Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Ron Kitchens, Chief Executive Officer at Southwest Michigan First. We hope you enjoy Ron’s wisdom and perspective.

Whether at home, on the street, or in the office, all people want to feel valued and respected. Psychologists generally agree that appreciation is a basic human need, just like eating properly and getting enough exercise.

So, in the workplace, regular recognition is critical. Some well-timed words of encouragement after a job well done can make a world of difference. But if overlooked, a lack of recognition is detrimental. In fact, a 2017 Office Team study revealed that 66 percent of employees think about leaving their current position when they don’t feel appreciated by their manager—and when it comes to Millennials, that number is as high as 76 percent.

Your team will respond to your recognition of their hard work because it shows that you not only value their efforts but also value them as human beings. Respect is a two-way street; a few words can go a long way towards building a great working relationship of trust. (And as an added bonus, after some pointed praise, the entire office now has the perfect model to follow as an example!)

'Cause I gotta have faith
I gotta faith
Because I gotta to have faith faith
I gotta to have faith, faith, faith
-George Michael

As we come to the end of the year, we have much to be thankful for at Gibson: an amazing team, great clients, and we get to do it all in some truly wonderful communities. I feel very blessed and grateful to be a part of our employee-owned organization.

I also feel a renewed sense of hope and anticipation for all that lies ahead in the coming year. Yet, with this optimism and excitement comes some typical (for me) angst as planning sessions kick off, initiatives are prioritized, and rocks are set. Can we measure up to past success? What threats might our clients face in their businesses? Will the saber rattling in Washington seriously destabilize our economy?

As we all know - there are many awesome benefits with today's technology (the list is long, right). On the other hand, there are also unfortunate downsides with today's technology (the list is pretty long there, as well). 

In other words, today's mixed bag of pros & cons, yin & yang, salt & sweet smorgasbord of technological breakthroughs, has us drinking from a glass simultaneously half full, and half empty. (Deep, huh!?)

One of the most evident examples of this technological “split personality syndrome” - is digital music. Moreover, the ability to download any song. At any time. Anywhere. As fantastically terrific as this is … especially when we want that one super-duper song that's gonna get us movin', groovin', or chillin' … it also has its downsides in that most songs, are part of an album; an album with other songs.

In other words, they're a team. A unit. A family (faults, and all).  

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Tim Hiller, Senior Manager, Talent Management at Stryker. We hope you enjoy Tim’s wisdom and perspective.

Leadership has been defined many different ways by many different people, but I would define it in a simple word.

Stewardship.

Leadership is ultimately stewardship. It is taking the best care possible of the people, resources, and responsibilities under our influence. It doesn’t matter if our level of responsibility is little or large…all that matters is how well we care for what we’ve been given.

So what qualities do we need to succeed as leaders who are great stewards? I believe the best steward leaders are caring, clear, and coaches.

About seven years ago we were putting the finishing touches on a new vision for Gibson. Like everyone else, we were emerging from the fog of the Great Recession. Even before the economic downturn we had misfired on a major multi-year plan. To say we were a little gun-shy about verbalizing some new grandiose plan would be an understatement.

Yet aiming for something that seemed out of reach to most of us was exactly what we needed. It pushed us to be better, to be more. We had a financial target in mind that would have us more than doubling in size over the next decade. From a math standpoint, while not a given, it was certainly achievable. We needed to average about 7 to 8% net growth per year. But after years of economic fear, this goal caused much angst among our management team. We wondered if we could really afford to fail again in the eyes of our employees. To our fragile team, to double in size seemed unthinkable.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Nick Smarrelli, CEO of GadellNet. We hope you enjoy Nick’s wisdom and perspective.

When I joined the team at GadellNet, one of the first things I noticed was what it felt like to work at GadellNet. We were small then, less than five people, and it truly felt like family. The culture was naturally customer-centric, helpful, transparent, and flexible. What I saw was a company about to explode, and I didn’t want to lose the awesome culture that was already in place.

We spent 9 exhausting months of trial-and-error to identify our core values. What made us different? How can we use this to weed out those that don’t fit our culture? Was it clear enough to help make hiring/firing decisions? Was it inspiring? How did it play into our commitment to the community, our employees and our clients? Was it memorable? We didn’t want to have core values that were trite, rather, something that served as the foundation for every decision made as a company.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Chris Kennedy, President, CEO of Hartson-Kennedy Cabinet Top Co., Inc. We hope you enjoy Chris’s wisdom and perspective.

In thinking about some of the experiences I’ve encountered running a manufacturing business for 30+ years, there is one recurring theme that jumps out at me. It is something I think has not only been beneficial to our company, but enjoyable and rewarding to me personally as well, and that is CARING.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Dean Breyley, Certified EOS Implementer, entrepreneur, and speaker. We hope you enjoy Dean’s wisdom and perspective.

Bottlenecked, gridlocked, congested – there are lots of ways to describe how it feels when a business gets stuck. We’ve all been there at some point in our work, and once you realize you are there, you immediately start searching for ways to get ‘un-stuck.’

Finding an effective solution that truly gets the business back flowing and growing can feel like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. All the while, the issues caused by the bottleneck continue to pile up and snowball. Results slow down, growth starts to halt, errors increase, and people get frustrated. What got you where you are today no longer seems to work.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Barbara Khozam, internationally recognized customer service speaker and trainer. We hope you enjoy Barbara’s wisdom and perspective.

Negativity has always been easier to pass along than positivity. This is largely due to our antiquated human nature of day-to-day survival against the world around us. Our existence depended, historically, on knowing where dangers could be found. So passing on this negative knowledge was essential to our lives. However, we no longer live in such an era. But, as human citizens of a modern world, why not make the conscious decision to make positivity contagious?

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Mike Cahill, President of Banking Services at Ruoff Home Mortgage. We hope you enjoy Mike’s wisdom and perspective.

By chance, I was visiting with a former coworker the other day and two things popped up. One, I saw a copy of the book The Energy Bus on a desk in the office. Two, the person I was talking to shared how a coworker always had something negative or cutting to say. There was never anything positive forthcoming from them. This coworker could not seem to see this about themselves.