system that dominates a lizard’s brain activity? Luckily, we also have other lobes that provide higher-level functions. The limbic system is the source of impulses like fight, flight, feeding, fear, freezing up, and falling in love. Certainly, it’s good to have these reactions when we need them, but our “lizard brains” aren’t well-suited for activities like retirement planning and understanding fluctuations in ESOP stock value. Click here to read the full article.
E.S.O.P. in the USA
Music, like ownership, moves people. Given that, what can Cherry-Bomb tossing, Authority-fighting musician John Mellencamp teach you about communicating the value of your ESOP? Here [...]
ESOP Stock Value Lessons from the Cleveland Browns
As leaves turn orange and another NFL season approaches, what can America’s favorite team, the Cleveland Browns (well, ok, my favorite) teach us about ESOP [...]
